(upbeat music) - We are honored to be joined by Kathleen Coviello, who is the Chief Economic Transformation Officer at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Good to see you, Kathleen.

- Likewise, good to be here, Steve.

- Kathleen, we've had several folks on from the EDA talking about economic development issues, innovation, economic development, a whole range of related topics, but we're having you on to talk about, do I have this right?

Place-based economic development strategy; what does place-based mean?

- So what it means is that we're taking a new approach to our innovation economy, and how we focus on strategic sectors with really putting a pin in the map with a physical space.

So, you've heard, Steve, from several of my colleagues about the HELIX in New Brunswick, that's a great example of this.

- Explain what the HELIX is.

Chris Paladino, our friend who's down at DEVCO, has talked to about to us about this a lot.

And we're gonna be doing some programming on the HELIX.

That's an acronym for?

- HELIX is a life science symbol.

- Okay, what is it?

- The HELIX is a place that's bringing together innovation for life sciences.

It's bringing together academia, it's bringing together medical centers, it's bringing together the state and the Economic Development Authority, university partners all under one roof with a common goal of focusing on growing the life science industry in New Jersey.

- That's a place, meaning New Brunswick, the HELIX.

But are we saying, is the EDA, by the way, an underwriter of our programming, is the EDA saying that you want people to go to these places to be more in person?

- Absolutely, absolutely.

That innovation only happens through collaboration, through coincidental meetings in hallways where one, you know, person from Princeton meets somebody from Rutgers, meets somebody from Robert Wood Johnson, and an idea blooms from that.

So we're seeing that play out across a multitude of industries in New Jersey.

- So you got life sciences at the HELIX, but also talk to us about, I'm gonna stay away from offshore wind.

Look at all of our programming on offshore wind, it speaks for itself, you decide for yourself, we're trying to educate people about offshore wind.

Film, what's going on with film, and what's the place?

- Yeah, so film is easy one, right?

We have Netflix who's gonna build a billion dollar studio down in Fort Monmouth.

That place is gonna change the landscape of the film industry in New Jersey.

Marry that with Lionsgate up in Newark, and the Film and Digital Media Tax Credit wrapped around that to incentivize folks to film within the borders of the State of New Jersey.

Again, it puts us on the map.

It puts that pin in the map to say, "This is something New Jersey is serious about, and focusing around."

- So since you mentioned film, actors, writers, we are taping this toward the back end of October, 2023.

It'll be seen later.

Strike impact the work that you're doing, and the work of the Netflix studio, and other related film activity?

- It certainly does, right?

And, you know, having the talent aboard to film and the state is at a pause while we're waiting for the strikes to be resolved, for the Actor's Guild.

Luckily the writers is behind us, but we need the talent in front of the cameras.

- I'm curious about this.

As we do this program, there are a group of folks in Asia, and I know you didn't come on to talk about that, but I know that Governor Murphy, as we do this program back end of October, Governor Murphy is there with, and Choose New Jersey, check out our past programming connected to Choose New Jersey, a private, not-for-profit entity promoting economic development in the state, working closely with the Economic Development Authority.

But I also know that your CEO, Tim Sullivan, is there.

Am I correct?

- You are.

- Is there a connection between that trip with the governor to Asia, and the work we're talking about here?

- Absolutely.

- Talk about it.

- So we started off talking about the HELIX, right?

Our friends at Rutgers University are part of that trip and signed A MOU already there to further- - A Memorandum of Understanding, please.

- Thank you, we talking acronyms in government.

- Oh, I noticed (both laughing) Go ahead.

- To advance some of the scientific research that's happening at Rutgers, right?

And that will, again, bring foreign companies, we believe, to the work physically happening in the HELIX.

Genmab, one of the companies that- - Whoa, whoa, what is it called?

- Genmab.

- Go ahead.

- One of the companies growing in the state of New Jersey is with the governor on that trip.

So you can kind of start to see this building of this cluster of life science companies, and you know, we're really trying to put the spotlight on an international platform now to say, look at what's happening in New Jersey.

Come join us in these various verticals.

Be it life sciences, be it film and digital media, be it offshore wind, be it clean energy.

One of the other physical spaces you've heard us announce last year was the HAX location up in Newark around building decarbonization.

- Whoa, whoa, part of Clean Energy?

- Yes, part of Clean Energy initiatives, yep.

- Explain what decarbonization actually means.

- Sure, happy to.

So one of the largest polluters in the State of New Jersey is buildings, right?

So, or electric or vehicles.

So we are looking at ways to reduce our carbon footprint in the State of New Jersey.

And that's gonna happen through a multitude of different mechanisms.

One of them is our work with HAX, who through a competitive process, chose to locate their accelerator in Newark, New Jersey.

- They're a private company.

- They are a private accelerator, and investment firm, yes.

- What does that mean, an accelerator?

There's a lot of language used in the economic development community.

I don't totally understand, an accelerator of what?

- An accelerator of startup companies.

So they take great ideas from young entrepreneurs, and help put them through a bootcamp of sorts to grow their business in New Jersey, addressing the issue of carbon emissions in the state.

- Interesting stuff, can I get, before I let you go, artificial intelligence?

You have 30 seconds left.

Can we talk about artificial intelligence?

So real quick, it's not even an industry, it's gonna impact all of our lives and have tremendous economic implications, fair to say, in New Jersey.

- Absolutely.

- The country, the world, - Absolutely.

And you saw Governor Murphy just put together a task force headed by our CEO Tim Sullivan around this very issue.

The governor is- - Around AI?

Around artificial intelligence?

- Yes.

- Yeah, sorry to interrupt.

We're actually gonna have Tim Sullivan talking about the work of that task force on artificial intelligence, because the truth is, the more I read about AI and artificial intelligence, the more questions I have, and the more I want to try to understand, and we'll try to understand together.

Kathleen Coviello is the Chief Economic Transformation Officer at the New Jersey EDA, the Economic Development Authority.

Kathleen, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- My pleasure.

- I'm Steve Adubato, we thank you for joining us.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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