News that the Wilmington area finished toward the top in the Engine Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation report on technology start-ups came as a nice surprise during a period with discouraging and confusing unemployment figures for July.
As noted in this issue, the unemployment rate for Delaware actually rose slightly to 7.4 percent in July, even though other figures show employment growth running ahead of the national average.
The ranking showed Wilmington edging into the top 25 at the 24th slot just ahead of Ames, Iowa. Equally good news came out of the Dover area, which saw the rate of tech start-ups rise by a factor of five since 1990. The Wilmington metro area includes New Castle County; Cecil County and Salem, County. Dover’s metro area includes Kent County.
The report, which crunched U.S. Census statistics, worked to better define business formations based on STEM (science, technology, engineering, math). We have known that northern Delaware has improved its start-up performance over the years as large science-based companies brought top talent to the state while shedding thousands of jobs.
Start-up entrepreneurs often do not seek the limelight. The companies have quietly expanded without ground breaking and ribbon-cutting events as global operations and client bases are built. New quarters that would bring construction jobs are not a priority, given the amount of space on the market.
More start-ups wait in the wings. Many will fail, some will be modestly successful and a few will end up with hundreds of employees. The Markell administration has worked to aid the start-up infrastructure in the states and many other organizations, such as UD, CoIN Loft, The Small Business and Technology Development Center, Delaware Technical and Community College, Delaware Biotechnology Association and many others have aided in the process.
With the latest encouraging news comes a further need to focus on this area. Construction executive Brian DiSabatino has proposed an Intellectual Center Development Act that would accelerate the process. His proposals are bold and costly.
But it is the kind of big picture thinking needed to accelerate the process of bringing technology to market. He points to the Financial Center Development Act that brought tens of thousands of banking jobs to the state. That kind of growth will not happen again, but keep in mind the drafters of the FCDA were only shooting for several hundred jobs.
Some version of Brian’s proposal could bring hundreds of jobs.
In digging into the technology start-up report, you will find that the Wilmington area ranks 1.6 on the start-up index, with Dover at 1. Ramp up that figure to three and Delaware is in Silicon Valley territory. The jobs will follow. – Doug Rainey
