By: Deborah Johnson Wood
On Tuesday, Right Place Inc. presented the results of a groundbreaking collaboration with Doug Hall, founder of Cincinnati-based Eureka! Ranch: a standardized process for determining the market value of innovations and a web based national network of ideas where entrepreneurs, manufacturers, and investors can connect to bring those innovations to production and, ultimately, the market.
WIRED’s InnovationWorks’ online Idea Portal will be the beta site for the national network and will connect West Michigan entrepreneurs, manufacturers and investors with the national network when it’s completed. Other states will access the national network through one of 59 manufacturing extension partnerships across the nation.
“If companies want to grow their businesses, they need to develop and find intellectual property to manufacture something new to be unique in the marketplace,” says Jim Ross, Vice President, Innovation & Technical Services for The Right Place and leader of the InnovationWorks initiative. “You can’t have just one unique idea; you have to have something unique all the time to stay ahead.”
The National Institute of Standards and Technology is developing the national network and evaluation standards. The plan is that InnovationWorks will help entrepreneurs assess, translate and value their idea, then send everything to the national network where it will be put it through a complex process to determine its market value.
“We have one of the finest manufacturing regions in the world,” Ross says, “and these manufacturers can be exposed to these ideas and get their own proprietary product, get more clients and grow their businesses. The whole point is to connect people.”
A soft launch will be announced on April 22. Ross expects it will take a year to streamline the process and create the standards before the network goes nationwide.
Source: Jim Ross, The Right Place Inc.
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Deborah Johnson Wood is the development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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