Economic Accelerator Day made for an exciting and insightful first day of the UEDA Annual Summit in San Antonio on October 9.
The keynote address from Dr. Rhonda Vonshay Sharpe of WISER was a reminder that innovators are everywhere. As Dr. Sharpe stated that calling something a best practice means perpetuating the status quo. Confining people to what we might consider “best practices” can stifle creativity and be unwelcoming to potentially groundbreaking ideas.
Our panel of HBCU leaders featured Norfolk State University President Dr. Javaune Adams-Gaston; Stillman College President and Executive Vice President, Dr. Cynthia Warrick and Dr. Derrick Gilmore; and Dr. Teresa Merriweather Orok, the Executive Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Economic Development, at Alabama A&M University. A theme of the panel was exploring potential of partnerships between larger universities and HBCUs to building connections for their student and bridging them to graduate programs of their interest that may not be available at HBCUs.
There was also a listening session hosted by Bernadette Grafton that centered around University Centers. One important question stuck out from the session: how might University Centers collaborate to ensure that a state’s needs are more fully served? ARENI hopes to address this question and others like it in future University Center convenings.
EA day programming concluded with a panel of Federal representatives exploring the Federal Lab to Market landscape moderated by Brittany Sickler from EDA. Jennifer Shieh from the SBA, Rukmani Vijayaraghavan, from DOE, and Thyaga Nandagopal from NSF discussed how university economic development professionals can connect with key programs that can help to accelerate innovation and broaden the reach of lab to market programs.
Economic Accelerator Day overall was a success. Making connections and having conversations are what drive the efforts to ensure opportunities are available to everyone. ARENI hopes to see you at future events!
From the ARENI Newsletter
10-20-22 | Beyond Best Practices – Innovation for Everyone