From the Reporters
Ryan McCarthy

The CED Venture Conference

 

I spent yesterday meeting with really interesting entrepreneurs and investors at the Council for Entrepreneurial Development's Venture 2007 Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina. CED is a really top-notch regional development organization that supports entreprenuerialim in the Research Triangle Park region in North Carolina. Judging by recent success in ____ I'd say they're doing an excellent job.

Featuring angel investors, venture capitalists and a host of seriously impressive entrepreneurs the conference was held on the edge of Duke University's campus in Raleigh.

The prevailing sentiment in North Carolina's entrepreneurial and investor community -- which was filled with more than a few ex-Silicon Valley veterans, I might add -- was a feeling of community, positivity and support. Call it Southern charm or just plain good people, but you have to wonder whether or not North Carolina's success in fostering the type of innovative, entrepreneurial culture is tied to the staggering degree to which people there seem eager to work together.