Innovate ABQ Pieces Coming Together
Albuquerque, NM - October 31, 2013 The October 25th edition of Albuquerque Business First featured a front page story on the latest developments and thinking behind Innovate ABQ, the economic development initiative to building an innovation district being spearheaded by UNM and the City of Albuquerque. Innovate ABQ is a public/private partnership among the University of New Mexico (UNM) and New Mexico's government, education and business communities to purchase properties and develop innovation districts that will be catalysts for substantially growing the innovation economy in New Mexico. See Dan Mayfield's article, "Innovate ABQ: Putting the Pieces Together," reprinted below.
Innovate ABQ: Putting the pieces together
The city is inspired.
The University of New Mexico, the city of Albuquerque, economic developers and private real estate developers are coalescing around Innovate ABQ, a multimillion-dollar project that could create the kind of business ecosystem that experts say helps startups thrive.
When Robert Frank, president of the University of New Mexico, took a group of 18 business leaders from Albuquerque to visit the University of Florida's Innovation Hub last year, he set the school on a path to remake how it does economic development. The major ingredient: its own version of Florida's Innovation Square concept.
"When we saw what they did, they seemed so far ahead of us," Frank said. "Now, 18 months later, we're making a lot of progress."
The vision is to create a giant new business factory, where students and experienced entrepreneurs converge, bump into each other, create new businesses, design new products and boost the city's economy. And Innovate ABQ should be more than simply an incubator or business park.
https://stc.unm.edu/news/news.php?newsid=476