The Alliance for Regional Development Working Teams have made great strides forward since our kickoff event at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago on March 25. At the kickoff, Working Teams in the key areas of Green Growth, Human Capital, Innovation, and Transportation and Logistics engaged in a strategic-doing process to identify strategic priorities and commit to near-term activity plans to move those priorities forward. Those initial strategic priorities include:
- Green Growth: Promoting the water sector and expanding the footprint of the Water Council.
- Human Capital: Collaborative branding of the region’s workforce capabilities and resources.
- Innovation: Developing a common understanding of the region’s innovation ecosystem, its key challenges, and common goals for action through the creation of an Internet portal.
- Transportation and Logistics: Working together to drive interstate collaboration that integrates the various state-level plans into a comprehensive tri-state plan.
By the end of the first week of May, all Working Teams will have convened for their one-month follow-up meetings and all Teams are well underway with regional asset-mapping tasks. Of particular interest, the Purdue University Regional Decision Maker GIS is now available to the Working Teams as an asset-mapping tool. Introductory webinars have been provided by the Purdue Center for Regional Development. More dates will follow and a hands on training session is being planned.
In addition, the Human Capital and Transportation and Logistics Working Teams have adopted Basecamp as a cloud-based collaboration tool to assist in document and information sharing.
As efforts proceed, Working Team members should keep in mind the importance of building towards the Summit on Regional Competitiveness on December 19 to be able to present concrete evidence of regional collaboration. Working Team members will have an opportunity to share their initial progress at our first quarterly meeting at Purdue University Calumet on June 3.
As always, the Alliance is grateful to the hardworking volunteer members of the Working Teams. We look forward to continuing to work together throughout the year!