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CREATING AN ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM IN WALES

Fifteen years, a decision was taken by the then Welsh Development Agency (WDA) to create a new Entrepreneurship Action Plan for Wales.

This would be the first regional enterprise strategy anywhere in the World and would help to to create a more entrepreneurial culture that would lead to more start-up businesses and, as a result,  greater wealth and employment in the economy.

Despite its initial successes - the number of new businesses increased by 28 per cent in the period 2002-2004 - it was abandoned when the decision was made to bring the WDA into the Welsh Government.

As a result, one of the most forward thinking economic policy initiatives ever created within Wales was lost. It was also somewhat ironic that the European Commission then decided to establish its own Entrepreneurship Action Plan to push forward its initiatives in this area under one coherent strategy.

In fact, various bodies have since seen the benefit of creating a regional approach to stimulating entrepreneurship and to ensure that all stakeholders within the region work together to develop enterprise.

One of the more exciting programmes is that developed by one of the world's great universities, namely the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program (REAP) has been established to enable regional champions and their teams to develop and implement a custom acceleration strategy to propel their region forward using innovation-driven entrepreneurship.

With the region in Cambridge, Massachusetts being seen as one of the innovation hotspots in the World, considerable experience has been built up by MIT academics in the development of entrepreneurial ecosystems

As a result, they work with local actors to develop a strategy that will harness the power of innovation and entrepreneurship to accelerate growth and development in a regional ecosystem.

And not only is global best practice from MIT used to understand the key drivers of successful innovation-driven entrepreneurial ecosystems but, more importantly, there is sharing of best practice between regions on the programme.

So who participates in REAP?

A typical region has a population of 3-10 million people with a team of around 5-7 highly driven and influential regional members from key stakeholder groups such as government, corporate, academia, risk capital and the entrepreneurial community brought together by a regional champion to develop the programme.

However, the numbers on each programme is limited and MIT REAP only admits 8-10 partner  regions annually to participate in the two-year engagement. To date, regions or small countries as diverse as Qatar, Scotland, Valencia. Finland, Singapore, New Zealand and Morocco are members of the programme and there is a new tranche being developed for 2014.

Hopefully, Wales will be applying to be part of that programme and certainly, we have an advantage in that REAP is currently managed by someone from Wales!

Georgina Campbell, the daughter of eminent Cardiff academic Professor Tony Campbell, is a former graduate of MIT who, last year, returned to her alma mater to head up this initiative. I had met up with Georgina a few years ago during one of my visits to MIT and was struck by her passion to bring the MIT ethos of entrepreneurship back to her home country.

Once she was leading REAP I invited her to meet with the Welsh Government last year to discuss whether Wales could participate in a future cohort.  And  she was back again on Wednesday to give a tour de force presentation on how different stakeholders could work together to make this happen.

In fact, I am sure that the sixty or so participants at that event in the Capital Law building in Cardiff would agree that if the discussions that morning were anything to go by, there is certainly the will and determination to see such a programme succeed if Wales does take part next year.

A decade and a half ago, the Entrepreneurship Action Plan for Wales was certainly the solution the economy needed to encourage greater enterprise in the economy.

And whilst not identical, REAP certainly has the same philosophy and objectives at its heart. More importantly, we now have an opportunity to work with the entrepreneurial powerhouse that is MIT, as well as other regions around the world, to develop a new strategy for entrepreneurship that will kick-start the Welsh economy.

It is an opportunity that should not be missed.


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