Tri-Cities Research District: Ready to create opportunities

It will be an exciting year for the Tri-Cities Research District (TCRD). The District board and several community partners have been busy identifying new opportunities and ways to connect and engage entrepreneurship within our community.

The first step is collaborating with our higher education partners Washington State University (WSU) and Columbia Basin College on our mission and philosophy. Actively developing opportunities together with WSU centered on commercialization that will allow us to actively pursue deeper discussion focused on the topic.

Identifying technologies is the base to connecting the entrepreneur to the best environment space to facilitate business growth. Establishing technical teams to support this mission is key to jump start entrepreneurial efforts and fully realize the technology potential sooner rather than years later.

Columbia Basin College efforts to connect students by creating learning opportunities within key industries of interest will be one pipeline that will feed this concept. The District’s goal is to continue to foster desire in developing creative maker space facilities that also offer support in the machining industry, such as CNC or logistics training. We will be working with both WSU TC and CBC along with private industry to move this forward.

Parallel with education and workforce development efforts, the District is also working to create a small business equity fund. The i6 Challenge was launched in 2010 by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to help spur the industries and jobs of tomorrow by awarding the most innovative ideas to drive technology commercialization in regions across the country.

The greatest job and value creators of the future will be activities, jobs, and even industries that do not exist today. The U.S. Economic Development Administration and Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIE) administer the grant.

The Port of Benton, in collaboration with community partners, was recently awarded the 2017 i6 Challenge – Seed Fund Support Grant in the amount of $300,000 and one of 15 recipients from across the nation.

The grant will offer opportunity to support the creation of the fund and not only provide businesses with capital, but also will help place them in an environment that creates teams to enrich their growth and development.

The District is engaging marketing efforts, and will organize a series of entrepreneur’s events and networking to bringing together entrepreneurs, supporters and investors to share stories and convey the message of opportunity in the Tri-Cities.

This is the role of the TCRD. As a state designated Innovation Partnership Zone, our shared vision together and its future potential is to achieve our mission and create not only jobs but also a rich entrepreneurial culture for the Tri-Cities: “What’s Next, Starts Here!”

This story was originally published April 1, 2018 at 3:53 PM with the headline "Tri-Cities Research District: Ready to create opportunities."