The Smalls talks to SCIL (Southern Colorado Innovation Link)
In this episode the smalls talks to Mr. Mark Madic the Manager of Southern Colorado Innovation Link (SCIL), the name of the Regional Innovation Stategies Economic Development Administration Grant program, housed at Pueblo Community College. With a deep passion for supporting entrepreneurs and economic development initiatives, Mark is working with entrepreneurs in Southern Colorado to develop prototypes, receive patents, start businesses, and pitch to investors.
Mark is a native of Southern Colorado, being born and raised in Pueblo. Mark earned a B.S. in Business at Colorado State University-Fort Collins, and Majored in Organization/Innovation Management and Marketing with a Certificate in entrepreneurship.
Mark was eager to work for and with entrepreneurs in Northern Colorado, and was fortunate enough to start volunteering at the Institute for Entrepreneurship, housed through the CSU College of Business. In the program he was able to network with the spin out companies (the ones that started in the program) and work for numerous ones across multiple industries, including financial technology, private equity, consumer appliances. Through the years of experience, Mark helped keep the entrepreneurship programs going while there were frequent employee turnovers and small budget. Fortunately, the program grew into one recognized throughout the region, and with it, Mark worked full time as the Business Resident for Entrepreneurship programs.
A key part of Mark’s entrepreneurial experience also came from becoming an accredited facilitator for Startup Weekend-Techstars. Techstars is a global network of entrepreneurs, accelerator, mentoring, and financial resources for startup companies. They are consistently recognized as one of the most successful programs around the world. Startup Weekend is one piece of the network, the format is similar to a hackathon, where people participate by pitching ideas on Friday night, voting on the best ideas and forming teams, and then working all weekend to validate the idea and see if it can be feasible to start after the weekend is over. More than 193,000 people have participated in events across 150 countries. Mark has facilitated the events in partnership with Google, University of Denver, University of Wyoming, and CSU-Fort Collins across the front range.
SCIL Mission
The Southern Colorado Innovation Link’s (SCIL) mission is to leverage a robust innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem to encourage the development and commercialization of intellectual property, to support innovators, entrepreneurs, creatives, and makers (IIECM), to promote the success and growth of commerce, and to foster sustained regional prosperity.
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