Photo by The Hub
Lots of new things coming along in the world of the Innovation Acceleration Strategy (IAS)!
This past month we had two more community kick-off meetings, where citizens from across the board interested in diversifying their local economy could come and get involved.
We’ve had a great response, great turnout and great engagement so far, and there’ll be two more communities coming on in August and September.
On July 12 we began the IAS process in Wyoming County, with a kick off meeting in Pineville.
Local Economic Development Authority Director, Christy Laxon, was key in helping us put this together, and she did a terrific job. Even with rainy weather, we still had more than 30 people from a broad array of backgrounds come to get to work planning for their communities’ economic future.
The people of Wyoming County have now broken up into sector teams to explore Recreation and Tourism, Arts and Culture, Manufacturing and Value Added Goods, and Transportation. We look forward to seeing what ideas emerge from these teams in the weeks ahead.
Next up was Madison, in Boone County. Their opening kick-off meeting was on July 21, at the Madison Civic Center.
Local councilwoman and community volunteer, Carolyn Mullins, was our key contact in putting this meeting together. Many thanks to her and all that came to get involved.
Mayor H.H. “Sonny” Howell gave a great introduction to the crowd of over 50 people that came to get to work. The Sector In Madison, sector teams have now formed around Recreation and Tourism, Retail and Small Business, Manufacturing, and Arts and Culture. All of these teams very very engaged and we can’t wait to see how they plan to move Madison forward.
Next up for IAS is our kick-off community meeting in Lincoln County. This will be held at 6 p.m., Thursday, August 11 at the Hamlin Community Center.
If you are from Lincoln County, please come and get involved in this work! The IAS process is only as strong as the communities are committed.
Following that, we will kick off in our final community for the year, Alderson. This meeting has been pushed back due to circumstances following the awful flooding of that area recently. We’ll keep you posted about details for that meeting.
The strongest sector in every prosperous economy around the globe is manufacturing. With the decline in coal, and the rapid growth of renewable energy, what is the WV Hub doing to encourage, support and incentivize Entrepeneurship?
As an entrepreneur and now CEO of an emerging SME that will manufacture a system that goes on every BOEING and Airbus plane operating in the worl’s airlines, a plan that will create at least 240 clean safe jobs in a ZERO carbon footprint plant, my colleagues and have been quite disappointed in the interest and support we have found in WV.
Eleven though we are a WV company originally, we are focused upon establishing our operation in Ontario where the support, incentives and costs are financially far better.
WV HUB needs to get aggressively forceful in Charleston to get g leadership paying attention to the economic opportunities beyond coal.