SILICON
FOREST
HUFFINGTON
11.10.13
On this morning, [Worsley] is working on a new title they
are calling the “skull game,” in which a skeleton wanders
around trying to recover his treasure. Eight empty cans of Red
Bull are lined up on his desk, alongside three unopened ones.
University of North CarolinaChapel Hill, Duke, and Wake
Forest have played a foundational role in the state’s thriving
biotechnology industry, much as
M.I.T. has crystallized growth in
the Boston area.
Portland has Oregon Health
Sciences University, a respected
institution, but it is narrowly focused on its area of expertise.
Beyond that, no campus fits the
bill. So city leaders have found
themselves having to work harder
to catalyze startup culture. In essence, they need to sell the community as a desirable place to
wake up in the morning, and draw
a contrast to the other places
startups tend to proliferate.
Quinton, the development commission chief, cannot resist an implicit dig at northern California, a
place now known just as much for
its temperate weather as it is for
epic traffic jams and seven-figure
prices for modest homes.
“Why not start a business in a
place you’d really like to live as
opposed to Silicon Valley?” Quinton says (assiduously avoiding the
fact that it rains approximately
400 days a year in his town). “Everybody gets the Portland story.”
OVERWHELMING RESPONSE
As the commission designed the
contest, it had to settle one question: Where in Produce Row
would the new companies land?
Commission staff began hunting
for a space, one with room for all
six winners. They settled on the
ground floor of the two-story former factory on a major thoroughfare, Grand Avenue. Aside from its
previous life as a campaign office
and before that a rug dealership,
it had been vacant for most of the
previous two decades.
The building’s owner, Lori
Livingston, immediately saw