The Business Council of Westchester (BCW) announced the launch of its new initiative for 2022, the intention of which is to strengthen Westchester County’s position as a center for innovation.
Announced Thursday, the initiative is titled “Westchester Innovation Network (WIN): Shaping the County of the Future.”
Marsha Gordon, president and CEO of the BCW, described the goals of the program as critical to the future of the county.
“It definitely aligns with everything that we believe Westchester is and can become, and that it can really get to be known as the county where innovation lives and thrives,” Gordon said.
“The overarching goal for all our initiatives and advocacy is to provide leadership in public policy and create sustainable economic growth,” said John Ravitz, the BCW”™s executive vice president. “The WIN initiative will help our county create a roadmap to new business success and prosperity for all our residents.”
The program in its first phase will create “short-term innovation teams,” pairing innovative companies from within and outside of Westchester with local organizations to test innovations and ideas in real-world settings.
It will also showcase and amplify entrepreneurial ventures in partnerships with local schools, colleges, universities, incubators and accelerators.
The next phase will identify a “model municipality” to be paired with a group of innovation experts. Through that partnership, the municipality will pinpoint necessary changes for economic activity, cost savings and improvement of quality of life for residents, and will then outline a 10-part practical innovation implementation plan to meet those goals.
The third phase will consist of creating a futurist and implementation guide, creating guidelines in the areas of zoning, financing, planning and infrastructure that are needed to attract and retain innovators over the next five, 15 and 25 years.
“With our proximity to New York City”™s knowledge centers, Westchester County has the building blocks for establishing a vibrant innovation ecosystem that can seamlessly interconnect with research hubs throughout the metro region,” said Heidi Davidson, CEO of Galvanize Worldwide and chairman of the BCW Board of Directors.
“It’s really focusing on strengthening the entire ecosystem and bringing in other innovative entities to inform businesses that are here, and highlighting innovative companies in Westchester,” Gordon said.
Gordon said that the project is in its initial formation stages and no official partnerships in the venture have yet been made.
