Lowcountry IT Update - Tom Wilson

Lowcountry IT 2014 Silicon Harbor

•  Competitive •  Incentives •  Impact •  Education •  Public Policy •  Update

Competitive •  Regionally? •  Nationally? •  Why?

Incentives •  People like working with good people •  Developers like to make a difference •  Distributed workforce •  Quality of Life •  Success is contagious

Impact •  #79 in Education •  #61 in Best Places for Doing Business and

Careers •  #28 in Job Growth •  Major Industries: Technology, Tourism http://www.forbes.com/places/sc/charleston/

Education •  Continuing Education (CodeCamp, IronYard,

Apprenticeships, Hackathons, Workshops, Conferences)

•  College - Open Advisory Committees, Professional Teachers, Curriculum Changes

•  K - 12 - Google CSFirst, Code.org, Charleston CoderDojo Meetups

Public Policy Changes •  Streamline the process for a SC Business to

raise up to $1MM in a year •  Allow SC Businesses to solicit investment

from SC individuals •  Grant Non-Accredited Investors in SC the

ability to invest up to $10k per year in a SC business offering

Potential Outcomes If only 10% of the 4.7MM people in SC invested $1,000 a year in a SC Company through this exemption.....it's a $470,000,000 per year injection of capital to SC Companies that likely was going to a company headquartered outside the State.

-- John Osborne Funding Charleston

Update •  Some of the fastest growing IT Companies •  IT in diversity of verticals •  Large move to open source •  Community Growth •  Igniting Startups •  Increase Funding

Thank You