Description

Unlocking the Economic Engine of Entrepreneurs

The Greater Federal Way Chamber invites you to join us for a keynote on the power of building entrepreneurial ecosystems with keynote from Nick Smoot, founder of the Innovation Collective.

The Innovation Collective specializes in developing entrepreneurial and startup communities. Smoot developed a method for growing the startup tech scene in small town America while connecting large venture capitalists, national labs, and publicly traded corporations to the small market innovations. This led him to develop a multiple programs and tools for surfacing high value innovation in small town markets.

His 18 years of experience range from nonprofit profit work, co-founding three mobile tech startups, running two venture investment groups, co-authoring and advising on federal entrepreneurship legislation including the National Innovation and Modern Skills Training Act (co-author) and the Chips and Science Act (advising), developing community startup economy frameworks, and co-developing 290,000 sq ft of Innovation Campus’.

His experience and focus of domain expertise spans industries including health and wellness tech, robotics, sports tech, consumer tech, energy tech, property tech, community management tech, ed tech, and economics data.

Nick is obsessed with developing startup economies and others know it; his ecosystem work has been recognized by Google, Rise of the Rest, SXSW, Brookings, Milken Institute, and Bloomberg and he has been interviewed for Bloomberg West, The Atlantic, BBC, USA Today, Entrepreneurship Magazine, and Fast Company.

Nick works out of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho and travels often to startup communities across the world.