Bioworks' workforce development lauded for innovation

Memphis Business Journal
June 25, 2007

Memphis Bioworks Foundation has been awarded the 2007 Innovator Award for Tennessee from the Southern Growth Policies Board.

Missouri governor Matt Blunt presented the award to Bioworks president Steven J. Bares at the opening session of the Southern Workforce Summit conference earlier this month.

Awards were given to organizations that create an enterprising and globally competitive workforce in the South. The conference focused on strategies for building a competitive, entrepreneurial workforce to support the South's economic development initiatives in high-wage, high-growth industries.

Awards were presented to one organization in each of the board's member states -- Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico -- and were chosen from among more than 200 regional nominations.

The Southern Growth Policies Board is a regional public policy think tank based in Research Triangle Park, N.C. The board develops and advances economic development policies by providing a forum for collaboration among a diverse cross-section of the region's governors, legislators, business and academic leaders and the economic and community development sectors.

The Memphis Bioworks Foundation was established in 2001 to position Memphis as a center for the research, development and commercialization of biomedical technology. The foundation is developing facilities and resources for bio-science businesses, researchers and entrepreneurs on a 10-acre research park and a dedicated biotechnology research facility. A regional biocontainment lab is already under construction.

The Memphis Bioworks Foundation also co-founded Tennessee's first charter school, the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering, which currently enrolls 550 students in grades six through 10.