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<br />Entrepreneurial Infrastructure <br /> <br />Entrepreneurialism, or the creation of new businesses ventures, is possibly the <br />most critical long-term job creation strategy. It is directly tied to the community's <br />success in the area of core knowledge infrastructure. <br /> <br />As mentioned earlier, positioning Fargo Moorhead as a destination for growth <br />sector companies requires building a critical mass of core knowledge <br />infrastructure in specialized target technologies; in our case, embedded systems, <br />vaccine development and biomedical device technologies. Creating and <br />nurturing this critical mass means we will improve our ability to recruit and retain <br />high growth businesses as well as talented workers, researchers and university <br />students. <br /> <br />A by-product of the critical mass is entrepreneurial activity. Collaboration <br />between scientists, researchers, and students spawns ideas that may eventually <br />grow into businesses. The purpose of entrepreneurial infrastructure is to create <br />an environment that is most conducive to the success of entrepreneurial <br />ventures. Strategic planners formed a group specifically to address the needs of <br />entrepreneurs. (See Appendix A for group members.) Their recommendations <br />included: <br /> <br />.:. infrastructure and incubation facilities <br />.:. access to capital <br />.:. education, skills and human resources <br /> <br />Infrastructure and Incubation <br /> <br />One of the most important needs is a complete, metro-wide incubation strategy. <br />Incubators are organizations that support the entrepreneurial process, helping to <br />increase survival rates for startup companies by providing a variety of services <br />including physical space, technical support, administrative services and business <br />networking. Currently the lone incubator in the Fargo Moorhead MSA is the <br />Center for Technology Enterprise (CTE), located at the NDSU Research & <br />Technology Park. The CTE is designed specifically for start-ups engaged in <br />engineering, electronics, and IT. <br /> <br />The Growth Plan supports the build-out of vacant space on the campus of MSUM <br />into a "wet-lab", or life science incubator. This incubator will provide facilities <br />specifically for life sciences companies and would therefore complement, rather <br />than compete with, the CTE. In addition, the two facilities would share support <br />services, saving human and financial resource. <br /> <br />13 <br />