A map for the ages
Posted on September 8th, 2008 – 11:54 PMBy Thomas Lee
To encourage innovation in Minnesota, one must first take stock of the state’s competitive assets that separate our economy from the rest of the pack.
The BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota accomplishes this- and much more- with BIOMAP, an online tool that debuts Tuesday on the group’s website. Backed by a grant from the McKnight Foundation, BIOMAP contains 2,000 unique bioscience “capabilities”: companies, research institutions, venture capital firms, areas of expertise that drive Minnesota’s innovation community.
With the help of Google Maps technology, users can locate companies on an interactive map by searching industries like medical devices, animal science, pharmaceuticals, food, and alternative energy. Click on the “animal health” tab and you get records of 51 companies scattered throughout Minnesota.
Even more impressive is BIOMAP’s ability to search what it calls “Commercialization Catalysts” which are grouped into intriguing categories like Leadership Talent, Skilled Workforce, Funding, Academic Tech Transfer, and Incubators/Accelerators. I say impressive because BIOMAP recognizes that innovation requires several ingredients and that companies are just the end product of the recipe.
Jeremy Lenz, vice-president of operations for the BioBusiness Alliance, said BIOMAP accomplishes several things: 1. a set of common definitions of what constitutes the bioscience community 2. a single destination where investors, academics, entrepreneurs, corporations, lawmakers can find one another and 3. the elimination of geographical boundaries. By viewing data points on a map, Lenz hopes people will start to see our companies and institutions not as isolated pockets of innovation but rather in the larger context of Minnesota.
That, in turn, makes it easier for state to market itself to rest of the country and indeed the rest of the world.
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