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Rural Areas Need Jobs Program,Too

Ohio’s Third Frontier Commission has invested $2 billion in the state since 2003. This year, the statewide economic development initiative approved approximately $77 million to support tech startups. The lion’s share of that money is going to CincyTech in Cincinnati, JumpStart in Cleveland and Rev1 Ventures in Columbus.

According to the news site Axios, the flurry of venture capital activity has meant an impressive crop of start-ups, such as Mobikit, a data infrastructure platform for connected vehicles, or Branch, which lets consumers bundle low-cost home and car insurance.

In fact, the founder of Branch said he was unable to find anything that made him feel comfortable starting his business in San Francisco, so he relocated five workers to Columbus (and has now hired another five).

And Axios reported Mobikit’s founder cited being three hours away from the auto-focused hubs of Detroit and Pittsburgh, and the ability to recruit recent OSU grads as making Columbus “ideal.”

Third Frontier says its mission is to make the Buckeye State the destination for technology entrepreneurs. “This robust network of resources helps take advanced ideas and turn them into new technology businesses,” according to its website.

It sounds as though fantastic things are happening because of the effort.

Now let’s move some of those resources and initiatives to rural Ohio, where there is a will, but not always enough money to find a way.

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