“Mobility, and smart mobility, and agriculture are definitely tied together,” said Doug McCollough, the inaugural, newly named executive director of The Beta District, an area stretching from Columbus through Dublin, Marysville and Union County. The Beta District, launched in 2021, is an economic development initiative that harnesses the region’s strengths in the transportation technology sectors to establish Central Ohio as yet another tech innovation zone.
“We’re trying to stay away from things that other places have greater strengths than us,” said McCollough, outlining The Beta District’s perks, while also distinguishing it from other innovation zones. “When you look at distribution, and agriculture, and energy, and logistics, we are actually the thought leader on that, in the middle of the country. So it makes sense for us to focus on those types of technologies.”
Each of the various parts of Central Ohio bring a piece of uniqueness to the district, McCollough explained, pointing out Marysville’s long history as a manufacturing location for Honda, and Columbus’ background in smart cities. Dublin is a central player in the Smart Mobility Corridor, a 35-mile stretch of U.S. Route 33 equipped with fiber-optic communications and other technologies to support connected vehicles and next-gen mobility ideas. Dublin brings high capacity communications fiber and data centers into The Beta District folks, said McCollough, who was named executive director in late July.
“It competes on a global basis in the intelligent community movement,” he said, noting both cities are all or partially in Union County.
Happening alongside these tech clusters is the region’s agriculture industry, a leader in the production of commodities including dairy, eggs, tomatoes and pumpkins. The state ranks first in the nation in the production of Swiss cheese, according to the Ohio Secretary of State. These industries are also ripe for transportation innovation when thinking about the possibilities of electric or autonomous farm equipment, or advanced air mobility, the executive director said.
“You can’t have a modern farm these days, modern at scale, without satellite imagery, and significant data analytics,” he said, adding the combination of resources in sectors like agriculture, manufacturing and automotive “explains why the Beta District is here in central Ohio, and not in Detroit, and not in Kansas, or something like that.”
Other regions are working to carve out innovation zones built on their regional strengths, too. Tulsa Innovation Labs (TIL) in Oklahoma leans on its region’s long history in aviation maintenance and energy sectors like oil and gas.
TIL aims to build “an innovation economy that connects our community, and allows it to continue to thrive, and grow, and build something that’s really authentic to Tulsans, to our region,” Jennifer Hankins, managing director of Tulsa Innovation Labs, told Government Technology last month.
Similar to The Beta District, which envisions itself as “more than a physical location,” per its website, TIL is involved in coordinating “assets and resources across our community aligned to creating testing environments if that’s what a company needs,” Hankins said. “But also working in the area of workforce development, as well as working to secure capital. We support the creation and convening around creating those kinds of resources in our community that support those industries.”
TIL was selected last month as one of 12 regional innovation hubs, with the idea of accelerating growth across a number of technology innovation areas like artificial intelligence, semiconductor manufacturing or energy. The sites are known as Tech Hubs.
For a district, corridor or other entity trying to do this, The Beta District’s McCollough said, it’s important “to be true to itself” and play to its strengths.
“We are a part of the larger picture of American competitiveness,” he said. “And these innovations play directly into advances in our economy.”
