Beehives are physical, innovation spaces on a university campus or in a publicly accessible facility. They provide equipment, talent, and opportunities for collaboration between institutions and entrepreneurs. The substance of a Beehive is the student-driven interactions that take place between the entrpreneur and university or other institution. Students must be properly matched with the entrepreneur to solve the problem at hand. Those problems include prototype and product development, branding and communications, business intelligence and modeling, market analysis, cybersecurity, engineering, and information technology.
The Beehive concept has grown out of the Ignite Erie Industry+University initiative. This is important because the communications platform built by the Ignite Erie partners is central to Beehive success. In other words, the Beehives may exist at separate insitutions, but they are required to communicate with the Ignite Erie collaborative. Civic-minded collaboration among institutions on bahalf of the entrepreneur is central to the model developed by those participating stakeholders.
Another distinguishing feature of the Beehive approach is their focus on an area of strength. Every institution has a niche strength that can be aggregated into one network to transform the region's economic development system. Beehives have the potential to do that. However, the challenge will be offering a product or service that the entrepreneur wants and needs.
