A couple of weeks remain in the Knight Cities Challenge, a contest offering money for ideas about improving Tallahassee (and 25 other cities). One local group has submitted a proposal for showcasing and growing Tallahassee’s tech-startup culture.
On Wednesday morning, the founders of Innovation District sit in the red-walled conference room at the Domi Station business incubator.
“My name is Ryan Kopinsky, and I’m a Ph.D. candidate in robotics at Florida State," he says.
He sits next to Lucas Lindsey: "I’m the community manager here at Domi Ventures."
Over the past few months, Kopinsky and Lindsey have been working to rebrand the Gaines Street area as Innovation District. So far they have a website and modest social media following. But Kopinsky says, with money from the Knight Foundation, he envisions a polished web platform telling Tallahassee’s story to the world.
"And hopefully what that will do is it will show our young citizens—most of them are recent university grads—that Tallahassee’s a great place to live and work, and hopefully it will retain some of the talent that Tallahassee’s usually exporting," he says.
And they hope the spotlight helps attract investors in the Domi Station startups.
The Knight Cities Challenge is accepting online applications through November 14.
