OSHKOSH – Monica Doss, 1999 National Entrepreneur of the Year for supporting entrepreneurship, will speak Oct. 26 about how her organization helped its region overcome economic challenges to become one of the most successful in the world.
Doss, president of the Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) in North Carolina’s Research Triangle region, will provide guidance on how northeastern Wisconsin also can create a climate of innovation.The event is co-sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh College of Business, Wisconsin Innovation Network (WIN) and a new local business organization called the Council for Innovation (CFI), formed to create a climate of innovation leading to high-impact businesses and higher paying jobs in northeastern Wisconsin.
It will be at 5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 26, at the D.J. Bordini Center in Appleton.
Doss’s council is collaborating with CFI, which is strategically partnered with UW-Oshkosh to promote innovation and entrepreneurship.
Doss, also director of the North Carolina Bioscience Fund and chair and chief executive officer of the Entrepreneurial Education Foundation, will discuss her organization’s collaboration with CFI at a session with the media at 10 a.m. Friday, Oct. 27, at the CopperLeaf Hotel in Appleton.
The northeastern Wisconsin Council for Innovation, which initially will be headquartered at UW-Oshkosh, is modeled after CED, now the largest entrepreneurial support organization in the nation.
In the last decade, northeastern Wisconsin has lost at least 30,000 manufacturing jobs, while the state’s per capita income has slipped below the national average.
By supporting innovation and entrepreneurism and helping new high-impact businesses, the new council will seek to reverse that trend.
Seed money for the CFI is provided in a nearly $500,000 Small Business Administration grant to UW-Oshkosh, obtained with support from U.S. Rep. Tom Petri, R-Fond du Lac, and U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis.
E. Alan Hartman will be the university’s project director for CFI. Paul Jones, a successful entrepreneur and institutional venture capital investor and manager, will be council president.
Jones has worked closely with Doss, is a past director and president of the North Carolina organization and was CED’s 1993 entrepreneur of the year.
The Fox Valley innovation council will focus on education, mentoring, capital formation, communications and technology transfer. It will seek to boost economic development by creating a network of businesses, entrepreneurial organizations, educators and community leaders to help share best practices and nurture innovation.
It also will act as a technology broker to help small to mid-sized, high-impact businesses better compete in global markets.
“CFI will develop specific programs to help innovators, entrepreneurs and manufacturers in high-impact businesses enhance their capacity to develop new products, create sustainable processes and share intellectual assets,” Hartman said.
Additionally, he said, it will support innovative businesses in a wide range of industries, from high-tech start-up firms to professional service firms to Fortune 500 companies with operations in Wisconsin.
“The organization will be for all those interested in fostering innovation in Wisconsin’s high-impact businesses, including entrepreneurs, investors, business managers and leaders, service professionals, academicians, researchers and public policy makers,” Jones said.
