NIIC, Electric Works partner on entrepreneurship support
The Northeast Indiana Innovation Center on Tuesday announced a partnership with the Electric Works mixed-use innovation district designed to advance entrepreneurship at the former General Electric campus near downtown Fort Wayne.
NIIC President and CEO Mike Fritsch said the effort will help grow the center’s Entrepreneurship for All program.
“Entrepreneurship for All is our new plan to bring the business building support capabilities to all residents of northeast Indiana,” Fritsch told IIB. “It also includes bringing together all the entrepreneurship support organizations in northeast Indiana to work together as opposed to separately to make this happen.”
As part of the partnership, the NIIC said it will provide wraparound services and community-building opportunities to support Electric Works tenants, from small businesses to anchor tenant Do It Best Corp., by connecting them other innovators and business builders in the district.
Fritsch said the NIIC and Electric Works have been talking “for some time.”
The NIIC has opened a satellite office in the Carr Workplaces coworking space inside Building 19 at Electric Works. Fritsch said the center’s nine business coaches will set up office hours at Electric Works five days a week.
“All of our business coaches have different focuses,” he said. “We have some that are that are Hispanic speaking, some that are from our Women’s Business Center, some that are just good in different types of businesses. And so it allows people that fit into different slots to be able to pick the kind of coach they want.”
The NIIC will also offer monthly workshops and larger quarterly events “to really establish the ecosystem and the network of entrepreneurs and business builders to get together.”
Jeff Kingsbury with Ancora, the lead developer of Electric Works, said the partnership is about creating new opportunities for inclusive economic growth.
“As an innovation district, Electric Works offers high-performance workplaces to serve the sole entrepreneur up to the global world headquarters,” Kingsbury said in written remarks. “Our partnership with the NIIC and its award-winning programs will also give companies at Electric Works unique coaching, entrepreneurship support, and corporate innovation services to help them grow.”
Fritsch said the long-term goal of the NIIC’s involvement at Electric Works is to not only help people take their ideas and create a business, but also support existing small businesses get help in furthering their growth.
“Another goal is to, on the other side, get larger companies, even companies such as Do It Best, which is one is the largest company inside Electric Works, to be a part of getting help on how to be innovative, how to work with smaller companies, how to do corporate intrapreneurship,” he said.