Arizona Center For Innovation Hosts First Accelerator Summit

Tech Launch Arizona is reaching out into the community this summer. We have our After5 Mixer, upcoming news about our partnership with the City and this week's Accelerator Summit. The first Southern Arizona incubator-accelerator-coworking space summit was held June 18 at the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship, led by the Arizona Center for Innovation (AzCI) and co-hosted by Startup Tucson. AzCI is an integral part of TLA's efforts to accelerate UA technology start-ups.

The intent of the summit was to bring together the various related organizations for introductions and to discuss opportunities to partner and further develop our local entrepreneurial ecosystem. We had 13 Tucson organizations participate with about 25 people in the room: AzCI, AzTera, Connect Coworking, Desert Angels, Gangplank, Hive, Lead Local, Maker House (and ArtFire), McGuire, Pirate Mansion, Spoke6 (and Graphic Fusion Design), Startup Tucson, and Xerocraft.

From within this burgeoning entrepreneurship ecosystem, TLA has the Roadmap goal of annually assisting 10 start-ups take root in the City, all of them based upon UA developed technology.