05.23.23
NIIC and Electric Works Partner to Grow the Entrepreneurial Community in Northeast Allen County
Tammy Allen, Sr. Director, Marketing & Communications, NIIC, and Kate Virag, Vice President of Earned Media, Ferguson Advertising
FORT WAYNE, INDIANA, May 23, 2023 – At a press conference today, NIIC (Northeast Indiana Innovation Center) and Electric Works announced a partnership to advance entrepreneurship on Electric Works’ campus. The focus is on entrepreneurial services and community building.
“NIIC’s new mission is to catalyze the community for Entrepreneurship for ALL.™ Our partnership with Electric Works will help to provide increased accessibility to business builders in Northeast Allen County. NIIC will provide wrap-around services and community-building opportunities to support tenants to connect with other innovators and business builders on campus,” said Mike Fritsch, NIIC President and CEO.
“Entrepreneurship for ALL is about creating new opportunities for inclusive economic growth. Regional economies grow faster and more vigorously—not to mention for longer periods—when prosperity is more equally distributed across segments of the population,” said Jeff Kingsbury, Chief Connectivity Officer, Ancora, the lead developer of Electric Works.
As part of this new partnership, NIIC opened a new satellite office in the Carr Workplaces coworking area at Electric Works in Building 19. NIIC business coaches will be on-site, Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., where the entrepreneurial community may benefit from the following:
- High-value, no-charge business coaching,
- Business planning services,
- Quarterly entrepreneur/innovation events, and
- Annual corporate intrapreneur program.
Kingsbury added, “As an innovation district, Electric Works offers high-performance workplaces to serve the sole entrepreneur up to the global world headquarters. Our partnership with the NIIC and its award-winning programs will also give companies at Electric Works unique coaching, entrepreneurship support, and corporate innovation services to help them grow.”
For more information, contact NIIC at niic.net.
Cutline: NIIC Business Coaches Leslee Hill, Rosalina Perez, Rhonda Ladig, Samantha Cazares, Jami Thomas, and NIIC President and CEO Mike Fritsch
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About Electric Works
Electric Works is a mixed-use district of innovation, energy, and culture, developed as a public-private partnership between Ancora Partners and the City of Fort Wayne, Allen County, and the State of Indiana. A redevelopment and adaptive reuse of the former General Electric campus, the first phase of Electric Works includes more than 700,000 square feet of space and offers office, innovation, education, healthcare, retail, entertainment, and community uses to create new opportunities for inclusive economic growth. For more information, visit the Electric Works website at fortwayneelectricworks.com.
About the NIIC
About 20 years ago, NIIC was created to solve a problem. Aspiring innovators and entrepreneurs needed somewhere to go in Northeast Indiana to incubate their businesses. Visionary leaders imagined a place where innovation and economic development intersect for a COMMUNITY. Entrepreneurs and innovators have launched hundreds of new products and patents, created thousands of jobs, and infused hundreds of millions in grants and capital into our economy.
As a Venture Hub, NIIC pulls down barriers (geographic, racial, socio-economic, and interest-based), working with the regional Community of Communities to create an ecosystem of Entrepreneurship for ALL. ™ NIIC’s focus is collaboration and maximizing the impact of regional partners.
The International Business Innovation Association (InBIA) recognized NIIC with the 2020 Dinah Adkins Award and the Entrepreneur Center of the Year: Mixed Use Award. NIIC’s WEOC Women’s Business Center (WBC) received top honors from the U.S. SBA as the 2023 Great Lakes Region Business Center of the Year and 2023 AND 2022 Indiana Women’s Business Center of Excellence.
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CONTACTS:
Tammy Allen, NIIC, info@niic.net, 260.407.1731
Kate Virag , Ferguson Advertising, kate@fai2.com, 260.414-2431
