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So how can Wilmington build a middle class with better jobs to attract and retain talent. No , Wilmington is not going to become the next Durham , Austin, Nashville or Silicon Valley or the silly notion of Silicon Beach.

We can aim to be the more like Boulder and Chattanooga and trail Charleston by a few years. Cities of similar size , assets and resources.

Innovation is the answer of course but ideas are not enough.

Well known venture capital investor Ben Horowitz has a well known book called “The Hard Thing about Hard Things”. And The First Flight Venture Center in RTP is working on the “High Sciences” in their commercialization incubator for life sciences. So we combined these themes for the title of our next event.

Innovators Must execute from ideas to prototype to MVP to go to market strategy To sales to Exit where investors get paid out in multiples.

Yes I am pointing out the problem , as I am known to do , but I am also known to TRY to provide introductions to solutions so you can have more success.

So how can Wilmington nurture more hard sciences that could become large employers ?

How can Wilmington grow more life sciences or hardware or enterprise software companies ?

What are the secrets to success?

Do you know Wilmington gets fewer federal grants ( SBIR / STTR ) than Asheville ? And Asheville will admit they are not an innovation economy.

Wilmington has not earned many grants from NC Biotech Center or NC IDEA and so why not?

These grants lead to more investor capital as they reduce risk for the investors as they are not having to fund the research , but the execution of growing the business.

If Wilmington has 25 CROs that do clinical trials , what if they had more local clients and more of this work was done in Wilmington and not shipped to Raleigh / Durham?

So we have lined up some experts And a fun moderator

Andrew Schwab – Executive Director of First Flight Venture Center , Angel investor with Top ten most active Angel Investor group RTP Capital

Justin Rothwell – Founder of ProAxion, IOT for industrual manufacturing, winner of NC IDEA grant

Jen McCall – Founder of Seatox and UNCW, just received $1.4 million grant from NIH

http://uncw.edu/news/2017/04/uncw-researcher-receives-1.47m-for-toxin-test-creation.html

Moderator – Vince Winkel , WHQR – NPR Wilmington

Thank for you for your support of the Network for Entrepreneurs in Wilmington and Bunker Labs

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Did you see our recent article ?

Veteran start-ups have dropped by 90 percent since WWII, but help is on the way