Ruby Slippers II
July 31, 2006 | Print this page | Share This | Email this page
Saul Kaplan
ON MAY 14, 2004, I asserted on this op-ed page that Rhode Island has a bright economic future ("Rhode Island wears ruby slippers"). I claimed that Rhode Island is wearing ruby slippers but that many of us don't realize it.
Two years later I remain bullish on our economy and encouraged that we are starting to believe in ourselves. I believe that we can create an innovation economy that produces higher-wage jobs at every wage level. I believe we can be the smaller, more manageable place, where innovators test new ideas for education, health care, public safety, and improving our quality of life. Look at what has been accomplished:
Tax reform. No one would have believed in 2004 that in two years Rhode Island's leadership would pass legislation calling for marginal-income-tax-rate relief, capital-gains relief, and property-tax relief. These changes will make a real difference, and we should be proud to tell this story locally and nationally. Congratulations to Governor Carcieri, House Speaker William Murphy, Senate President Joseph Montalbano, Senate Majority Leader Theresa Paiva-Weed, House Majority Leader Gordon Fox, and the many organizations and citizens who came together to make Rhode Island a better place to work, live, and grow a business.
Learning to play the size card. We have serious work ahead to fully leverage our size as a competitive advantage. But there are encouraging projects under way, including an effort to create a statewide health-care-information exchange; a pilot to build the country's first border-to-border mobile broadband wireless network (RI-WINs); and a new research alliance among Rhode Island's 11 colleges and universities, which recently won a National Science Foundation grant of $6.75 million to strengthen Rhode Island's collaborative-research capacity. The governor and General Assembly showed their support for this initiative by committing $1.5 million to expand this effort.
An innovation agenda. Two years ago, there was no platform to focus leadership on creating an innovation economy. Governor Carcieri created, and the General Assembly sustained by statute, the Science and Technology Advisory Council (STAC) to build this platform.
This year, STAC delivered the "innovateRI" report (www.stac.ri.gov), urging state leadership to promote collaboration across Rhode Island's research institutions, to deepen support for entrepreneurs and company creation, and to help all Rhode Island businesses and institutions become more innovative. STAC made five recommendations to jump-start this effort. Thanks in part to the leadership of Governor Carcieri, House Majority Leader Gordon Fox, and Sen. William Walaska, all five recommendations were supported. STAC is well positioned to continue its efforts.
Economic Development Corporation as a catalyst. The role of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation is to be in the market with its customers and catalyze growth and innovation across the community. Innovative organizations create jobs, are stronger, pay higher wages, and will be around longer. We will build on our strategy to create sustainable jobs and income growth by enhancing the quality of our place, improving our business climate, and creating an innovation economy. We can succeed only if innovators throughout the state collaborate. We look forward to a close working relationship with the General Assembly.
The right question isn't "How do we better manage the few legacy tools left from an industrial economy?" Rather, it is "What new tools are needed to catalyze an innovation economy that produces higher-wage jobs and the skills necessary for Rhode Islanders to step into them?"
A platform for change. Two years ago I described the Business Innovation Factory (BIF) as the home of our Innovation @ Scale strategy, where we can proudly hang our ruby slippers. This vision called for creating an innovation community that enables government, business, and academia to collaborate more naturally. If you haven't looked lately, I think you will be surprised by our progress (www.businessinnovationfactory.com).
Check out the caliber of BIF's national Research Advisory Council, the local and national innovators taking part in the BIF-2 Collaborative Innovation Summit at Trinity Repertory Theater on Oct. 4-5, and the health-care innovation project under way with the Rhode Island School of Design. This year, BIF will roll out its patient and consumer experience laboratories, launch an innovation story studio, and prepare for statewide roll-out of the RI-WINs wireless project.
We should feel good about our progress. But after a brief celebration we must continue the hard work. We welcome the challenge. It won't be as easy as clicking the heels of our ruby slippers, but it is doable -- at least in part because we live in a smaller, more manageable world. I know you will agree when I say that Rhode Island and Rhode Islanders are worth the effort.
Saul Kaplan is executive director of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation.
Originally appeared in the Providence Journal, July 31, 2006