Friends. Brian Gerney, a graduate student at University of North Carolina, is researching how smaller cities and towns grow tech clusters, without “the standard advantages of … large population, major research universities, high number of related firms, etc.” he says.
Gerney is focusing his study on Bend as one of the places that has an active startup scene, especially around technology, despite, you know, being in the middle of the desert. He wants to know WHY.
While it certainly appears that Bend has developed into a hotbed of all sorts of entrepreneurial activity and especially for technology related firms I’m sure it has been due to the hard work and commitment of its residents who may have had an easier path if they had located in an already established tech cluster like Silicon Valley or Seattle. So I would like to know about the experience of tech workers and entrepreneurs in the area to see how they have overcome these obstacles, or if the obstacles even exist in the first place, to present a case study of growth that differs from the Silicon Valley model of a major university, military funding, and early large firms driving success.
He’s also looking at St. George, Utah. So if you work in tech here or have a tech company, please take his survey. There’s 13 questions and it should only take 5 to 10 minutes of your time.
Gerney plans to use the results for his master’s thesis in geography. “Ideally it would be useful for policy makers in small towns or outlying regions looking to develop their own technology related economies by showcasing how to do it organically and with local talent and effort,” he says.
But … the results, which will reveal the economic strengths and weaknesses of our region in a systematic way, would also be interesting for us to know as well. At StartupBend, we call that a win-win. Please pass this along to tech workers or entrepreneurs who may be interested. We’ll keep you posted on the results.
Kelly Kearsley
You can reach Kelly by email at [email protected].
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“high tech” seems to mean only software to most people in Bend, going by the articles found here.
As a “high tech” electro-mechanical packaging engineer, with a few decades of experience, spending the last year trying to transfer my successful career into the Bend “high tech” scene, I wish it was a bit more balanced, albeit for selfish reasons. The argument I will give though has a basis. Hardware related related “high tech” could be a boon to giving Bend a diverse high-tech pool of workers, bringing in a need for Electrical/mechanical/quality engineers, technicians, skilled assemblers, in addition to software. And tends to employ more than the couple of people employed in the average software startup. A medium sized high-tech hardware company would be easy to set up in Bend as a Design Center, and I am sure SisTech wouldn’t mind expanding to support final assembly. The heavy industry processes for hardware companies is generally done elsewhere, keeping them an appropriately green addition to the Bend scene. Garmin is an example of the toe-in-the-door for a company of this type moving into Bend. Meanwhile, I will just keep hoping, and knocking on the doors of the slim pickings available in Bend at the moment.