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Jennifer McGrail, Executive Director at Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science & Technology
Francesca Ioffreda, Chief Innovation Officer at State of Maryland
Donnie Beamer, First-ever Senior Technology Advisor at City of Atlanta
This article answers:
At a time when local economies are grappling with rising inequality, rapid technological change, and shrinking public budgets, one thing is becoming increasingly clear for state and local governments: if innovation is going to thrive in their region, they need to get on board.
Three powerhouse public leaders shaping the future of state and local ecosystems joined EcoMap co-founder and CEO, Sherrod Davis, to explore how cities and states are harnessing innovation to improve lives, foster economic mobility, and fuel entrepreneurship.
In 1987, Oklahoma created an innovation agency to diversify beyond oil and gas, but the real shift came more recently when they realized innovation doesn’t just come from universities—it lives in everyday Oklahomans.
“The one thing that has led to the most significant amount of momentum is recognition that our everyday Oklahomans are going to be the people that solve the problems of tomorrow,” Jennifer McGrail, Executive Director for the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST), said.
OCAST doubled down on innovation by focusing on the unique areas where Oklahoma can build and thrive. As a result, OCAST was awarded “once in a generation investments to kickstart different sectors of innovation” from the federal government to propel growth in these key areas. Oklahoma’s Advanced Mobility Strategy lays out a path for leveraging the state’s strengths, including its talent, infrastructure, and aerospace history, to become a national proving ground for safer, more efficient transportation systems, while creating jobs and expanding industry opportunities across the state.
Collaboration was also a key drive. Whether for residents, through programs like the Oklahoma Innovation Partners model, or for OCAST through industry partners and other entrepreneur support organizations coming together on shared goals—these unique partners are helping to tell the story of Oklahoma.
Local and regional innovation work isn’t happening in isolation. EcoMap is supporting similar efforts across the country by making it easier for ecosystems to map and connect their assets. In Detroit, our mobility industry platform with TechTown Detroit is helping entrepreneurs, investors, and organizations tap into the city’s growing innovation ecosystem. And later this year, a new EcoMap platform will launch with the Association of University Research Parks (AURP), mapping autonomous systems assets across six rural regions to foster collaboration and drive cross-regional innovation.
As Chief Innovation Officer for the State of Maryland, Francesca Ioffreda leads the first state innovation team, created through a partnership between Governor Wes Moore and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Her team’s mission is to use innovation and partnerships to advance pressing state priorities like reducing childhood poverty and increasing economic mobility.
While large-scale problems to tackle, Ioffreda has found that running through the innovation process themselves is a great momentum builder—defining the problem, investigating with data, prototyping solutions, testing those solutions with partners, running pilots, evaluating those pilots and, if successful, helping to scale and institutionalize them.
Her team is focused on engaging in strategic partnerships (such as the one that created their office), focusing on using data better, using technology responsibly, and centering community voice in order to really move the needle on entrepreneurship and economic mobility for Marylanders.
Economic mobility is a huge challenge in Atlanta as well. Donnie Beamer, as Atlanta’s first senior technology advisor, is tasked with using tech and entrepreneurship as drivers for mobility and catalysts in closing the city’s vast wealth gap.
Beamer acknowledged government moves slowly and tech does not. He emphasized that with a shared language and collaboration, different well-intentioned entities can be more impactful with limited capital, capacity, and resources.
All panelists identified expanding access to capital, driving statewide collaboration, building awareness so all communities can access resources, and elevating storytelling as key priorities for a thriving innovation ecosystem. In addition to capacity constraints, harnessing data effectively was a loud challenge all local governments noted in their work, not just in the collection, but how to use it effectively and ethically to tell a story.
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Data doesn’t drive action. Storytelling does,” Ioffreda said. “You have to pair the powerful data with narratives and lived experiences to make it come to life, to inspire empathy and urgency and political will.”
The need to have someone equipped to dissect data and leverage it to inform public policy was critical, but there is also an empowering energy to tackling it.
“All of us are now on the front end and the leading edge of what workforce is going to look like in our state,” McGrail said.
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We are helping build out what new jobs, innovation and technology in our state will look like. We are the ones with the data that can help our states and our cities and our counties start to make those predictions and what those investments should look like.”
But to make the data a reality, trust is needed.
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“Your ideas are going to outlive you,” Beamer said. “One thing that’s universally true is that people don’t like change. So, while you may think your ideas are progressive and innovative and helpful, it disrupts their process. How do you bring them along?”
For elected officials who have limited time serving in their respective roles, speed can feel like a necessity, but the panelists urge listeners to think about the leverage garnered by focusing on front-end relationship building first.
“Speed matters but so does trust,” Ioffreda said.
Building trust and collaboration are the building blocks for moving initiatives forward. Ecosystem building is not a solo activity; it takes everyone to make innovation and entrepreneurship thrive in a region.
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Your relationships are always going to be greater than your programs,” McGrail said. “Building healthy, trusting relationships among your ecosystem will long outlast any program.”
Innovation doesn’t live in a single department or depend on a single leader. It thrives when government teams up with community members, entrepreneurs, academia, and the private sector, and when those partnerships are rooted in trust, shared language, and a willingness to start with what’s already in hand.
The work is far from easy, but it’s already reshaping the future as these public leaders redefine what it means for governments to be not just regulators but incubators of bold new ideas.
Webinar Q&A
Throughout the webinar, attendees asked insightful questions. We are sharing them here, along with answers to how urban and rural communities can collaborate to thrive.
Q: What are strategies to balance homegrown versus newly arrived innovation and entrepreneurs? What are effective ways to strengthen collaboration between these groups?
A: The panelists saw the function of the government in this space to be the dot connector, bringing everyone together and recognizing the unique balance that comes from growth in both traditional economic development and entrepreneurship. Increasing connectivity in the ecosystem and making resources visible and available creates the conditions for businesses to flourish.
Q: How do you approach regional economic development partnerships?
A: No state truly operates in a vacuum and McGrail believes she, and those in roles like hers, have the unique opportunity to serve as permission givers here to allow regional collaboration to happen.
Ioffreda has a unique take on this question because of Maryland’s position and relationship with Virginia and Washington D.C. As mass federal layoffs continue, Ioffreda’s office has had to think quickly and strategically about how to retain the mass amount of talent in the region. She said “thinking holistically and acting collaboratively where it makes sense” is the key.
View the Full Discussion
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