An ambitious venture led by NKU will hatch 50 new tech start-ups

 Amanda Van Benschoten - cincinnati.com

Northern Kentucky leaders aim to leverage the region’s brainpower and business clout to create new high-paying jobs – and become the nation’s next great technology hub.

Today, they’ll launch UpTech, a business accelerator program expected to bring the world’s best and brightest technology entrepreneurs to Northern Kentucky. With the aid of Northern Kentucky University’s College of Informatics and more than 40 of the region’s top companies, UpTech’s goal is to turn fledgling ideas into viable business ventures that ultimately will transform the local economy.

“This is one of the most important moments in Northern Kentucky’s history,” said Adam Caswell, president of the Campbell County Economic Progress Authority and an UpTech co-founder.

Leveraging a $5 million investment fund, UpTech will nurture 50 tech start-ups in the region over the next three to five years. The startups will be selected by national technology experts from companies like Cisco, Summus Software, Procter & Gamble, Dell, Scripps Howard and CBS Studios.

Each startup will receive up to $100,000 in seed money and hands-on mentoring from a team of local companies picked to fit their specific needs. The start-ups will come in waves of 10 at a time beginning May 1 for an intensive six-month program.

The program is designed to build an “entrepreneurial ecosystem” among local businesses, universities and investors that encourages, funds and mentors entrepreneurs with great ideas. Business leaders say that ecosystem is essential – yet still deficient in the region – to create the next generation of high-paying jobs and economic opportunities.

“I really have high hopes, because although there may be similar programs going on around the country, this is one of the most ambitious and impressive in terms of dollars and the number of companies,” said Steve Stevens, president of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. “If we just accomplished half of what was proposed here, we’d feel a really big impact in this community.”

The bold venture is built around NKU’s cutting-edge College of Informatics, where students study everything from cybersecurity to new applications for mobile devices. Start-ups will have access to the college’s faculty, staff, students and its state-of-the-art, $53 million Griffin Hall, which opened in October.

“I think that appealed to a lot of us when we heard about UpTech, is its boldness,” said Kevin Kirby, dean of the College of Informatics. The college is one of the few around the country focusing on digital technology and the flow of information in the 21st century. It unites various fields that deal with information, from journalism to software engineering.

The college specializes in five fields, and UpTech will target start-ups in those areas: health information technology, cloud computing virtualization, business analytics, digital media and cybersecurity.

UpTech’s co-founders won’t yet identify the individuals and companies that have donated to the $5 million investment fund, but they say most are individuals who have given at least $50,000, and many $100,000 or more. In exchange, investors will receive an equity stake in the start-up companies.

There are dozens of business accelerators across the country and several in Greater Cincinnati. The Brandery in Over-the-Rhine, which works with brand marketing start-ups, is ranked among the top 10 business accelerators in the country.

“It’s great to have more start-ups and more energy around entrepreneurship in the region,” said J.B. Kropp, a Brandery co-founder who now works for Twitter. “…The next two, three, four years in this region is going to be phenomenal, because you’re going to have so many businesses starting up.”

UpTech’s co-founders say it is designed to complement, not compete with, local programs like Brandery. But its co-founders said they also incorporated the best practices of programs around the country and tried to amplify them.

“We needed a burst of entrepreneurial activity, and the way that we could do it was through this concept of a big idea: do something different. Do it bigger, better than some of these other communities are doing,” said Casey Barach, an UpTech co-founder and vice president of entrepreneurship for the Northern Kentucky e-zone, which works with tech start-ups and companies launching new products or technologies.

One of UpTech’s biggest selling points is the involvement of NKU’s College of Informatics.

Students who intern with the start-ups will receive invaluable real-world experience – and, if the start-ups stay in the region, potential post-graduate jobs.

“Everywhere in the world wants to be the next great technology hub, but we have an advantage few other regions have, and that is the ability to supply the workforce to support this sector,” Caswell said.

UpTech began a year ago when Barach brought the concept to an economic competitiveness working group of Vision 2015. The working group fostered and developed the idea, but it ultimately took the entire community – from NKU, to businesses, to investors – to make it a reality.

“One of the things that makes Northern Kentucky special is that we think big,” said Bill Scheyer, president of Vision 2015 and an UpTech co-founder. “We have big ideas, and through years of partnerships and collaborations, we know how to turn them into reality.”

UpTech will be unveiled today at an 11 a.m. event at NKU’s College of Informatics. The Northern Kentucky business community will receive a sneak preview at a 7:45 a.m. breakfast.

Video from WCPO:

NKU Start-Up Program Announced

[Story via NKU, Amanda Van Benschoten @ The Cincinnati Enquirer, and WCPO].

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