The vision to ignite innovation in Rapid City is accelerating with the construction of a landmark 40,000-square-foot building for startup ventures. Join community leaders at the Ascent Innovation Campus Groundbreaking to celebrate our new culture of entrepreneurship, commercialization, and technology from 3:30-4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 9th at 108 E. Main Street in Rapid City.
Growth
in a tech-sector economy is impossible without one essential ingredient: human capital.
For decades, many scientists and engineers trained at SD Mines left the area
for employment in other parts of the country and world. Today, this is
changing. The new Ascent Innovation Campus is a cornerstone in the effort to
grow a vibrant, tech-based economy in the Black Hills. Ascent Innovation is an
expanding entrepreneur-centered ecosystem that connects innovators and
fledgling business owners with the essential ingredients needed at each stage
of business development. It’s a talent pipeline connecting students with jobs
in industry while providing a landing spot in the Black Hills area for
established companies. Under the newly formed Elevate Rapid City, Ascent
Innovation is a key part of realizing exponential growth in the Black Hills
tech economy.
Entrepreneur
Centered
Entrepreneurs
have different needs at different stages of business development. For example,
an enterprising student or professor at Mines who has a brilliant idea but has
never started a business has a very different set of needs than a Mines alumnus
who is operating a successful high-tech startup and needs access to capital and
an affordable space to expand operations. By supporting the needs of a wide
range of entrepreneurs, Ascent Innovation is fostering the development of the
high-tech economy in the Black Hills. The Mines student with a brilliant idea
can take part in university-sponsored business plan competitions, picking up
valuable skills and even some prize money along the way. This student can also
apply for the annual Braun Inventor Award for a chance to win $5,000 and a free
patent application. Students, professors, and seasoned alumni can tap into a wide
range of expertise in the Mines’ Entrepreneurs-in-Residence program for
consulting, business planning, and valuable advice from those who’ve done it
all before. The campus office of economic development can also help with access
to angel investors and connections to networks of successful companies in the area
and across the nation. The resources under Elevate Rapid City, including the Rapid
City Chamber of Commerce and Economic Growth Division, in addition to the West
River Business Services Center, the Black Hills Angel Fund and other business support
services, are all working together to support the expansion of tech based economy
in the area. The model is working. Companies such as VRC Metal Systems and
Property Meld are graduating from Ascent Innovation and in the process of renovating
new spaces in the community. Meanwhile, a group of promising new companies are
waiting to move into the new Ascent Innovation Campus.
A
Hub of Talent
Located
halfway between Mines and Rapid City’s Main Street Square, the new Ascent Innovation
Campus will be placed to connect Mines with historic downtown. The building will
also house South Dakota-based businesses that source Mines students as interns
(see more in the article Building Talent Pipelines on pages 20-21). This model
has proven effective in luring business expansion to the Black Hills.
Caterpillar opened shop in the Ascent Innovation Center on the Mines Campus and
employed a stream of Mines interns. In 2010, the company opened a new
engineering design center in Rapid City that brought about one hundred jobs to
the community. "Our mission to support growing highly skilled tech-centered
jobs in Rapid City is at the core of everything we do," says Terri
Haverly, Ascent Innovation Executive Director. "And the more these startup
companies and branching corporations are supported, the more our economy continues
to grow as well.
The
Perfect Storm
The
Black Hills area is witnessing major developments that are helping fuel a tech sector
boom: The expansion of the healthcare industry, including a new Regional Health
Orthopedics and Specialty Hospital and other medical and pharmaceutical-related
businesses; the continued expansion of the Sanford Underground Research
Facility (SURF) in Lead, including the billion dollar investment in the Deep Underground
Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) coming online in the 2020s; and the locating of B-21
bombers at Ellsworth Air Force Base and the industry tied to this expanded mission.
“The fact that we have three of these ‘game changers’ all happening at once is
incredible,” says Joseph Wright, Vice President of the Office of Research and
Economic Development at SD Mines. A boom in the technology economy in the Black
Hills could be viewed as disruptive growth—a change that shatters the status quo.
But this would be a misunderstanding. The bedrock industries in South Dakota, agriculture
and tourism, will only see benefits from the injection of high-tech jobs into
this economy. Visitors to the Black Hills will see new buildings and a vibrant thriving
community. Innovation centered around Mines has the potential to benefit the
agriculture industry, from self-driving tractors to the expansion of
value-added products such as research on turning corn stalks into biodegradable
plastic. The creation of the Ascent Innovation Campus is thanks to cooperative support
for tech development in the Black Hills from university, business, and
political leaders. “This new development is likely to spark economic growth in
an area that has the potential to be a leader in technology manufacturing
because of its proximity to the renowned South Dakota School of Mines &
Technology,” says US Senator John Thune.