N2TEC Mission

To raise the level of innovation diffusion and economic prosperity across the United States. More specifically, N2TEC’s objectives are to

• Develop and implement educational and research programming that creates a National Standard for Excellence and Best Practices in Technology Entrepreneurship educational programs and commercialization research and practice.
• To encourage and support technology-based development, especially in economically distressed communities and regions of the U.S.
• Develop a global network of strategic partners that provides resources and expertise to facilitate technology development, entrepreneurial education, and commercialization.
• Create a community of practice dedicated to entrepreneurship and technology commercialization.

N2TEC Story

Nearly 80% of the United States does not share in the enormous wealth creation generated by technology innovation and entrepreneurship. The vast majority of the country is struggling to find ways to generate new jobs, new companies, and economic prosperity. Today about 40% of states fall into the EPSCOR category, meaning that they don’t receive the levels of research funding that lead to technology commercialization and economic development that their non-EPSCOR counterparts do.

We believe that by transferring viable technologies, commercialization expertise, and resources from economically rich areas to communities that meet the N2TEC standards for readiness, we can create new companies, new jobs, and bring economic prosperity to the underserved regions of the country while positively affecting the economic health of the U.S. as a whole.

N2TEC began as an NSF-PFI funded initiative with the goal of building a collaboration environment that would encourage the sharing of resources and expertise without regard to geographic boundaries. With the completion of the N2TEC Commercialization Portal, N2TEC has moved into the second phase, the establishment of a national nonprofit institute whose purpose is to raise the level of innovation diffusion and wealth creation in America through technology innovation and entrepreneurship. N2TEC will be the premier trusted authority on effective commercialization practices and the development of High Performance Communities (see below). We accomplish this purpose in a number of ways:

• Building a community of practice dedicated to innovation and technology commercialization practices that is virtually linked within an enterprise level collaboration space – the N2TEC Commercialization Portal

• Partnering with organizations that can contribute expertise and resources to support our effort.

• Providing resources and educational opportunities to facilitate effective innovation, technology commercialization, and entrepreneurship

• Developing best practices, standards of excellence, and models for communities and others to emulate

One of the primary missions of the institute is to encourage and develop High Performance Communities (HPCs) based on Seven High-Performance Community Action Strategies: connectivity, entrepreneurship, job growth from within, global awareness, industry clusters, inter-firm collaboration, and regional collaboration. An HPC is a place where individuals, companies, organizations, and government agencies are enabled to be fast, flexible, focused, networked, customized, and global. Completing the HPC Index provides a snapshot of a community’s readiness for innovation and technology-based development.