In 2012, an Innovate Raleigh event prompted the region’s goal to make the top five nationally for entrepreneurship and innovation.
2013 was an update on that first year-and-a-half of progress—HQ Raleigh (formerly HUB Raleigh) opened. American Underground expanded in Durham and announced plans for Raleigh. The city hired its first innovation and entrepreneurship manager in Derrick Minor. CED created Triangulate to map all of the region’s startups and resources to assist them. United started a nonstop flight to San Francisco, making it easier for investors to visit companies here.
This year’s Raleigh Innovation Summit, coming September 10 during Entrepreneurship Week, will celebrate successes since then. It will also explore the link between the health of cities and the vibrancy of entrepreneurial communities.
Organizers on Monday announced the event’s headliner, Troy Henikoff, co-founder of TechStars Chicago (and its predecessor) and a longtime proponent of that city’s entrepreneurial community. He’s a professor of entrepreneurship at Northwestern University, a faculty coach for the University of Chicago/Booth New Venture Challenge and a board member of the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center (a CED-like entity).
He’s also an angel investor and a serial entrepreneur, having founded or advised SurePayroll, OneWed, Amacai and Jellyvision. It’s pretty clear he’s worked with almost every entrepreneurial entity in town, and will have a wealth of knowledge to share from years building up the startup scene in Chicago.
The full post can be read online at ExitEvent.
(Note: ExitEvent is a news partner of WRAL TechWire.)
