Saint Paul Innovation Cabinet launches action plan to grow City’s technology and innovation sector
Full Stack Saint Paul is a public and private sector collaboration to provide a full range of services to help businesses start up and scale up in Saint Paul
SAINT PAUL – The Saint Paul Innovation Cabinet today launched its action plan—titled Full Stack Saint Paul—to serve as a framework to implement targeted strategies to attract, retain, and expand tech and innovation jobs in Saint Paul. From helping a business find creative office space, to facilitating connections between business leaders, to aligning start-ups with resources to grow their businesses, to supporting the next generation of tech talent, Full Stack Saint Paul will help position the City as a place where innovative businesses can locate and thrive.
Earlier this year, Mayor Chris Coleman and Councilmember Chris Tolbert formed the Saint Paul Innovation Cabinet, a focused effort to identify ways to expand job and business growth around the technology and innovation sectors in Saint Paul.
“Building on our strong culture of innovation is critical to Saint Paul's economic future," said Mayor Coleman. “Innovative businesses attract outside capital that will enhance our vibrant business districts and create high-paying jobs right here in Saint Paul. By pursuing this forward-looking strategy, we may see as many as three more spin-off jobs in other sectors for every innovation job created, bringing greater value to our whole community.”
Full Stack Saint Paul outlines three main strategies to help the City expand innovation jobs and businesses:
- A storytelling strategy to raise awareness of the city’s vibrant innovation culture, its legacy and potential, and its role in the greater metro region.
- A people development strategy to build and support the places and events where innovators connect and support key pipelines for growing innovation talent in Saint Paul, especially among under-represented populations.
- A place-based strategy to create an ecosystem of high-quality real estate solutions that provide work environments and amenities that help Saint Paul innovation companies recruit and retain talent.
The plan identifies four goals:
- Add 2,000 tech-related jobs by the year 2020.
- Increase innovation-related commercial space in the City of Saint Paul by 200,000 square feet.
- Ensure that 50 innovation-focused events will be held annually in Saint Paul.
- Show significantly increased awareness of Saint Paul innovation every year through 2020.
The City of Saint Paul and the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce will lead a broad public/private partnership to implement this action plan.
“Saint Paul has a history of being a hub of innovation, from international companies to small startups,” said Councilmember Tolbert. “Staying innovative requires a focused effort, and Full Stack Saint Paul will work across public and private sectors in true collaboration to accelerate growth in Saint Paul’s tech and innovation industries.”
The cabinet is comprised of 19 experts from the technology, innovation, economic development, real estate, and workforce development sectors. This group’s work built upon on the local business community’s existing momentum to develop targeted strategies aimed at building an environment where more innovative businesses can locate and continue to grow.
“We strongly support the vision outlined in this action plan and believe that increasing creative office space will help stimulate the tech sector in Saint Paul,” said Scott Burns, CEO and co-founder of Structural. “Recruiting and retaining talented tech professionals is one of the first steps to ensuring Saint Paul’s legacy as an innovation hub.”
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