MI2 Creates an Exemplar for Our Region

By: Buddy Steen, Programs Director, Central Region Ecosystem for Arts, Technology, and Entrepreneurship (CREATE)

[Image: Buddy Steen]

This past year, we renamed our economic development nonprofit. Part of the original set of innovation hubs around the state for the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, we had operated for two decades under the name “Central Region Innovation & Commercialization Center,” dating back to the days when all of the innovation and entrepreneur support hubs around the Commonwealth bore the name “Innovation & Commercialization Center.” But, for our offices in Bowling Green at the Western Kentucky University Innovation Campus Headquarters and in Elizabethtown at the Center for Kentucky Entrepreneurship, the CRICC didn’t capture the innovation ecosystem support that lies at the center of our mission. So, last year, we rebranded ourselves as the “Central Region Ecosystem for Arts, Technology, and Entrepreneurship,” or CREATE. It is a more apt brand for our intense focus on bringing our ecosystem together in support of innovation across stakeholder groups—in creating an environment where entrepreneurs, funders, corporate innovators, university researchers, K-12 education, and our local, state, and federal government programs are further developed through collaboration. And it matches my mandate as CEO of the Western Kentucky University Innovation Campus as well—which helps facilitate CREATE’s work—to transform the university’s footprint throughout the region to be a lighthouse for innovation and more meaningful corporate engagement. It is no surprise, then, that our rebrand as CREATE happened at the same time the Metals Innovation Initiative was in formation. Already, there had been intense interest in the formation of an organization like MI2 coming from leaders here in our region like WKU President Tim Caboni, Logan Aluminum CEO Mike Buckentin, and Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce CEO Ron Bunch. Meanwhile, my own experience with being part of Team Kentucky in the MIT Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program (MIT REAP) and seeing AccelerateKY form in the wake of that experience to help pilot new ideas to shape Kentucky’s innovation ecosystem helped give language and frameworks to the sort of ecosystem building I’d been dedicated to throughout my tenures with what is now CREATE. So, when KY Innovation and the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation asked that CREATE and the WKU Innovation Campus help provide support to getting MI2 off the ground, we were elated. With support from KY Innovation and KSTC, CREATE supports entrepreneurs in our region. Further, we consistently seek opportunities to support innovative thinking within the companies in our region, connect them to entrepreneurs who are developing solutions relevant to their industry, and ultimately to foster an ideal, talent-first environment for commercializing and scaling new solutions that benefit our cornerstone economic sectors, like metals. With its statewide focus on a particular industry, MI2 provides an inspiration for CREATE’s region—a clear indication of the power that collaboration across companies and across stakeholder groups can bring in a short amount of time. I have no doubt that we’ll not only see MI2 projects and initiatives grow as the metals innovation ecosystem comes together, but its efforts will continue to inspire folks in a variety of other industries to seek more models for collaboration. My collaborators here at CREATE join me in the belief we are only at the beginning stages of building an unprecedented innovation ecosystem: in our region, across Kentucky, and throughout the growing partnership we have with our collaborators across the state border in Tennessee, as evidenced by the new NSF Engines GAME Change coalition highlighted in this month’s MI2 newsletter. We are proud to be part of that coalition, and a growing number of complementary efforts that strengthen our innovation ecosystem. Strong efforts, locally led, with a spirit of collaboration that crosses borders between companies, between stakeholder groups, across counties, across regions, and across state borders will (and already is) driving our success in creating the sort of innovation ecosystem that people will seek out. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished, and I’m looking forward to the work ahead.