IE 11 Not Supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.

Generation West Virginia Focuses on Innovation and Entrepreneurship

The organization hosted a panel Jan. 28 on a mission to motivate an impact generation that uses technology and innovation to solve problems.

(TNS) Instead of young people asking themselves what jobs are available in the Mountain State, Generation West Virginia hopes young people start asking what jobs they can create for themselves here.

The organization hosted an innovation and entrepreneurship panel at its day at the Legislature Wednesday to spur more innovation and entrepreneurship throughout West Virginia communities.

Natalie Roper serves as the executive director for Generation West Virginia and believes her generation is filled with people who want to save the world. It’s an impact generation that uses technology and innovation to solve problems, Roper said.

“We are missing out as a state if we lost those minds to other places if we can’t be the state that takes advantage of those innovative solutions,” Roper said. “We have so many complex problems of our own, we could use those innovative, energetic, motivated people if we can convince them we’re a place that invests in them and their ideas.”

We want to be a state that supports entrepreneurs, Roper said.

Sarah Halstead, a community and economic development specialist at West Virginia State University, said there’s incredible opportunity and a lot of need that can be matched up.

“It requires a shift in thinking about what we’ve got,” Halstead said.

She wants to see kids start to think about innovation early.

Halstead would also like to see more access to capital for innovators and entrepreneurs in the state, along with more attorneys who specialize in new product development for emerging markets and intellectual property.

For Halstead, it’s about finding those people with skills and investment dollars.

“There’s not much tolerance of patient investment,” Halstead said.

Ben Blake is a West Virginia native and technology entrepreneur. He wants to see more investments in knowledge workers.

Blake thinks West Virginia’s market is better for entrepreneurs because unlike markets such as Chicago or San Fransisco, people here want others to be successful. He also says West Virginia’s history of being resilient and making due with little lends itself well to innovation.

“The entrepreneurial spirit is about being scrappy,” Blake said.

Blake would like to see more engineers and artists become entrepreneurs.

He said the low cost of living in the state could be presented better as a way to entice new innovators to the state.

“There’s an infinite amount of ways that people can create a West Virginia that works for them. We kind of have a blank slate,” said West Virginia delegate JB McCuskey, R-Kanawha. “Our job as government is making sure we’re fostering that innovation and enabling people to make the changes they want.”

The state’s close proximity to larger markets like Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia and other areas is a major positive, McCuskey said.

Brandon Dennison is a social entrepreneur. He co-founded the Coalfield Development Corporation, which hires young unemployed adults in West Virginia’s southern coalfields and places them in community college classrooms for further education.

Dennison said the state’s older demographic can provide a lot of opportunities where older workers may not be ready to hand over their business but are more than willing to mentor younger workers and help them build on their own ideas.

The biggest challenge to advances and welcoming new innovation and creative minds to the state is Internet access, Roper said.

“Internet is key and if we don’t have that consistently then we’re missing out on industry of all kinds,” Roper said. “We have the opportunity to be a place where you can do it all.”

©2015 The Charleston Gazette (Charleston, W.Va.)