In an article for Belfast Media Group By Chris Johnston of MCE explains
In a City that has produced 95 Nobel prizes winners and whose Gross Domestic Product (GDP) outshines a small country like Sweden; Chicago is an unlikely setting for a new awakening that is taking place in terms of economic development. In fact, it has been driven in part by Illinois no longer being able to compete for jobs and investment on cost alone and a realisation that founders of promising start-ups like YouTube and Paypal were choosing to relocate from Illinois to more innovative environments.
For many the only way that Chicago could compete globally is by literally catapulting themselves above the competition through innovation. In short, Chicago is now seeking to become a global centre for innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship. So what has this got to do with Belfast or Northern Ireland? During a recent visit to Chicago as part of a group known as Transatlantic Network 2020 we spent three days with President of the Chamber of Commerce Lance Pressl to explore how innovation and learning is being applied in the City. I came away thinking that there is a lot that Northern Ireland can learn from Chicago and I think the same is equally true for Chicago.
Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce has a clear vision of how it wants the region to become a more innovative through: collaborative networks, training the next century’s innovation talent pool and fostering business innovation leadership. That said, when compared to Chicago, Northern Ireland has a number of things going for it that we need to take stock of. Chicago gets no real Federal assistance in terms of economic development compared to the significant resources and important role of an economic development body like InvestNI. Despite President Obama hailing from Chicago, he has only returned three times and the economic development of Illinois like all other states is one of many priorities for the White House. In contrast, Northern Ireland is extremely fortunate to have Declan Kelly as an economic envoy – a fate that no other region globally has achieved. In Washington DC, later this year Northern Ireland will have its own US-NI Economic Conference were innovation will no doubt top the agenda.
For me, the most important lesson is that innovation is not something that just happens in a science lab, it’s something that all businesses and entrepreneurs can engage in through collaboration. The impact of innovation is creation of new ideas or practices which become widely adopted to create significant economic and social value. That is surely the hope for the economic development for both Chicago and Belfast and there is no reason why the two cities should not collaborate further in a joint pursuit of innovation.
The British Council’s Transatlantic Network 2020 is a network of young emerging leaders from Europe and North America who are interested in establishing transatlantic and global links.
