By David Ortiz
PBN Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE – The R.I. Economic Development Corporation has launched an Internet portal to help grow the state’s information technology and digital media sector.
The new Web site, RINexus.com, contains job boards, company profiles, daily Web logs and other features, and is meant to act as an online hub for information sharing and community building among IT and digital media professionals and students both within and beyond Rhode Island, according to Jack Templin, a consultant hired by the EDC to lead the project.
“We want to create a lot more cross-pollination between these existing groups, existing individuals,” Templin said. “This is a place where we’re really looking to get more people together – get more of industry onto the campus, more of the students into industry, and everything in between.”
The effort is part of the EDC’s work to bolster the state’s economy by growing its IT, digital media and other high-wage “innovation” sectors driven by technology. Information technology and digital media jobs in Rhode Island pay an average annual wage just shy of $70,000, and there are currently more than 15,000 IT and digital media jobs in the state accounting for about $1 billion in payroll, according to the EDC.
“If we’re going to build a 21st-century innovation economy, what does that mean?” said Andy Cutler, an EDC spokesman. “For the EDC I think it’s pretty clear – building an infrastructure where you’re attracting and retaining high-wage jobs, plain and simple.”
In particular, economic development officials believe Rhode Island should capitalize on its small size by seeking to build an IT and digital media cluster that brands the entire state as a national hub for the sector, Templin and Cutler both said.
The RINexus Web portal is free, but users must register and set up a profile, Templin said.
A key feature of RINexus.com is a “marketplace” page where businesses, organizations and individuals can post listings for full- and part-time jobs, contract work, internships, office space, funding opportunities and other resources.
The Web site also features daily blogs written by Templin and other technology experts in the state on subjects of interest to the state’s IT and digital media sector, and a forum page where users can have online conversations of interest to the community.
A news page lists daily news stories and news releases from local organizations, sometimes linking to stories published in the Providence Business News, Mass. High Tech, the Providence Journal and other newspapers and magazines. A few hundred articles already are archived on the site, and more will be added every day.
RINexus.com also has a directory of more than 200 IT and digital media businesses in the state, from startups to Fortune 500 companies. The directory will also include organizations and academic institutions that contribute to the state’s IT and digital media community, but will focus on the IT and digital media companies themselves rather than vendors or companies that provide supportive services, Templin said.
The Web site also features an interactive map that shows where every IT and digital media business in the state is located; the map can be drilled into for further information and news about the companies on other parts of the site.
Another feature of the site is a community calendar that tracks IT and digital media-related events as well as entrepreneurship and business events of interest to the community. The calendar is enabled with iCal, so that subscribers can view it from their existing digital calendars.
The EDC unveiled RINexus last night at the monthly meeting of Providence Geeks, at AS220. An organization co-founded last year by Templin, the Geeks host social and networking events that have quickly become popular among local technology professionals.
Next, Templin will take RINexus on a “road show” to personally introduce the Web portal to the state’s IT and digital media community, starting with faculty and students at colleges and universities throughout the state and eventually bringing it to cafés and coffee shops where techies are known to gather, he said.
“We think that knowledge about what’s going on in the state is absolutely key,” Templin said, discussing the role that RINexus should play. “We’re providing a platform for people to create connections, meet one another and communicate.”
