Upstate Venture Connect (UVC) is being built on the premise of increasing collaboration between existing institutions, resources and the region’s world class human assets. The organization will strengthen partnerships between Upstate higher education institutions and community based entrepreneur support programs. It will also embark on focused outreach to connect college alumni and émigrés with those seeking to build new companies Upstate. A key element of this effort is Vconnect, a highly interactive web-based platform to create a mega community committed to growing private capital backed businesses across the Upstate region. An informational website is now active at http://www.upstateventureconnect.org
Babinec was CEO of TriNet, a Silicon Valley company he founded in 1988, and moved his family back to his Upstate hometown of Little Falls in 1999, spending the next ten years commuting from Upstate to Silicon Valley while still running TriNet. He has been recognized as a recipient of the Silicon Valley Entrepreneur of the Year Award and is well known in emerging technology and venture capital circles throughout the country. His vision for creating a platform for dynamic collaboration in Upstate was first laid out in a keynote speech Babinec delivered at the Fall 2007 “I Live New York” conference in Cortland, NY. Over the following 18 months, he gathered input from both private and public sector resources, and built an advisory board representing incubation experts, investors and early stage entrepreneurs from Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Ithaca.
“I am invigorated by the challenge that lays ahead in building a substantial organization,” said Babinec.
