Fireside Chat: The Boulder Innovation Ecosystem

Session Overview

The rapid advancement of the Mountain West innovation ecosystem depends on its dedicated leaders. Three of these leaders, representing business, an NSF Engine, and local government, discussed their efforts to develop a cohesive regional strategy that drives collaboration across sectors and state lines — thereby enhancing the innovation capability and capacity of the region, and positioning Boulder for future growth.

Key Session Insights

As the fireside moderator, Mike Freeman, CEO of the Colorado-Wyoming Climate Resilience Engine, opened the discussion by recounting his journey as the CEO of Innosphere Ventures, a 27-year-old incubator that supports technical founders in launching innovative companies focused on climate resilience and life sciences while advancing regional economic development strategies.

He reported how a pivotal Brookings report prompted Innosphere Ventures to reassess its role within the Mountain West’s innovation ecosystem. The report indicated that eight metro areas would dominate U.S. innovation for the foreseeable future, excluding the Mountain West. It also identified nine additional areas, including metro Denver, that could potentially enter this elite group with the right strategy and resources. In response, Mr. Freeman and his team redefined their economic development strategy, ultimately pursuing a National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engine grant focused on climate resilience across Colorado and Wyoming. Competing against nearly 500 applicants nationwide, they succeeded in securing funding, leading to the establishment of the Colorado-Wyoming Climate Resilience Engine.

With the addition of the Elevate Quantum EDA Tech Hub, the Mountain West now has a unique opportunity to leverage two major science and economic development initiatives, and Boulder now stands out as a distinctive regional innovation ecosystem. Despite its relatively small size, the city excels due to the convergence of universities, federal laboratories, industry, and startups, significantly amplifying its impact on innovation.

Turning to his guest speakers, Mr. Freeman, noting how Boulder has built and sustained a strong capacity and “brand” of innovation, asked what makes the city attractive to innovators, researchers, and entrepreneurs? Mr. Tayer from the Boulder Chamber noted three things that led the city to its current success.

1. The foundation for an innovation economy was laid when, in 1877, the city chose to have a university built instead of a prison. Fast forward nearly a century and a half, and the University of Colorado Boulder is a pillar of the community, attracting $500 million in research and catalyzing a robust startup economy, Ball Aerospace being one notable example.
2. The quality of life in Boulder is exceptionally high due to the beautiful mountain scenery and plentiful nature. He noted how transfers to Boulder are the most requested among Google employees.
3. A character of community collaboration, which  Mr. Tayer described as a part of the “western frontier” attitude. He credited this spirit of cooperation with winning the EDA Quantum  Tech Hub and, even more recently, the relocation of the Sundance Film Festival; neither would have happened without wide-ranging community buy-in on these efforts.

Echoing Mr. Tayer’s point on the natural beauty of the city and region, Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett noted how, while many people moved to Boulder for the job opportunities, many stayed for the natural environment. He cited the city’s concerted effort to preserve the environment, going so far as to be the first city to tax itself for the preservation of open space. Mayor Brockett also pointed to the robust innovation infrastructure in the city, including seventeen federally funded laboratories in the city that, along with the University of Colorado Boulder, provide a strong base of research, innovation, and technology-based start-ups. 

When Mr. Freeman asked about what other communities could take away from Boulder, especially with so many other cities wanting to join the innovation “club,” Mr. Tayer emphasized pushing quality of life. Mayor Brockett noted how, while Boulder has an incredible advantage with its natural gifts, they are not necessary to build a place people want to live. While competing for the Sundance film festival, for example, their final rival was Cincinnati, not known for scenic beauty, but able to leverage its developed riverfront and culture as competitive advantages. Every location has advantages; they just need to be tapped to magnetize talent, business, and capital.

Mr. Freeman also noted that, with several federal laboratories, a strong university presence, and two overlapping federal innovation efforts with as much as $3 billion in economic impact, the pressure is on for Boulder to deliver. The federal government wants to see results from their investments; how does Boulder achieve them?

Mr. Tayer agreed Boulder, and the Mountain West more broadly, must become more adept at demonstrating the region’s national economic benefits. In the past, investing in science sufficed, he argued, but today, political leaders expect to see tangible results from those investments in the form of new industries and products. With 500 cities vying to establish themselves as innovation hubs, Boulder needs to demonstrate its ability to convert investment into measurable outcomes. Fortunately, Mayor Brockett noted that with four Nobel Prize winners in quantum physics from the University of Colorado Boulder and its collaboration with NIST, Boulder’s “synergies” across talent and infrastructure are delivering in the region — laying the groundwork for what he envisions as the “Silicon Valley of Quantum” in the Mountain West.

In response to a question from the audience about what he would like to see coming out of state legislatures, Mr. Tayer suggested the onus will be on states to step up with funding to continue the momentum moving forward in the region. He argued investment in higher education is too low, for example, and that increasing it at the state level, along with incentivizing business research, will help propel the Boulder ecosystem forward. However, Mayor Brockett, while noting that the state of Colorado and Governor Polis had taken steps like making Colorado’s tax credits for electric vehicles the strongest in the nation, also made clear local and state budgets are limited and cannot wholly replace federal investment.

In their final thoughts to conclude the opening day of the Mountain West Competitiveness Conversation, the panelists looked to the future to overcome challenges the Boulder ecosystem faces. Mr. Tayer argued investments in Boulder had led to the growth of a strong innovation ecosystem, something author Richard Florida held up as an example in his book Rise of the Creative Class, this has also led to high prices — something especially felt in housing, and innovators are being priced out. In response, Mr. Brockett agreed with the challenge and highlighted the city’s efforts to support the production of affordable housing, but acknowledged there is still progress to be made.