Indiana's economy on track: smart people + smart ideas + patient capital = high growth.

• Author: Beck, Steven J.
• Position: Viewpoint - Column

FOR TOO LONG INDIANA has been focused on yesterday rather than tomorrow. We have been worried about where we have been rather than where we need to go. Has anything changed? Does the future look better for Indiana? I believe that the answer is a resounding yes.

Why do I believe that the future for Indiana is looking up? At the Indiana Venture Center, we have studied what makes places like San Francisco, Boston, Austin, Minneapolis and other U.S. cities continue growth at levels that outpace the rest of the U.S. and the world. I believe that their growth is based upon a three-legged model: Smart People + Smart Ideas + Patient Capital = High Growth. If I am correct, the most important question becomes "Does Indiana have what it takes to create high growth?" I believe the answer is yes.

First, let's look at smart people. If you look across Indiana, you will find an abundance of some of the most intelligent people on the globe. They are in our universities, both as faculty and students. They are in our businesses, both large and small. They are entrepreneurs laboring away developing new ideas for Indiana's future.

Next, if you search across Indiana looking for smart ideas, you come away amazed at how much advanced research is being done at out universities. If you were to look only at the Indiana Venture Center's five university partners--Ball State University, Indiana University, Purdue University, University of Notre Dame and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology--you would be astonished by the amount and the caliber of world-class research that is being conducted.

When you add the research being done at all of Indiana's schools, major corporations and entrepreneurial companies, you cannot help but be convinced that we are on the cusp of major technological breakthroughs right here in Indiana. They are creating new ways to develop software, a way to retrofit 34 million US automobiles to make them hybrids, new technology that will dramatically reduce the amount of rime it takes to do medical tests. The list goes on and on, each idea more exciting than the last.

What about the third leg of the stool, patient capital? This is a key area that has seen some improvement, but what progress has been made must be...