Last fall, the Department of Labor launched one of the most remarkable experiments in federal economic development policy in the last twenty years. The Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) initiative conducted a national competition among regions in the Uniteed States. 

The Secretary of Labor asked each governor to nominate three regions for consideration as a WIRED region. The Secretary's team reviewed pver 100 proposals and selected thirteen regions as winners. Each winning region will receive $15 million in funding plus unprecedented flexibility in how these funds can be used to promote economic and workforce development.   

Purdue Center for Regional Development won one of the WIRED grants and enlisted Ed Morrison to serve as their Economic Policy Advisor. Ed will be applying Open Source Economic Development as the guideing frameowrk for the WIRED grant in Indiana.