SOUTHWEST OHIO — ‘Think Regional! Summit’ will be hosting the annual event updating progress on collaborative growth activities across Southwest Ohio at Austin Landing on April 21st with David Abbott, Executive Director of The George Gund Foundation, as the keynote speaker.
Think Regional! is a non-profit organization attracting community leaders, business owners and executives, elected officials and administration and Leadership alumnae and current member classes.
Covering 15 counties in Southwest Ohio, Think Regional! was created to encourage collaboration across organizations and jurisdictions, to help generate greater growth in the economy, higher paying jobs, quality of life, skilled and educated work force, energy and transportation infrastructure and other issues to enhance lives and businesses in Ohio.
This is the third consecutive year for Think Regional’s annual event. At each summit, the participants spend the afternoon working in 6 separate Issue Action Group breakouts, which are based on what participants select as the main challenges to greater growth in the Southwest Ohio region.
To allow for each Issue Action Group focus area to get full attention, quarterly follow-up ideation meetings were established to allow for reviewing and discussing the ideal end states and next steps, to take the conversation deeper and create action items.
One of the outcomes from the 2015 Summit includes starting the application process for the designation of an IMCP (Investing in Manufacturing Community Partnerships) Region in Ohio, to obtain multi-million dollar grants under the Economic Development Agency’s multi-billion dollar grant program to stimulate innovative manufacturing regions in the US.
The specific application would benefit the extensive number of companies we met at the 2015 Summit involved in Clean And Renewable Energy industries. These include 46 companies, government and non-profit groups and five research universities and technical training colleges across Ohio.
This certification could bring significant financial resources to enable these companies to accelerate their development, design, manufacturing and sales activities of systems involving solar, wind, hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen generation systems from water, and hydrogen distribution systems for transportation in gasoline station style facilities.
Think Regional! encourages new participants, business owners and executives, and community leaders to attend the 2016 Summit to make a difference in their region.
Visit www.ThinkRegional.com for more information or call 513-932-8228 or email [email protected]. Register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/think-regional-summit-2016-tickets-20999325548?aff=ebrowse.
