Throughout the world, rural communities are lagging behind urban regions in their economic development. Historically, many of these areas are tied to agriculture and development of natural resources, but they lack the infrastructure and connectivity to participate in advances in other elements of economic growth. Some people have argued that we should just allow this trend to continue unabated as it is the natural evolution of the modern economy.
As the sixth director of the IC² Institute,
Art Markman respectfully disagrees with that argument. Instead, to help meet this rural challenge, the Institute is returning to its roots as a source of new research and programs that address key unstructured problems by shifting their focus to
entrepreneurship in rural regions and small isolated cities.
Diversifying the economies of these regions requires rethinking the way that business ecosystems develop to acknowledge the challenges of educating and retaining talent in remote areas and integrating people, expertise, ideas, and capital. A broad-based program of research on this topic will have to explore new ways for business, government, and the education sector to collaborate.
IC² is connecting with groups around the country and around the world to share ideas and to push research forward. Markman believes that rural regions and small cities have a crucial role to play in the economy in Texas, in the United States, and around the world. He will share research and observations about the exciting future rural communities envision, gaps between the current reality and the vision, and how to bridge the gap. Markman maintains that it is the perception of bridgeable gaps that provide the motivation for rural communities to move forward and will share observations and a framework for ways to lessen the gap.
The IC² Institute was founded in 1977 as a “think and do” tank to test the belief of its founder, George Kozmetsky, that technological innovation can catalyze regional economic development through the active and directional collaboration among the university, government, and private sectors. IC2 has been instrumental in Austin’s growth as an innovation and technology center and has brought the “Austin model” to over 40 countries.
