Thank you, thank you.

I appreciate you.

We continue with more health care news.

Now, the city of Las Vegas is accepting proposals for a biosciences incubator lab, and the winner will get $10 million.

What the city stands to get in return for that?

Nevada Week recently spoke with Jason Morgan, CEO of Carrot Net.

That's the company managing this online competition.

And we also spoke with Brian Knutson, Las Vegas mayor pro tem, also the city councilman of Ward one, home of the Las Vegas Medical District, which is where this future lab will be located.

Here's how he described this multimillion dollar venture, known as the Bio Health Innovation Challenge.

So the best way for me to explain it is talking about my family.

I've been here for 20 years.

I'm fortunate enough to be a councilman in Las Vegas, and I have the experience of having a couple of very, very sick children when they're younger.

I spend a lot of time in the hospital.

Great hospitals here, great doctors, great nurses.

But health care here is significantly further behind where it is in other parts of the country.

So when I talk to doctors and nurses in the middle of the night, and I have a lot of exposure now to the health care field, what they tell me is missing in Nevada is expanded bio health research lab space.

Those really great doctors and the students that are associated with them want to do research.

And we don't have that here.

So here we come to a bio health innovation challenge, making sure the rest of the world knows that Las Vegas is a place to relocate or to build a business here.

And we want you here in Las Vegas.

Jason, you said you have done this in the past.

What work have you done here in Las Vegas?

You also said that you have done this kind of competition process for NASA, even.

Absolutely.

So about a dozen years ago, the US Department of Commerce hired our firm to work with three cities Las Vegas, Hartford, and Greensboro.

Now, at the time, our mayor pro tem was working in the planning department, and he was the one that actually applied for the grant that the city received in order for us to work with the mayor and to run a competition here that focused on new economic development in the city of Las Vegas.

We went on to build the company out, and we work with NASA.

We work with the various states governing regional authorities.

Any time NASA, for instance, would want to run an open sourcing competition.

They would work with us and we're very proud of our relationship with NASA.

We're one of many contractors to them.

But I think generally, whether you're talking about local government issues or national government issues, the theme here is that more competition is better than less.

And so we run these competitions and we hope to bring in new talent, new technologies to help cities solve problems.

Mayor Pro Tem, we were talking off camera ahead of this, and you asked me about the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, which has is promoting this industry wants it as part of economic diversification.

But in that overall goal brought in several companies from out of state.

And, I think tried to woo them into moving to Las Vegas.

How is this like that or not like that?

So the LPGA, they created health care is a vertical because if Las Vegas were to go into another recession, which we've experienced that many times, health is the most stable economy next to gaming.

So you want to have an active, vibrant healthcare industry.

The locate was part of the LPGA and all the cities and county contributed to recruiting some of the biggest companies around the world to think about relocating to Las Vegas.

Eight of the 15 companies were healthcare related.

We know the world is thinking about Las Vegas because of a variety of reasons.

Some of it's our healthcare indicators, some of it's our aging population.

The sports industry in particular creates a Mecca for health care.

To think about why would you come to Las Vegas?

Well, we now have all kinds of sports teams.

We have youth and sports, and it's a major conversation starter.

So those 15 companies, I know they're still thinking about Las Vegas, but I don't think we should be wooing them.

I think they should be wooing us.

We just need to let them know that we're interested.

And that's what this competition is about, is letting those bio health firms around the world know that Vegas is here to stay, and this is a place to come and do business.

And Jason, how are you getting that message out worldwide?

What's nice about our outreach and engagement strategy is that there's a backstop.

So if you go to Bio Health Innovation challenge.org, you can see exactly what's required to participate, how you're going to be assessed, who's going to assess you and what those rewards are.

And so to promote a message that says please come here, please come to this website.

The registration deadline is January 22nd.

Please register to apply.

We can marshal a campaign that starts to attract national and international interest.

Unfortunately, there are many programs like this where you end up begging more questions than answers.

So we've tried to create a place where people can come to see exactly what is required of everyone to compete for resources here in Las Vegas.

Mayor Pro tem, there are requirements for applicants.

They have to have a certain amount of money available upfront.

So the city of Las Vegas is is willing to put $10 million out there.

But there are requirements.

We're not just going to throw away money.

We're not just giving it away to any one group.

It's going to have to be a very competitive process.

They're going to have to demonstrate that they have $20 million to put into the downtown Las Vegas Medical District, and we want to figure out how we can leverage our $10 million with their $20 million to bring about a better healthcare experience for Nevadans.

So how competitive do you expect this to be?

How many applicants, for example?

Our hope is is 25 applicants.

But let me let me tell you this.

I'm very excited.

The city just signed a deal two months ago with Nevada State University because they heard about what we're doing, and they wanted to be a part of the downtown medical district.

So they'll be launching brand new undergraduate degree programs for for people to enter into the health care field.

We also I can't say who it is, but we have a major university that is in negotiation with us to come in to the Las Vegas Medical District, to talk about bio health lab space and without even signing up for the competition.

Yet we know there's already interest in coming in to downtown Las Vegas.

So I think the competition is going to be icing on the cake.

Just putting it out there means that Las Vegas is putting in putting its name out there, for the rest of the world to say this is a great place to do business.

And as Nevadans, we need to welcome them because we need greater health care here.

What is the ultimate goal after you have this lab established?

What do you believe the ripple effects will be here in Las Vegas?

So for my son, when he was hospitalized, we had to go out of state eventually.

Like I said, great doctors, great nurses.

The infrastructure for health care here is about 30 years behind.

And that's scary to say it, but I've lived through it.

We had to go out of state.

What the ripple effect is, is that ten, 20 years from now, Nevada catches up.

Nevada is providing the right health care.

Access is health care is available for everyone who needs it and wants it.

And we are caught up with the rest of the country.

That is the ripple effect of what we're doing.

And we are going to need some, some groups outside of Nevada to look into Nevada to say, we can come there, we can help diversify your economy and we can provide better health care for your residents.

Last question.

How do you determine a winner?

Who takes that and that be you, Jason?

Or so our job is to provide data.

But ultimately, the city council gets to approve how city how city dollars are spent.

So if you go to the website bio Health Innovation Challenge dot, where you can see who those judges are in that first round of assessment, you can see the scoring tool that they're going to use.

And you can even read about the algorithm that we used to make sure that that scoring process is fair.

Once those judges have scored our applicants, they provide that data to the selection committee, which is the city council.

And the selection committee ultimately uses that information to inform a final awardee.

In this case, the money would be a grant to.

That sounds so complicated to me.

So here's how I would say it is.

You have a bunch of really committed people that are trying to make the world a better place, trying to improve health care.

They start talking to each other, they submit an application, there's a panel of judges.

So on the panel of judges, we have hospital CEOs, we have scientists, we have lawyers, we have economic development folks.

So when they submit their proposals, we have all these really important, critical people in Nevada looking at the proposals.

And I'm almost willing to bet there's going to be these collaborations that happen outside of the competition to say, hey, maybe Umkc hospital wants to partner here because they got they saw part of this application and there's a good partnership there.

Once those judges talk, they'll narrow it down to a smaller group of people.

The city council will rely on experts.

So it's not going to be it's not going to be me as an individual saying, I like your firm, come to Las Vegas.

It's going to be me relying on the expertise of scientists and lawyers and hospital CEOs and other doctors that are saying this group is good for Las Vegas.

This is how we improve health care.

And that's what I think is most important about this process, is it builds these collaborations that right now we all kind of operate in silos.

And Nevadans deserve people who are working together to improve health care.

And the decision will be made when the fall of next year, fall of next year, just because we're talking about this, and I appreciate you letting us come in and talk about this in the next six months, I'll be doing two ribbon cuttings for groups that are coming in, because we started talking about this six months ago, because they see that Las Vegas is a place that wants business to come in, wants to improve health care, and there's lots of people out there that just wanted to be asked.

That's what we're doing is we're asking them to come to Las Vegas.

My producer brought up a really good point ahead of this that at one point, it was hard to believe that Las Vegas could ever become a sports hub.

Is it possible that this will be the same for health care in Las Vegas?

That is all I think about.

And it comes back to my kid staying at Unmc hospital.

Great doctors, great nurses.

No one wants to be there for a month and I was there for a month, and it's all I think about it that keeps me up at night is how can I improve health care so that other people don't have that same experience?

This is my best way.

This is my best foot forward to make health care better here in Nevada.

How are your children doing now?

They have a lot of energy right now.

They are very healthy right now.

I'm so proud of them and we wouldn't have gotten anywhere without the health care we do have in Nevada.

But Nevadans deserve a lot better.

My children deserve a lot better and this is how I'm going to do it, is by making other people compete to see how great Las Vegas is.

But my kids have a lot of energy.

They're making me very tired right now.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining Nevada Week.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

The $10 million for this initiative comes from the Las Vegas Redevelopment Agency.

The city says the agency serves to revitalize certain parts of Las Vegas, and gets its funding from a percentage of a property tax established when the agency was created in the 1980s.