California Business Minute™

Hi, I am Tim Johnson and welcome to the California Business Minute

Innovation plays and will continue to play a key role in California’s economic
recovery.  Because of this, the state’s Business, Transportation, and Housing
Agency, (BTH) has worked with experts to create a new program intended to harness
and enhance the creative and entrepreneurial spirit of the state. The “iHub”
(Innovation Hub) program will encourage collaboration between research institutions,
start-up technology companies, local governments, venture capitalists, and economic
development organizations with the common goal of creating jobs.

"We don't do innovation," said Eloisa Klementich, the Agency's deputy secretary
of economic development and commerce. In an article to Government Technology
Klementich states, "We're not the scientists that are driving it. So the question
is how do we create the ecosystem for innovation to occur?"

The effort began nine months ago. The purpose was to identify key areas across
the state with assets such as research parks, technology incubators, universities,
community colleges, business accelerators and federal laboratories. After several
meetings and the formulation of an application process, BTH recently announced
six areas designated as iHubs:

The six selected in the application process are Orange County, Sacramento,
Coachella Valley, Sonoma, Livermore-based i-GATE (Innovation for Green Advanced
Transportation Excellence), and San Francisco Biotech.

The ‘iHub’ awarded in the Coachella Valley includes the cities of Palm Springs,
Desert Hot Springs and Cathedral City in partnership with UC Riverside, Cal State
San Bernardino and the college of the Desert with the intent of targeting local
businesses to collaborate on emerging technology research and projects.

The ‘iHub awarded in Orange County is being coordinated by the nonprofit organization
OCTANe, a nonprofit organization that fuels the area's technology sector through
educational programming, business acceleration, job connections and university
partnerships.

The ‘iHub awarded in Sonoma  was able to point to a healthy list of public and
private collaborators, including Sonoma State University, the cities and chambers
of commerce of Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park, the North Bay Angels investment group,
the Marin Economic Forum, the Sonoma County Economic Development Board and the
Small Business Development Center at the Santa Rosa Junior College an apparent
commitment to being part of a regional hub, with the Sonoma Mountain Business
Cluster coordinating it.

While there is no direct state money available to support this effort, BTH hopes
to leverage these programs unified direction in hopes of acquiring federal grant
dollars in support of their efforts.

BTH plans to hold annual forums for communities to come together to share progress
and exchange strategies. The iHub designation lasts for five years, after which an
organization can apply for renewal. Over time, Klementich hopes to have many more
iHubs across the state.

I am Tim Johnson and this has been the California Business Minute.