Joel Delmonico invited a small group of local leaders  who understand the need to find a way to keep ideas that are sprouting up here (CNY) from going elsewhere to create economic development, attended a  meeting and conference call with Mary Walshok of CONNECT on Thursday May 20^th at The AMOS Project .  Back in 1986, Mary Walshok co-founded the CONNECT organization “to accelerate the nascent innovation economy in San Diego” … 29 years later, San Diego is the wireless innovation capital of the world and one of the most important biotech clusters in the country.  Mary helped form the culture of collaboration that is a vital component of creating an innovation economy, attracting investors that were eager to support early stage companies.  She and her colleagues executed the strategy that resulted in the mobilization of regional assets to create economic prosperity around knowledge based companies that sprang from a productive university/industry interaction ( a transformational potential that exists here).

She sees many of the same dynamics at work here in our region that were in place in southern California before the establishment of CONNECT – exceptional regional assets that were not being effectively mobilized to create economic growth.

Attending the meeting were:  Linda Clark and Brian Anderson of National Grid, William Taylor of William Taylor Architect, Linda Dickerson Hartsock and Emily Whedon of Clean Tech, Bill Fisher of Onondaga County, Bob Clary of USAGraduate.com, Carissa Mattews and Martin Walls of CoE, Elle Stasz of Center State CEO, Kay Inglin of Sound Reading, Lee McKnight of Wireless Grid, Matt Williams, Jake O’Connell and Sanjeev Kumar of ITC, Anastasia Urtz and Rachna Vas of Cornell Cooperative, Dave McClear of CNY Vision, Chuck Spuches of SUNY ESF, Kevin Quinn of Syracuse University, Lenore Sealy, Paula Chapman and Hana Ehrenreich of CNY Works, Theresa Auricchio of Nectar Partners, and Kenneth Roberts