Big Winston-Salem Journal front-pager on the challenges facing downtown’s Innovation Quarter:
Its gradual shift from a research park to an innovation district in recent years has put Wake Forest Innovation Quarter on a path to developing a work, live, learn and play culture and community in Winston-Salem.
This hub of activity on about 200 acres is rising from old tobacco factories and warehouses in eastern downtown, creating a knowledge-based innovation ecosystem to include developers, people, product partners, technical and legal teams, workforce training, incubators, and capital and management for sustainability. It is a place for research, business and education in biomedical science, information technology and advanced materials.
“I think that the creation of this innovation ecosystem and the way people mix together and think together really has wonderful opportunity here for innovation, entrepreneurial behavior and the creation of high-value products,” said Eric Tomlinson, president of Innovation Quarter and the chief innovation officer for Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. “Of course, you’ve got to mix that with the growth of education, which Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
No surprise the Journal holds up the N.C. Research Campus as an example, and not in an unfavorable way. More than a few interesting findings down at the campus in the seven or so years it’s been up and running, but unfortunately not a lot of return for the taxpayers.
Note the Journal’s “unscientific poll” on the right sidebar. Fair enough, a larger percentage of readers think Innovation Quarter is ‘the way to the future’ as opposed to ‘waste of taxpayers’ money.’ But what about the 32 percent that have ‘never heard of it’?
Front-page article in the Journal will get the word out.
