How Central Ohio Is Becoming America's Next Mobility Innovation Hub

Chris Rockwell sits down with Doug McCullough, Executive Director of the Beta District, and Eric Phillips, Economic Development Director for Union County, to explore how Central Ohio has emerged as one of the country's leading hubs for mobility innovation.

Together, they discuss how public-private partnerships, world-class research institutions, and industry leaders are transforming the region into a real-world proving ground for connected and autonomous vehicles, advanced air mobility, smart infrastructure, and next-generation transportation technologies. From the origins of the Beta District to the collaborative approach driving innovation across the region, the conversation highlights what it takes to build an ecosystem where new ideas can be tested, scaled, and brought to market.

Transcript

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Good afternoon everyone. Welcome back to Seriously Curious, a podcast on all things human centered for business strategy and design. I'm Chris Rockwell, founder and president of Lextant. And today I'm super excited to talk about the innovation that's happening here in Central Ohio area. You know, central Ohio and Union County area has sort of quietly become one of the key innovation areas on the future of mobility. Talking about unmanned aerial vehicles, logistics, automated freight, as well as smart and connected vehicles and smart cities. So I'm super excited about that and I'm super excited about my guests today. Today I have Doug McCollough, who is executive director of the Beta District. He's leading the charge both here and internationally on our focus in innovation, on future mobility and some other areas that I'm excited to have him talk about. And then I also have Eric Phillips, Economic Director and lead here for Union County. And so welcome, guys. Thanks so much for being here today. Thanks. Really excited about the work that's happening here. And let's get into it. You know so Doug let's start with you. Tell me a little bit about how you got here, how you arrived at this place. And what is the Beta District? Well, it's a long, winding road. I started in this context as the CIO of the City of Dublin. So I worked for four different state agencies and two municipalities, and I had a deep knowledge of City of Dublin, City of Marysville, Union County. I was dealing with some Smart City questions. We certainly had a robust fiber network, and the 33 Smart Mobility Council of Governments was formed and decided to really raise up smart mobility as the center point of its focus for this region. When that happened, I was in the position of having a technology background, understanding fiber, understanding the infrastructure, and the Council of Governments needed a new brand name and an executive director, and I was just in the right place at the right time, a good candidate. I had the relationships with all of the governments and the engineers and all the folks, and so I was tapped to become the first executive director of the Beta District. And the Beta District is the branded name of the smart mobility corridor. It has infrastructure in terms of fiber and wireless devices and poles. That helped us create what we called at the time and still call the connected vehicle environment. It's an environment. It's an infrastructure that allows a vehicle to talk to a pole that's on the side of the road, and that pole able to talk to a data center somewhere. There's a lot of data being generated and those kinds of things. And so we created the Beta District as a place to be attractive to companies and innovators and startups and large companies that want to do work on smart mobility. And we built a whole infrastructure around that. And I know we're going to talk. About yeah, excited to learn more about, you know, all the work that's of course, happening I’m excited for our audience to learn more about it. The Beta District is sort of anchored by Ohio State University Center for Automotive Research and the Transportation Research Center, and we have the Smart Mobility Corridor, which is instrumented in between. There's exciting efforts happening in Dublin around sort of smart city initiatives. We can talk more about that as well as in Marysville. So, Eric, this region is exploding. Tell us a little bit about how you found yourself in this economic development and growth area. And tell us maybe a little bit about where we're sitting today. Yeah, I mean, economic development director since 2001. So I've been here about 25 years. Job is really about focusing on jobs, payroll, investment and how we share resources to to make bigger things happen. So we try to get everyone to work together to the public and private sector. Have been doing that for some time. And automotive is important to Ohio, but also to us because of Honda's invest in over $8 billion in Union County since they started here in 1979. And so in 2016, 2007, actually in 2015. I remember meeting with Doug the first time we met at Panera Bread down in Dublin and got a napkin out and literally drew up what we wanted to do on a napkin. That's absolutely true, truthful statement. And I didn't drink coffee at the time either. So that was that was problematic. But still, it was really good experience. And from that time, you know, Doug's explained what we are and what we've done so far. And it's exciting because it's really an opportunity to create a playground for our existing automotive companies along the corridor where they can test new technologies along this corridor in an open setting. So that's exciting, really exciting to see that happen. With that being said, we're sitting in AMIC the Automotive and Mobility and Innovation Center. This concept idea came from the Netherlands and from our visits to Japan and the Netherlands, where they had incubators and shared spacing for the triple helix. The private sector, the public sector and academia would all work together under the same umbrella. And so this concept came together. We applied for some state funding, received about $1.8 million and finished this 18,000 square foot facility. And now it's a shared spacing for innovative tech leaders, specifically in the IT. The automotive sector is really what our focus is, and that's what it is. And it's a great facility for companies wanting to emerge. They want to grow. It's good for startups. Yeah, it's kind of a nerve center. I think of, you know, the beta district, the goal being to convene governments who are trying to solve problems, whether it be Ohio Department of Transportation and Drive Ohio or and then innovators, right. All the young startups or established innovators who are making great advancements in innovation. I know Doug here, we're doing all sorts of work in advanced air mobility, connected, and Autonomous vehicles, commercial logistics. We have EASE here. Tell us about some of the things that are going on in the Beta district right now. Well, you know, first of all, I want to mention that we're kind of borrowed a term in terms of Beta District from the technology world. And when you build an innovation in your company or in your basement or in your garage, your and you test it, that's called alpha testing. When you take it out to the real world with real customers in a real community, they call that beta testing. And the beta district is is a term that denotes how companies, academicians, local governments can come into one space, have a conversation about what this particular innovation is, and find fertile ground within which you could. You could scale it, you could grow it. You could take it to market and the rest of the country, or indeed the rest of the world. And so we have logistics companies here. We have startups, we have software companies, we have AI startups. We have all sorts of different innovators that are thinking about interesting problems to be solved. And so it's not just local governments that have problems to be solved. Anyone who's going to the really societal problems we're very concerned about accidental death as caused through a vehicle interaction, road safety for construction workers, all sorts of vulnerable road users, but then also the logistics industry and getting our products back and forth. That causes there to be trucks on the road. Trucks are one part of a larger congestion question, and there's a safety question in terms of interacting with passenger vehicles. Those are all problems that need to be solved. Some of them are not from cities and states, but we all kind of know they need to be solved. Where can you do that if you don't have an institution that was created and supported by local governments in order to bring together the thinkers and the innovators and the investors and the testers in one place so that everyone can observe the winds and the losses, and we become the center of the universe when it comes to exporting those innovations as they've been created. And to market, viable products and services or. Correct. And you know, when when we've observed other innovation districts, innovation hubs, corridors or districts around the country or around the rest of the world, that's what they're doing. They have collected and convened different parts of the economic model, and they've supported that, because at the end of the day, the innovations are happening all the time. But if someone does not back them and give them a space and access to workforce and access to funding, then a lot of those ideas just remain great ideas. Right, right, right. Eric, you mentioned the Honda's investment in this area. This area is exploding right now. I think you mentioned recently something about the growth and housing here. There's been several hundred million of investment related to the Beta district here. This is one of the largest automotive manufacturing regions now in the US. Just tell me like what are all the things that are driving the growth here and who is participating in that growth? Yeah, I mean, 1979, September 10th, the first motorcycle, I think it was in Elsinore, Elsinore motorcycle and I don’t know the number on it, but actually rolled off the assembly line here in Marysville. So it was the first Japanese automaker to make an investment. Building a plant in the US was here in Marysville, Ohio. And a lot of times you go out of town, you say you’re from Marysville, they say Honda or they say Scotts, what are the two? But but we're blessed to have Honda. And in Ohio they've invested over 16 billion dollars since they’ve been here, half that's here in our county, and we're blessed. They have their manufacturing, the mayor's auto plant. They also have their research center here in just outside of Marysville as well. And it's attached to the TRC, which they actually own the land on the Transportation Research Center, which we'll probably talk about later, but it's a great independent testing facility as well. But yes, there's been a ton of development we have now. We have billions of dollars being invested by data centers that have looked at the area. Of course, data centers are popping in a lot of locations, but as social media and it becomes more needed or space for, for for storing that, that, that, that technology, this is a great place for them to be as well. So we have that going on. Housing wise, we are the fourth fastest growing housing market in the US. This last year we're 22nd, I think in the last five years. So we've had significant housing development. And what's even more remarkable with the people moving here, that's still not enough. And that's what's crazy. When you hear some of those numbers, we still need more housing as as housing costs have gone up. Yeah. You mentioned thousands of engineering and life sciences jobs here. Tell me a little bit about, like, the growth from jobs and from a business investment standpoint. Yeah, I think there's about 6000 jobs available between Dublin and Marysville today. So you can really have a job and be successful on top of that there, there are about 3000 engineering positions. That means there's a lot of research going on, a lot of manufacturing, but also a ton of research that's going on along this corridor and that's that's a great sector to have in your community. So we also have life sciences, about 7000 life science positions between Marysville and Dublin. So big significant job opportunity there as well. So I think today there's around 600 engineering positions that are unfilled. So if you're an engineer move here. You can work here be successful and and and find a home because there's a lot of housing being built as well. Doug, you mentioned the smart mobility corridor, the corridor the investment in sort of the fiber and the connectivity. And here we have not only are we growing this fast, second largest or one of the largest automotive production regions in the US, but we're also within what twenty mile radius of 60 different universities and colleges. Why is this? Why here? Why is it important that the Beta District and the future of innovation be developed here? It's a great question. I there's a lot of things that have happened in our history that we could point to as having directed some of where we are today, and people can argue as to how far back to go. But our legacy of innovation, any Ohioan is going to go to the Wright brothers and talk about, I mean, they were tinkerers in a bicycle shop, and they were they were finding new ways for those bicycles to be maintained and go faster. And they invented flight. Or, you know, they managed to get some of the first innovations to happen with air mobility. That has stayed with us. You have Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, you have the Advanced Air Mobility Center of Excellence in in the Dayton and Springfield area in that airport. It's not that far away from us. Then you have Honda and you have the automotive manufacturing legacy and Honda R&D of the Americas. You bring a lot of engineers into that space and that happens. We're also in the middle of the country. And so the Columbus region is a test market for the rest of the world. This is a place where foods and fashions and textiles and all sorts of different things get tested. So we have that legacy. It's in our culture to welcome companies here who are trying to figure out how to sell to a global market, and we've always been successful at that. The only barrier that or the biggest barrier maybe that we face is that we were not taking advantage of that. Honda has been here. It's up to us to maximize the opportunity to capitalize on the amount of engineers, automotive heritage and needs that we have. That's up to us to do. And so that's why I think it's why here, you you also have to give acknowledgment to, in addition to the 60 higher education institutions, The Ohio State University is a premier research university in the world. It is one of the best in the world. And so there are students and professors and research institutes associated with these universities that are generating engineers and other professionals ideas, new companies and funders. So we have to look at that. You know, they say, how do you build a great city? You know, will you build a great university and wait 50 years? And that's what we have between Honda, the University, the Wright brothers, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Transportation Research Center, we have a confluence of amazing gravity creating resources and assets and institutions that we have just taken the time to capitalize on. On that. Yeah, yeah. You and I were both at the OhioX Conference, future technology conference a few weeks ago, and that was one of the big things that many large companies and innovators, you know, reiterated that Ohio was the place to come because we know how to grow. We know how to innovate things. We know how to solve hard problems. And we're not afraid of hard work to get it done. And as you mentioned, it's an amazing test market here in Lextant's business. You know, we do customer research, you know, because in this area, because it's a great cross segmentation of the US, we have innovation. We have innovators here. We have aging population here. You know, it's the place where you can really come to make sure that your idea can be tested, embedded. And as you say this is a test and learn ecosystem here that we're building. Right? So if you want to solve hard problems and you want to vet ideas for future marketability or to solve human problems. This is the place. It is the place. Did you want to add to that? Well, no, I just I'm just happy to hear a Notre Dame graduate say, The Ohio State University. It's always a good thing to hear it. It's brings a smile. It's very respectful for absolutely no, I totally agree. And I think again, Lextant is a great example of a test market, Columbus has always been known as a test market area. And and I think Lextant, your your leadership and leadership here at AMIC as well as the work you do in human experience has been very advantageous to the region as a whole. And again, further, I think cements our place in the testing area. Yeah, it's a great point. I would say that Lextant is the embodiment of what we're talking about. The environment was already here and there are many companies like yours. You are actually doing this. You are testing things, innovations that other folks have done, and you're doing it here in Ohio. So I think you're living proof and your company of what we're describing. It's great to have, you know, Lextant merch in front of us too as well. It really adds to the podcast. Just props man! Yeah. Well thanks guys, I appreciate that. You know, I think when you look out there, I think over 50% of the vehicles on the roadway today are influenced by the companies like Lextant that are innovating in this area. You know, almost anything you touch in the mobility space, it's being impacted by the work here in Ohio. And that's pretty that's powerful. You know, we like to say Detroit comes to Ohio to interface. The folks at Michigan don't like that. But there's a saying. That one of our one of our where you are like, we have a it's so crowded up there and there's so many opportunities here. And I think getting the companies down here to understand that I think is, is key to our future. But our county commissioner, Glenn Irwin at a time when Honda located there, he came up with us saying and he said that in Union County we know how to grow corn, beans and cars. Yeah. And so in Ohio we have a strong it's in our DNA AG as well as manufacturing. And with manufacturing comes research. And so they're all tied together. So that's what makes I think Ohio, the Midwest very special when it comes to that, those types of sectors. Yeah. Yeah I mean Doug we've got like Triangle Park, you know, Boston. There's all these innovation hubs in around the US. Why why is this a special place to for the future of innovation. Yeah. You know as an Ohio and I have to say stick to your knitting. You know, we happen to be able to innovate around a number of different niches. But the automotive heritage is very deep and strong here. And so I think that's one reason why here, why Ohio? And as I look at some of the other innovation hubs and districts around the country, let alone around the world, they are capitalizing on something that was already happening there. And I think one of our challenges in Ohio is sometimes we might want to go and do something that's completely new to us, but nobody knows this stuff as well as we do. And so we already have a head start in terms of testing and evaluating new innovations. We're applying it to another area, and that is what I think makes us different. We are a natural where this is concerned. Now, mind you, you could hire professionals and build a great organization and make this happen, sort of force it to happen. But we are a natural with this. Our relationship with our universities, our collaborative culture, our our roads and our agriculture and that kind of heritage. It comes quite naturally to us. I am a big fan of Research Triangle Park, of of Boston, of Silicon Valley, of some of these other places around the world. And quite frankly, they are doing it right as well. Our task is not to just pull away from all of those, but to join the community of innovation hubs, support them, be supported by them. At the end of the day, a lot of this innovation makes the whole country stronger. It benefits our entire economy, and we want to grab some of the attention and the economic development benefits that come from that. But we do want to share with the rest of the world as well. Yeah. Doug, you mentioned, you know, all of the partners that we have Transportation Research Center, Drive Ohio Jobs Ohio, others. Eric, tell us about some of the significant innovation programs that are sort of active right now. You think about, say, automated trucking or logistics and and what companies are here doing that work? Yeah, I mean, we of course, Honda has always been a leader in this technology. And they've you know, I think their recent announcement where they're going to towards hybrids, you know, pivot. But they've also made an announcement that they want them all to be outfitted with connected vehicle technology, which I think is a huge win for us. They want to be the first OEM to have all their models outfitted, which I think makes our job easier if they want to test that type of technology right here. We're working closely with Honda now, and what we're calling a living lab and working on different opportunities and pilots that we may look at in the future to test smart city solutions. And and also in the same light, help them out evolving their technology. And I think that's a great example of that EASE logistics is teaming up with InRide in partnership with Drive Ohio Beta Districts involved in that. That's right across the street. And actually they're going to be using a product mover. I think it goes a whopping 12.5 miles an hour, but it's going to be moving products from one building to the next on an open road, not a busy road, but but an open road. And so we have a meeting. I think here in a couple of weeks with the police department to understand how that impacts them and talking about signage, those type of factors. But again, we've opened up the streets to allow that test to occur. Some communities would not even allow that to happen. I think Honda closed down the main intersection in Uptown Marysville, like 30 plus times when they were testing their smart intersection as well. No Traffic has tested. Panasonic's tested TNL, which is a Dutch company, has tested. So there's been a number of companies that have have done different testing pilots and so forth. And of course, with the Transportation Research Center, we have that closed setting and the the open setting along 33 build environments in Marysville and Dublin. You really have a playground of true playground with every piece of playground equipment on it to make things happen. Serious, a serious playground. Yes, yes yes, absolutely. Yeah. Doug, you know, what about maybe advanced air mobility and some of the other things that are going on? Yeah, I there's a company that Eric didn't mention who is resident here at the AMIC and it's called ParaWave. It's an interesting story about here's a company that is taking advantage of the air mobility. And when we say advanced air mobility we're talking about drones generally a lot of them use sensors and cameras. And those cameras are able to be the video sequences capable of being translated into data. And that data can be analyzed with artificial intelligence. And so this company is pretty advanced. They're coming out of Ohio State University. And that's interesting to me. You have companies designing technology that can inspect a road system. They can inspect for first responders. And some of the questions that they have that we can now see things from the sky. There is another company that tested here that inspects cracks in the road that may need maintenance. And that's a really big deal, because the way that the state knows what roads need maintenance tends to be from a human who drives the roads and looks with their eyeballs. And so this company has technology that inspects the roadway in an automated way. That's a savings. There's a safety issue for workers and those kinds of things. So we have a whole bunch of companies like that. We are convening logistics companies now to have conversations about how can the most advanced technologies be applied to the entire industry. EASE Logistics is a great partner, but there's another dozen or so companies that we want to work with to say, how can we apply these technologies so that we deal with queuing, we deal with safety for other vehicles. We may have connected and autonomous vehicles on the roadway driving next to large trucks. Yeah. How are we going to engage with each other? What are the technologies and the protocols and the and the policies that are going to happen there, and who's going to develop that and design it and share it with the world? We are uniquely equipped to engage private industry, engage the academic research and engage cities, townships, counties and state government uniquely able to do that. And so that's that's a direction that we intend to continue going in. I love the, you know, you both talked about level four. So EASE’s work in level four, not only for sort of short haul delivery and moving of goods, but they're also working on long haul truck platooning. We have the I-70 automated corridor where Kodiak is developing some pretty amazing advanced, fully autonomous trucks for commercial logistics. And as you mentioned, ParaWave, for example, is helping first responders get better situational awareness going into emergency situations, helping with search and rescue. And Eric, you even mentioned some of the some of the advances in like smart parking and smart intersections where we can create safety for vulnerable roadway users. And I love the autonomous roadway maintenance vehicle. In fact, I think DOT has one of those that they are now currently testing. But we had a demo here where we brought that company in and and we're excited about supporting their advancement as they look for for funding now. I think they just read recently got their next round of funding and and so we're trying to participate and help those companies advance their innovation work. Yeah. Could I comment on that also Please. Yeah. It's it's important for us to exist as a megaphone. In some senses. These advances and innovations are amazing to us, but it's hard for a new company or a young company to get attention. For an innovation like that. To get national attention, you have to build a platform within which organizations can come in and say, this is our innovation, this is who it helps. It's still very small. And in a in a world in which innovations are just flying by every day on your feed, it's like we invented this, we have this new technology. And so I think it's important for the Beta District to serve as a platform for innovations that we may not have even invented here. But if you are evaluating a mobility oriented innovation, you'd want to do it around other mobility oriented innovations. So as someone who is dealing with life safety or drone technology, you would want to stand next to them with your drone technology because we can focus the attention of the rest of the world on many different things because of our niche that we selected. Yeah. Eric, you spent a lot of time internationally, especially in Japan. Tell us a little bit about, you know, Doug mentions companies that are coming here to support innovation that's happening or to drive innovation that's happening. Tell me about your work internationally. Yeah. I mean, we we go to Japan every couple of years. We have 20 Japanese companies in Union County. And so it's very important to our future to realize foreign direct investment for, from from Japan. And so we go there and we visit with HQs and visit with their presidents in some cases and talk about their plans for the area and how they want to look at opportunities, new opportunities for growth, for expansion and how they support the automotive industry or how how they support Honda. And so we do that a lot. We do that in partnership with Logan County and Dublin, go on that trip as well as one Columbus. But again, it's really important to us to to support the that Japanese relationship. We have a sister city in Japan, Yorii-Machi, that we visit as well, and we have a student exchange. We actually have ten students from Marysville now in Japan visiting their sister city as we speak. Just sort of a cultural exchange. But again, with the Japanese, it's always relationship building and it's about getting to know someone. It's about spending time with them and getting to know them. And so that visit is very important for that relationship building. And I always comment that the Japanese culture is very similar to the Midwestern culture, where strong work ethic, that we have respect for other individuals, that we understand innovation and we understand manufacturing and so there’s a lot of similarities between the two cultures. And some of those companies that have set up shop right here at the AMIC right, I mean, they come here, they establish an address and innovate here and grow until they can maybe go out and expand locally here with their work. I mean, I mean, can you talk about some of those companies? Yeah. I mean, so HID is one of those companies that's that's located in here. We now have Neaton Corporation. They they have been in Marysville for a few years. They were looking to for new space. And they actually, I think have about six engineers working out of this facility starting tomorrow. So it's coming up very fast and they renovate, innovate or renovated an existing room. So we're excited to have them. They're a supplier and they have manufacturing facilities actually located in Eaton, Ohio, not far from here, an hour and a half from here. But but they'll be doing research. They'll be working closely with Honda, spending time at the Honda's facilities and using the space for, for. I guess it's really syncing you know Honda with their manufacturing. Yeah, yeah. Doug, you've been doing a lot of international travel too, what have you kind of learned from some of your international work. And how does it apply to the companies that are here that are working and investing? Yeah, one of the things that I've been seeing is the concept of an innovation ecosystem. And those are all over the world. I'm active with the Intelligent Community Forum, but this past few months, I went back to Taiwan on behalf of the Beta District, and in two weeks I'm going to the Netherlands and looking at places like Eindhoven that have developed the triple helix model to a very high capability, and just watching how other countries invest in their industrial sectors is very interesting. As a very focused private sector, only kind of a culture in the United States, we tend to certainly there are great grant programs from the federal government and state government, but we tend to allow individual innovation to take place, whereas in Europe and in Asia you tend to get a lot more investment on the government side. But nonetheless, the way that they coordinate the triple helix is the model that transcends different cultures in Europe and, you know, the global South and in Asia. And so I've been observing how organizations like ours convene companies, work with business leaders, develop groupings. We've actually modeled some of that as we've developed our business advisory group to collect many of the businesses that we've been talking about and get their opinions, get their perspectives, and get their leadership and direction. And that's something I see happening in other countries quite a lot. And we've shared a lot between Eindhoven and Helmond. They actually had a they have a smart corridor there as well. They have they that's where Philips Electronics is from. I was very popular over there because of the fact that my last name, although I have two ls, but but it's really a cool place. A lot of innovation that goes on there. What's remarkable about the Dutch in that area, there's no OEMs in that location, but their focus is really automotive, and really it's supplying the German car makers that are across the border, not far away, 30 or 40 miles away. But there's a huge, huge focus on automotive. This triple helix is something else. They focus and they do it right. And Philips Electronics has been a leader over there and building a lot of these innovation hubs. So it's an example of what what kind of what can happen from an innovation standpoint. Yeah we've shared ideas. When they come to the US they usually visit here. We visit. We see each other in Detroit for example, and visit. They've been here quite a few times. We've been there and visited them as well. But it's been a great partnership with with our friends and in the, in the Netherlands. Yeah, yeah. I must say there's a method to putting an impact into your economy that came from an innovation activity. And that's what we want to get better at. We're innovating already, but there's a bridge between some company came up with a great innovation and yet here is they located here. There's 100 new jobs. They're a growth company. They're creating wealth in the community. That's something that has to be actively pursued. Yeah. You mentioned Doug in the earlier call, some of the advancements in air mobility and even defense, like the drone technology that's coming out of Ukraine. Anduril’s made a huge investment here in central Ohio to develop next generation drones. We've got Dexa and and Dayton who's developing delivery drones. So amazing, you know, technology happening here that there's a certain amount of urgency, right. Like, you know what happens if we don't do this? If we if we take our foot off the gas pedal, you know, know, you know, that's it. Tell us about like there's urgency to doing this. That's a great point to bring up. We tend to have a positive outlook in terms of wouldn't it be cool if we figured out a new way to do this thing and it benefited us? But the question of what if we didn't come up with with new ways of manufacturing our drones, advancing our supply chain, figuring out how to have greater safety on our roadways? It's not just a nice to have. We're in competition with the rest of the world. Everybody is in competition with each other. There's just a difference between those cities and regions that know they're in competition and those that don't. And if you leave this country and just talk to people who are trying to advance in their country, they have a do or die kind of an attitude. Whereas I think sometimes we can be comfortable and say, maybe we can make a little bit more money. That is not what this race is about. Certainly warfare and the economy is going to depend on successful drone manufacturing programs. And we are fortunate enough to have a company like Anduril in our backyard. The question is, can we build the supply chain necessary for their growth? And other companies like Joby and Beta Industries and companies that are making battery technologies and electric vehicle charging and all of the things that are necessary because other countries are doing it. And it is an economic imperative for us to keep pace. And if we can pull ahead, that'd be even better. Yeah. I mean, all those companies that you mentioned are here, all that technology is being developed here. And some of those folks are on your advisory board for the Beta District, looking actively seeking opportunities to collaborate, partner, go after grant funds because all this work takes, you know, money to accomplish, you know, tell us tell us about that. I mean, you know, Eric, we here at the AMIC were developing the Mobility Innovation Innovators Network. It helps us bring together government organizations, folks from our advisory groups here at the Beta District academia to identify and solve challenges, problems that we need to solve in the future of mobility. But it's really to to find opportunities and to promote awareness of who always doing what so we can find the connective tissue and go fast. Tell us why, why that's important and how the AMIC, you know, is supporting that with, say, the automotive lab and some of the other things here. What's interesting, next week, Doug and I and another individual from the Beta District, we're going up to Detroit. We're going to be visiting with companies and we're going we're going to sell the Beta District. And what opportunities are here. And a lot of times when we meet the companies. What's interesting is we always debate back and forth who needs to come up with the solution or the problem for us to solve, and whether it's the private sector or the public sector. So bringing people together allows us to share what each of us are working on. And gee that could be a solution to our problem. And so we have to discover the problem first and then then find the solution. And that's really helpful. And getting people around the same table, I think you find that and find that out because you understand what they're doing, what you're doing, and you can compare notes and solve problems. And that's that's kind of where it's actually a chicken or the egg thing that we deal with on. And it's really kind of a challenge trying to trying to match those things sometimes. But meaning meaningful grant work happening here already, say, with Drive Ohio, which is its purpose, is to develop innovation around future mobility. And that's created lots of opportunities. And they're doing work not only in Marysville around sensing, but they're working on connected autonomous vehicles, looking at safe merging and all these kinds of things here. I'm pretty excited about the work that they're doing, but that that's all, you know, they're finding the resources, the talent, the capability and the partnerships to go after that work together. And I think it's, you know, this is a unique place to do it because the capability is here. And when you combine that with the funds and the problems to solve, then you can really, I think, break out and really move the needle on what the future could be like. I think a lot about, you know, innovation is about problem solving. But like you say, a lot of what we need to be doing is problem seeking, right? How do we understand what are the most meaningful things that go after? You know, I think about DOT's Safe Streets initiative. You know, what problems are meaningful, meaning are the most meaningful for us to solve. Think about micromobility hubs, improving people's ability to be mobile and get connected to economic opportunity. Or, you know, those underbanked who maybe need access to employment or goods or the like. There's tons of ways that we can provide public good through the kind of innovation that we're doing. Doug? I think a lot of those tons of ways come out of some pretty old school methods like communicating, gathering, actually bringing private companies, state agencies, cities and professors and researchers into a room and starting with very small problems. And one of our most recent business advisory group meetings, we started talking about data. And, you know, the more we talk about vehicles and truck platooning and self-driving cars and all of that stuff, it's pretty interesting sounding. But if we don't get our data definition, data protection, data privacy, data security and data sharing, we need openness that would allow a private company to get access to a government's data that is not a small or simple problem to address. And that's what I'm excited about, because when we get in a room, as Eric saying, when you talk to these companies or saying, what problems are you trying to solve? And we're saying to them, what problems are you trying to solve? And we're asking this question of each other, but when you put a problem on the table and this is how it happens, we'd like to get the data that's coming out of these vehicles. Can you get that for us? Well, why do you want it and what are you going to do with it? These are the simple, pedestrian conversations that eventually lead to what if we developed a platform that you would fund and we would get grant money fund, and that's how you build a project and a pilot. And that's just one tiny example. But someone has to collect and collate and lead on those things. And if you talk to the industry, they'll say, we're looking for you to lead. And so we have to express leadership where this is concerned, and then they will all come. You know, it's interesting there. There's kind of an adage, you know, like if you build it they'll come, you know, and I think we think about the work that we do. Just building a solution doesn't necessarily guarantee that you're solving the right problem or that it's pointed in the right direction. And I think about even our 33 smart corridor amazing technology. We spent a lot of money to instrument it, and I think we all see lots of opportunity for companies to get plugged into it. So we're learning how to to make it more accessible. And I know we use DSRC and we're now moving the V2X to like vehicle to, you know, infrastructure communication. But that's part of it right. Just just installing the fiber. It doesn't get it done right. It's how we really use the resources. And I think I love the fact that you're focused on how are we going to really open up, how do we throw the doors open, get the innovators in here, get the government's in to solve problems. I think that's got to be the way. If I could throw words out there, communication, thought leadership, narrative because people just can't follow the the script. We haven't given them a script. And I think a lot of companies, I think the public, I think everybody wants to wants to be on the same page, but someone has to actually create that page. Yeah. What do you think? I mean, what are the significant communication and coordination challenges that you guys are solving to try to get more visibility and more connective tissue, more energy behind all the work that you're doing here, because, you know, it's hard to get the momentum and keep it going. So what kind of things are do you think are most important for us to be doing to continue to lead? Well, I'll say I have a bunch of things to say about that, but it seems appropriate for me to talk about our conference. Yeah, we've we've created a conference called Ohio's Future of Mobility Conference and really desires to be a statewide kind of convening of professionals, students, business owners, government representatives, everyone who's interested and concerned about this so we can actually have conversations in in depth, deeply technical, deeply problem solving, raising questions and having serious conversations, new relationship building, new relationships. When we walk out of there, that's one way. And I don't want to. I don't want to sleep on the opportunity to convene professional meetings. Our conference is a lot smaller than the one in Detroit we're going to next week, but it is more purpose built so that companies and companies like yours and local governments and different people can actually get in a room together and say, this is our problem, and let's actually talk about it. We got rave reviews about it last year, and that's one way I think that we can communicate. You can get a lot done in a single day. And so ours is coming up on August 19th. I want to throw that out there. And that is one of the biggest methods of us being able to have industry conversation with government conversation with researcher conversations. Yeah, Doug, thanks for bringing that up. And Eric, we're going to host that right here at the AMIC, We're hosting the our second now annual Smart Mobility Conference for Ohio. And we're developing all of the demonstrators that are going to be here. We're going to be able to demonstrate the L4 Einride vehicle. We're looking at the automated vehicle repair demonstration. And as well as we're going to have a ton of amazing content here from experts from all over the area who are developing next generation here. You know, how do you see the sort of fitting into that kind of work? And that convening of innovators and government. Leaders is exactly what it what it's here for. And I think creating that environment where people can share ideas and thoughts is so important. And, you know, the companies that want to test new technologies, a great form for them to learn, learn from others and help grow their businesses as well. I will comment to another way. We the previous questions. How you coordinate, how you promote the things you're working next week. We're not only meeting with companies at ITS America. We'll call upon the Consul General, Japan in Detroit, and we'll have lunch with him and talk about the importance of Japanese companies and investment in Ohio. Investment in in the Beta District. We'll have that conversation, have lunch with him. We also will be meeting with Minebea Mitsumi which is actually a Marysville company that is now doing smart street lighting in Marysville. And we had a meeting here about a month ago with them to talk about how we promote smart street lighting to other communities, other cities in Ohio to save on electricity, for example. So that's a good example, something tested here for the first time in North America that they now want to market to other cities in Ohio for a new technology. Yeah, that's a great demonstrator, you know. And it was great to have them here. And I was just impressed with the how large that company. It's such a large international company. And they're investing here because there's an opportunity for them to look at how they're sensing technology can create economic, you know, benefit for cities and municipalities and safety benefits for pedestrians and volatile roadway users. You know, it's a great example of. It, that it is that company, what the companies like General Electric, we've been to their headquarters and they have this experience center where they just bring in students every day and they go they have different stations of all the different products they make and how their products actually make that their products make the bigger product better because they provide parts to it. And they show how those everything works together. And it's really, really a cool experience center for the students to learn more and also get excited about our career path. Yeah, we had the Voinovich Academy, which is a municipal leaders sort of training academy run by the Ohio University, and we had them here recently. We had them up at TRC and here. Like, why is it important for us to to be working with future municipalities and government leaders in that capacity? I think it's great to first and foremost, we're creating a market probably for some of our our for some of our, our private sector companies. But also, I think the collaborative effort between the municipalities to save money, save tax dollars overall to improve safety, which is key to all of this, is always a win win for another municipality. So if we can share what we've learned with them, it's a benefit to everyone. A bigger picture. And I would add that the final step, if you're a company, you come up with an innovation. It's a product or service. Final step is for you to scale that, make a bunch of money, be successful company. Good for you. The final step for us is to scale on the public sector side. We have to work with other communities. We want all of Ohio to be able to do what we're doing. We like a two year head start on them, but after that, you know, it's important that we don't hide the methods of forming these relationships, making these innovations. And so, you know, we want to share with the region, the small region that we are needs to grow into. A slightly larger region needs to grow into the entire state. Yeah. So you guys have spearheaded an amazing innovation engine here. If if there are companies out there or individuals who want to get involved with that. How do they how do they do that? So first of all, you want to come to this conference. Yeah, yeah for sure. There are a lot of companies that have a tenuous kind of connection with us. At minimum, come to the Ohio's Future of Mobility Conference because you're going to get connected with us. The other thing is, is that you want to become a member of the business advisory group of the Beta District, and we can, you know, make contact with me, and we would invite you and you get that kind of information there. Also, our partners are active in this space as well. So we want you to have a direct relationship with the Beta District. But you can also have a relationship with Transportation Research Center, with the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission and with Drive Ohio. I encourage companies to have a relationship both with us on a local level, and with Drive Ohio in their statewide purview of of some of those things as well. I will let Eric talk about becoming a member of the AMIC and different things like that as well. But but I think the business advisory group is the fastest and most effective way to become engaged with the Beta District. If you are a private sector business. I also want to say that we're a council of governments. Our meetings are public meetings. So you could come to one of our meetings and and engage with any of us as well. Yeah. I mean, I you know, as AI continues to to develop over time, some people are scared of it, but but others look at it as an opportunity. And I think if you're a company that has maybe a smart city solution, a home solution, a safety solution, we're here to have an open environment for them to test, and we are open to that. And I think that's the key. A lot of communities would not allow live testing or open testing on roadways. So I think we have an open environment. We work collectively and collaboratively together. We try to make bigger things happen and so we can put all that. On top of that. You have Dublin and Marysville are investing tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure as we speak, building business parks. So if a company wants to expand, wants to have an opportunity for those engineering positions or other positions, this is a great place where you can grow a business as well. Yeah. And also, Chris, we're small enough here that we can have a personal relationship with anyone who calls. If you're a startup, you're going to get an introduction to a larger company. If you're seeking investment, you're going to get introductions to investors. If you're a big company, you're going to get an introduction to smaller companies and other partnerships and those kinds of things. So this is kind of a small enough environment that everyone can get to know everyone. And we really want to encourage people to to come and offer your availability and your relationship to others, because ultimately that's how we win as a region. Yeah. You know, I think that's exactly why the AMIC is growing it's mobility innovators network to create that connective tissue. Not only can we be more regularly communicating about what's happening and what the opportunities are, but you can promote your company, your brand. We have infrastructure here to support your growth. If you need training space or innovation space or conference space, Doug, you, you know or if you you need access to our GPS repeaters or EV charging stations or whatever, that that's all here and ready to support, you know, the work that's happening. So I'm excited about that. I see that as an extension of your business advisory group, as a way for us to create and connect people to economic opportunity, to innovation and research and development opportunity, and to to talented, you know, labor, right to, you know, associates that can then it can help you. Because I think about the just the amazing innovation talent that's here just in the region. You know, if you need people to develop your next generation product, it's a great place to be to do it. And there's no if everybody needs it. And part of that workforce and talent cultivation is of primary importance to us. And so we're not just identifying it. We are actively supporting the development of local talent to fulfill roles that don't exist yet. We're getting ready. Yeah. Doug, can you talk a little bit more about your manufacturing initiative that that you've been developing here? Yeah. So we are focused on a microelectronics component manufacturing studio, and that's a big mouthful to really deal with the fact that microelectronics are not the big AI chips. They are smaller, simpler parts, which unfortunately, we have not been manufacturing in the United States for a while. Come to find out that some of the same microelectronics that may go into a vehicle, a passenger vehicle, could be very easily changed into a microelectronic that could go into a drone, or into a industrial robot, or into a low Earth orbit satellite microelectronics. It's a critical strategic manufacturing capability that we need to get back on as a country. That being said, we feel that it is our role as the Beta District to work with companies to make the kinds of manufacturing changes that would allow them to get into an entirely new supply chain. That's good for our local companies, because they can build up more business where they are. And it's also good for the air mobility companies and space companies and industrial robot companies who are already setting up shop here and may not have matured their supply chain yet. So we want to catch these supply chains when they're immature, and folks are sourcing from lots of different places and consolidate and streamline those supply chains in one of the places that we do it the best in the world. We are excellent at supply chain here in central Ohio. We need to get good at it for drones, for space, for industrial robots, and continue for all of the different things that go into smart mobility. All use microelectronics. And if you are a company that wants to make that pivot, you're going to need help. And I think that it's a good thing for an innovation ecosystem like the Beta District to be that source of help. Yeah. So we have the talent, the capability to help people develop the next generation micro electronics, embedded systems and the like. Right. And not necessarily us in the Beta district. But there are other companies here. This is a matter of convening and connection and relationships between company A and company B, and between the two of them, they can create an economic benefit for both sides and for us as city of Dublin, city of Marysville, Union County. Yeah it's amazing guys, you guys have really developed something pretty special here. And I know you haven't done it alone. You've had a lot of partnerships and support, but I think your leadership is evident. I think there's a ton of opportunity. It's never been a better time to be focused on connected, intelligent, automated kind of future. And, you know, you think about, as you say, the air mobility, commercial logistics, passenger mobility, public transit. This all happening here I'm excited about what the future will bring So thanks so much for being here with us today. Any any last comments you guys want to share with our audience? We just. Appreciate your partnership and Lextant and what you guys have done to support the Beta District and the work we've done, and especially so we appreciate your leadership, Chris, and your team, and all the time and effort you guys put in into the area. Thanks, Eric. Thanks, Doug. Appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, one of the things of course, I think we're all passionate about is how are the things that we're developing really going to be adopted and used by the communities, the people that it's meant to serve? And so it's important for us to be human centered about all of it. So I'm excited to see that work happening to as a test and learn ecosystem. We have the opportunity not only to prove out the technology, but make sure it's usable, useful, and desirable. Right? It does things that people need. It can be learned and adopted. I know Drive Ohio's been looking at sort of how we affect policy. You know, how we think about how we're going to adopt level 3 or level 4 automated technology in a safe and effective way that gives more, more mobility to more of our population. And I think, you know, we're thinking too, here about the policy, right, how we're going to shape how Ohio addresses innovation, where to invest in innovation. So again, thanks for sharing all the great work that's happening here. If you have more questions for Eric or Doug, I hope you'll reach out. SeeTheBetaDistrict.com is Doug's website. You can get more information and get in contact with him. You can go to AMICOhio.org and learn more about the Automotive and Mobility Innovation Center and the Innovation Mobility network that we're building here. We hope that you come and get plugged in and participate, because this is a place where future innovation is happening. So thanks again for joining us on Seriously Curious. This is a podcast about all things human centered for business strategy and design. I'm Chris Rockwell. If you want to know more about how to make your products and services. How do you accelerate your work in a human centered way to create greater differentiation, adoption, and experience for your company? Contact Lextant.com or contact me on LinkedIn. I think you can reach any of us on LinkedIn to learn more about these things. Stay tuned for future episodes. I'm excited. We're going to get into the future of autonomous, smart and connected mobility. Continue to dive into that, but also the future of health care. You know, some of the things that were connecting now, even drug delivery through drones and other kinds of things. And then we're also looking at the future of multimodal retail, which is coming up here in future episode. So I hope that you'll join us. So thanks again. Come back for our next episode of Seriously Curious.