Brad Feld is an unexpected “guest” at yesterday’s Techstars town hall
An unexpected “guest” during yesterday’s town hall to unveil the Techstars assessment of the Knoxville region’s innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem was one of the nation’s start-up gurus.
Brad Feld is a Co-Founder of Techstars and the author of several books including Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City (2012) and The Startup Community Way: Evolving an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (2020).
In introducing him, Thomas Zacharia, Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), referenced a weeklong visit by Feld and his wife to Knoxville nearly two years ago. The multi-marathon runner was here to compete in the 2019 Covenant Health Knoxville Marathon, and Zacharia invited Feld to visit the lab and also hosted a dinner for him with selected community leaders.
One might say that the dinner and vibrant conversation was the catalyst for the relationship that now exists between Techstars and the three sponsors of the assessment and follow-on activities – ORNL, TVA and the University of Tennessee.
“The week we had in Knoxville was powerful,” Feld told the slightly more than 100 people who viewed the town hall. “There is such amazing raw material in Knoxville,” a point that Zacharia emphasized in his introduction when he noted that Feld was aware of Knoxville and ORNL but was not familiar before the visit with how closely connected the two are from a geographic perspective.
“I did not know that Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Lab were one area,” Zacharia quoted Feld as saying during the visit.
For his part, Feld praised what he heard yesterday. “The tone of the call, the conversation, and the journey you are going on is awesome,” he told the attendees, citing in particular what he heard about the commitment to collaboration across the community and to inclusiveness.
Drawing on another point Zacharia made in his introduction, Feld noted the attractiveness of the region in line with two other locations where he has residences – Boulder, CO and Alaska. “If I’m working from my house (as a result of COVID-19), where do I actually want to live? That’s a real benefit for Knoxville,” he said.
