Shawnee State ARC Power Grant Lights up the Region

On October 1st, 2019, Shawnee State University kicked off the LIGHTS-INC grant project thanks to support from the Appalachian Regional Commission’s Power Initiative. The project leveraged the expertise of innovation hubs and gateways across Southeastern Ohio and West Virginia including Building Bridges to Careers (Marietta), The Robert C. Byrd Institute (Huntington, WV), Hocking College, ACEnet (Athens), the LIGHTS Regional Innovation Network (Athens), and the SSU Kricker Innovation Hub (Portsmouth).

The goal of the project was to expand the regional entrepreneurship ecosystem anchored by these institutions, while building new bridges to a community recovering from Substance Use Disorder (SUD). This included recovery-to-employment opportunities, expanded reentry programs with local workforce services partnerships, peer support services for makerspace programming, and delivery of entrepreneurial mindset training to those early in their recovery journey.

While the grant cycle for the project officially ends June 30th, the work these individual gateways have accomplished will forever change the entrepreneurial ecosystem in our region of Appalachia - all while going through the COVID-19 pandemic. So far, the project has created over 60 new businesses in the region, worked with over 500 existing businesses, created over 400 new jobs, and reached thousands of participants in programs through the regional gateways.

“Over this project, we adapted to COVID-19 related challenges in our makerspace,” said Jared Wittekind of Building Bridges to Careers. “As many places were switching to virtual meetings and events, we repurposed an empty room into a media and streaming space. We produced PPE equipment to supplement local organizations. And we adapted lots of programming for virtual learning.”

In addition, gateway partners launched other important programs during the two and a half years, such as a mobile STEM learning lab, classes for the recovery community, and updates to makerspace membership models.

“The big difference over the last three years is going from a handful of speaker series events at the Hub and now being able to scale and think about a fully realized innovation hub,” said David Kilroy, Director of the SSU Kricker Innovation Hub. “Our Ignite Portsmouth program has been front and center. We will continue to grow and learn for that. But, if we want to engage local partners in building an ecosystem, it cannot just be conceptual. We have to do work on the ground. With Ignite, we held a program. We brought entrepreneurs together. And we connected them with partners to take the next step.”

Over the POWER grant cycle, the Hub has managed to grow its marketing efforts, launch programs such as Ignite Portsmouth and Startup Weekend, and bring the ELI Ice House Entrepreneurial Mindset training program to recovery centers in Portsmouth and across the region.

“This is just the beginning” said Nathaniel Berger, Director of LIGHTS at Ohio University. “The gateways did tremendous work when faced with a lot of adversity. Now we have to keep building on that work going forward.”

The Hub is expected to open its doors in Late August and continue to build off the increased capacity created thanks to the ARC Power grants and the LIGHTS-INC project with entrepreneurship programs.