Idaho Rural Partnership Digs Entrepreneurship!

Idaho Rural Partnership Board meeting on Tuesday focused heavily on encouraging entrepreneurship. (With Nancy Bergmann as chair, are you surprised?) They have a task force that’s entrepreneur-driven (much like the emerging Idaho Innovation Alliance ["I2A"]). I found their desire to partner - with everyone - quite promising!

Entrepreneurs Brice Sloan [www.sloanfencing.com] and Ed Meyer were a big hit, even without any videos of Ed’s devices that make, um, “organic fertilizer” [www.rodenator.com]. Their passion and insight went a long way to selling the attendees on what entrepreneurs believe is needed. #1 was mentoring. How do we connect people in distant areas with the right advice???

Some of the other key themes that emerged:
* A need to get better connected - a web portal, etc. is likely to surface. A terrific opportunity to work in partnership with I2A’s parallel efforts. I was pleased with the eagerness to partner with IEDA, TechConnect, et al.
* Youth entrepreneurship - especially for rural areas (as I’ve nagged before, this is the #1 no-brainer for economic development)
* Growing more entrepreneurial communities - tons of resources out there that we could quickly & cheaply deliver.

PPTs from IRP entrepreneurship meeting

Had some terrific offline chat about sustainable economic development - that’s a winning angle for Idaho & really resonates with the IRP folks. (BTW, I’m chairing a major academic workshop on sustainable ED next summer, so I was especially jazzed - I may get to brag on Idaho!!)

Folks, this is a terrific opportunity to move forward - let me know how I can help you get involved!

** and don’t forget Reverend Rick’s I2A! [If you want to know more or get involved, ping rick.ritter@idahotechconnect.com ]

p.s. for those who asked about the Wake Forest-Kauffman conference, I blogged it at Chris & Wyatt’s site:
http://pronetos.com/disciplines/3/discussions/71

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