Technical.ly has selected North Dakota as our first market in the Great Plains.
We’ll begin reporting this fall on high-growth entrepreneurship, STEM workforce trends and the local effects of technology and science there. It will be our eighth state of coverage.
With just 800,000 residents, the state’s population is ten times smaller than similarly sized Washington state. Why then is the country’s largest and longest-running local news organization focused on the sciences, technology and entrepreneurship expanding there?
As part of our role as a national platform for local innovation ecosystem storytelling, Technical.ly sought a state that led in an emerging industry, had ecosystem-style economic development and needed storytelling support for narrative change and coalition building.
Our news organization’s vision is that innovation can happen anywhere. North Dakota’s is a story we want to be part of.
North Dakota fits the bill: Energy and agriculture sectors give it one of the highest GDP per capita rates in the country and result in consistently high workforce participation. North Dakota State University and University of North Dakota are two of the nation’s top 150 research universities. The state has widespread high-speed broadband internet; rural North Dakotans are more likely to have gigabit fiber than the average urban American. The state is home to culturally significant tribal communities, and its cities have midwestern charm.
But momentum is needed. A small population state in a sparsely populated region means local talent and capital access are among the country’s lowest. It’s leaking too: Most college graduates leave. With low rates of invention, new firm creation and capital access, according to EIG’s state dynamism analysis, North Dakota’s economy needs revitalization.
Our news organization’s vision is that innovation can happen anywhere. To reach that vision, our mission is to fill news and information gaps that make science, technology and entrepreneurship more accessible and better connected.
North Dakota’s is a story we want to be part of.
Since 2009, we’ve grown into the country’s largest and longest-running news organization focused on state and local technology and entrepreneurship. We’ve expanded from the Mid-Atlantic into the South with Louisiana, and now we’re heading to a state that sits at the seam between the Midwest and the Mountain West.
Among the state’s most active groups right now is the National Science Foundation-backed ND AgTech Engine, a research coalition charged with advancing and commercializing innovations that address food security. It’s part of an elite cohort of big research bets on critical innovation, and among the financial underwriters of our North Dakota expansion. As always, our financial underwriters have no editorial oversight. They help support where we report, but not what we report.
What coverage will look like
We’re hiring a full-time, North Dakota–based journalist. Working with a team of statewide contributors, their remit will span high-growth entrepreneurship, STEM workforce trends and the local effects of technology and science across the communities of the state, including the region’s tribal communities.
We’ll cover the wins, the journeys, the opportunities and the confrontations, and challenge the region to reach for greater economic dynamism — the same independent, useful, grounded (and sometimes uncomfortable) reporting our readers in other markets expect.
Our professional storytelling will help develop an identity for North Dakota’s innovation economy and hold it to a higher standard.
If you’re building in North Dakota — founder, researcher, investor, inventor, mentor, ecosystem organizer — we want to hear from you. Reach us at [email protected].
Our next steps are forming a North Dakota Readers Council to help guide early coverage, and onboarding our new team member. Stories start publishing this fall. Join the newsletter list to stay up to date on everything ND innovation.
