Innovation updates

State ECD's leadership has shifted for its INCITE co-investment and related programs. Tech2020 installed a new CEO. And, Nashville Business Incubation Center was more room, more tenants, more influence. Catchup on it here.

Feds fund Haslam initiative

The U.S. Treasury came through with $29.7 million the Administration of Gov. Bill Haslam needs to breathe life into its INCITE innovation and economic development initiative, a cornerstone of the governor's Jobs4TN program. Details are here.

StartupTN: More will be revealed

The press conference and stakeholder briefing with Gov. Bill Haslam, SAm CEO Scott Case, ECD Commissioner Bill Hagerty and EC and ST CEO Michael Burcham at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center produced a good ration of energy this morning. A brief update on the matter is here. Responses to an RFI, solicited from would-be accelerator grants applicants, is due back to ECD by July 15.

Haslam INCITE incites complaints

State Sen. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) and Nashville tax-revolter Ben Cunningham, speaking in this morning's Tennessean, express concerns regarding Gov. Bill Haslam's INCITE program, through which ECD Commissioner Bill Hagerty hopes to get federal permission to use $30MM in federal funds to support co-investment in early-stage companies. If that permission isn't granted, the money might have to go to banks, instead. That, in turn, would eliminate one leg of the Haslam-Hagerty Incite program, and could jeopardize other parts of the plan, including the funding of incubators in some areas of the state. 'Could be coincidence, but McNally's concerns regarding transparency of the program could be partly a result of partly suppressed complaints in E.TN. about the fact no TNINvestco funds in that region were certified and little TNInvestco money has gone into firms in that territory. As we pointed-out in yesterday's NewsBits, The Knoxville News Sentinel opened further this can o' worms this weekend with a batch of stories. Also, as we reported May 23, Hagerty's agency rethought its release of TNInvestco investment-certification information and plans to release less info.

TN needs visionaries

All the patents in the world won't create jobs if they aren't investable and transformed into goods and services through commercialization - that seems to be the message from Friday's panel of ORNL, VU and other experts. TN has some catching-up to do with respect to its population of serial entrepreneurs and visionary leaders, too. Read about it here.