Elevating transformational rural innovation
Indiana is on an innovation roll. Reflecting a new dynamic of entrepreneurial expansion, Gov. Eric Holcomb and Elevate Ventures recently announced the creation of a new $100 million growth fund, a powerful addition to Indiana’s expanding innovation arsenal. A key question: where do the one-third of Hoosiers living in small cities and rural areas – some one million people – fit into this emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem?
Rural innovation represents key advancement opportunities for Indiana, especially in the realms of agribusiness and related fields. Forbes recently scored Indiana as a top place to start a business. In our competitive era, how can rural entrepreneurs thrive and create new opportunities and talent development?
Knowledge and collaboration networks – Access to intellectual assets and catalytic collaboration opportunities can ignite novel ideas in rural areas and help develop them for market entry. Like other regions, Knox County benefits from the active presence and engagement of Vincennes University, a proven entrepreneurial and technical resource for idea and talent advancement. Other rural regions offer similar resources from Ivy Tech, local colleges and of course the state’s major university networks from IU and Purdue.
Business accelerators and innovation centers bring unique one-on-one opportunities to elevate rural entrepreneurial activity across Indiana. The Pantheon Theatre co-working center in Vincennes serves a unique role locally, fueling startups and small businesses for growth. Brian Southern, a successful business executive, came up with an innovative agri-tech concept and subsequently founded the $83 million AgroRenew bioplastics manufacturing company after meeting with local melon farmers at the Pantheon business startup and acceleration facility. Given its nationally established melon-related agribusiness, Knox County also has benefited from a direct relationship with and support from AgriNovus Indiana.
Talent attraction – Success breeds success, which is critical for talent attraction and development for rural advancement. Many younger workers seek a higher quality of life outside of congested, over-populated metro areas. Indiana’s rural regions offer a great place to live, work, and play, while remaining more affordable, yet reasonably close to education, entertainment and other amenities in larger urban areas.
STEM and local student development – Like other rural areas of Indiana, Knox County schools produce graduates who go on to leadership and entrepreneurial careers. To promote rural success, local schools need to include STEM-related education (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), beginning even in middle school to help prepare students for next generation, high-impact jobs. As do many other Indiana rural counties, Knox County goes a step further with its Knox County Indiana CEO program. A year-long course for high school upper graduates, the CEO program creates project-based experiences that include business and leadership development. For long-term success, regions need to promote and retain their own entrepreneurial and leadership home-grown talent shed. The Pantheon is also rolling out a new STEM initiative for physics and chemistry for high school students through a new Pantheon Academy interactive curriculum offering. The initial STEM program will be used by area Knox County high schools in the 2024-25 academic year with a goal of making it more broadly available statewide.
Capital access and investment – All great ideas and development share a common need to grow: operating capital and additional funding. By virtue of their location and regional challenges, rural entrepreneurs need to pay special attention here. Unique funding sources from USDA and SBA (including the SBA-administered HubZone program) can help provide critical seed funding, as well as venture capital and angel investors. Indiana offers a variety of funding sources through both state and regional opportunities, including Elevate Ventures.
Critical infrastructure – While funding and capital access are of course baseline requirements for transformational innovation, rural entrepreneurs share a critical common need: access to high-speed, high-capacity broadband. From videoconferencing on Zoom, Teams and other platforms to bandwidth-hungry data analytics to AI-powered product modeling programs and more, rural entrepreneurs need to close the digital divide to thrive.
While high-speed internet access has been a challenge for many rural regions of Indiana in the past, federal and state broadband initiatives, coupled with innovative Indiana-based telecoms, are rapidly closing that divide and creating new opportunities.
Technology adoption – Rural areas of Indiana are also being transformed by innovative technology advances and adoption. Agribusiness, the critical production, processing and distribution of farm-based goods, is alive and well in the Hoosier state, building new value chains that help strategically elevate America’s bioeconomy. Identifying and adopting relevant technology – including precision agriculture, IoT-enhanced livestock operations, automated processing, advanced sensors and more – can lift Hoosier rural regions to new levels of innovation, prosperity and talent attraction.
Local innovation opportunities – Rural communities in Indiana often possess a wealth of experience and knowledge that can be uniquely paired with emerging technologies. This is true (but not limited to) areas of agriculture and agribusiness. The unique development of innovative and environmentally friendly bioplastics technology in Knox County remains a case in point. Knox County Indiana holds a national reputation as a grower of world-class melons. The key, unexpected innovation? Related melon waste, coupled with other bio-products, can be converted into biofriendly resin to replace traditional “forever” plastic resins. Many innovation opportunities like this exist across the Hoosier state, waiting to be harnessed by rural entrepreneurs.
By overcoming rural Indiana’s unique challenges, true innovation can arise, creating transformational opportunities for the one million Hoosiers living and working in rural Indiana.
By Chris Pfaff
A long-time economic development and defense industry professional, Pfaff is Chief Executive Officer of Knox County Indiana Economic Development
This column also appeared on Inside Indiana Business. Please visit the link for more information.
For more information, contact Michael Snyder at MEK.