Ohio Moving Up on National Lists

The 2010 State New Economy Index report came out last week from The Kauffman Foundation. This report, which measures the degree to which state economics are knowledge-based, globalized, entrepreneurial, IT-driven, and innovation-based, ranks states in total and then across a variety of categories (which all contribute to that total ranking). Ohio moved up four spots since 2007, a real accomplishment for the state, and I believe a reflection of the impact of Ohio Third Frontier. While we have often thought of Third Frontier as a leader among our nation's state programs with its ability to provide adequate diversified funding that has widespread impact, this report provides data-driven validation that it's true. After all, an increase in the rankings reflects a relative competitive gain, and Ohio had one of the strongest competitive gains, especially when considering that only one three other states increased their rankings as dramatically as Ohio - Kansas (+8), Maine (+4), and Montana (+5). I'm somewhat familiar with the programs in Kansas and Maine (both of whose scores still remain behind Ohio) - they too have state-based programs which are proactively focused on transforming their "new economies".  Another notable fact in the report: Ohio ranks #9 for the education levels of immigrants in our state. The report explains, "foreign-born and foreign-educated scientists and engineers in the U.S...are over-represented among authors of the most-cited scientific papers and inventors holding highly-cited patents." If we are able to retain these people and encourage them to start their entrepreneurial businesses in Ohio, we will also be able to accelerate some of the other metrics identified in the report. To this end, we are lucky to have one of the nation's leading TiE chapters in Ohio, an organization dedicated to promoting international and immigrant entrepreneurs or those interested in international entrepreneurship. Just last week, TiE Ohio announced the TiEQuest Ohio business venture competition. The local competition offers winners at $25K prize package but more importantly, the winner in Ohio will participate in the global TiEQuest competition held in Toronto, in which only a selective few TiE chapters have been invited to participate. The Toronto competition awards $150K, enough funding to keep an immigrant entrepreneur working on her or his idea - hopefully, in Ohio. You can find out more information on the competition and TiE Ohio at www.tieohio.org. Cathy Belk is the Chief Relationship Officer of JumpStart. She specializes in branding, marketing communications, and business and relationship management. She brings 16+ years of experience in a variety of marketing and business roles, but gets her energy from working daily with entrepreneurs and their growing companies.