Rowen: Georgia’s home for innovation

Published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Rowen, Georgia’s largest knowledge community, was established by visionary leaders to tackle global challenges in medicine, agriculture and the environment through collaboration and partnerships at a strategic location. Its developer, the Rowen Foundation, is crafting a unique environment on 2,000 acres in Gwinnett County to be home for the next generation of innovators.

When it comes to building a next-generation innovation space, Rowen Foundation CEO Mason Ailstock is focusing on three programmatic drivers to foster new discoveries in Georgia.

Agriculture

Agribusiness continues to be the leading industry in the state of Georgia, contributing more than $74 billion to the economy annually. With the influx of technology across sectors, AgTech has quickly evolved into a booming industry, as Georgia’s Center for Innovation quickly recognized by adding this as a new area of expertise.

Some companies have been innovating in the agricultural sphere for quite some time, including Georgia-based AGCO. The company continues to provide new resources to farmers, including hybrid combine harvesters and telemetry-based tracking systems, in order to help make farms more productive and the world more sustainable.

Medicine

Health care and medicine are at the core of innovation nationally, and Rowen is uniquely positioned to lead in this space with access to some of the world’s leading medical researchers from institutions like Emory University, Georgia Tech, the University of Georgia, Spelman College and others.

The National Institutes of Health spends nearly 83% of its $48 billion budget on external research, and universities invested another $97 billion in 2022. As America’s population ages, the private sector is also poised to increase its research spending. One of those companies is Intuitive Surgical which has continued to innovate around minimally invasive care strategies to benefit those across the industry for more than three decades.

Rowen’s 2,000 acres offers locations where companies can nestle offices, labs and research facilities into acres of wooded landscape, providing a campus feeling customized to the partner’s needs. These areas provide the option of ensuring privacy and security while offering inspiration and connectivity to all that Rowen has to offer.

Environment

With thousands of inspiring, wooded acres, newly installed smart infrastructure and careful stewardship of the land, Rowen recognizes the environment is not just a cornerstone of a knowledge community, but an inspiration for innovation as our world faces increasing challenges from climate change.

The entire 2,000-acre site will be developed and operated with sustainable, zero-emission strategies that set new global best practices. This may appeal to companies like Cisco, which has a large Metro Atlanta presence. Cisco takes a holistic approach to ensure its innovative strategies are not only beneficial to their customers but also the environment as a whole. The company recently adopted a plan with three main priorities to establish a regenerative future.

At the core of Rowen’s efforts is collaboration among these three areas. Each year, Rowen actively works to bring together diverse industry and public sector leaders, researchers and innovators at the Rowen Convergence Summit, where leaders from a variety of industries have the opportunity to share cross-disciplinary knowledge.

The fast-paced convergence event serves as an intersection for representation across industries to exchange insightful perspectives while allowing for intimate conversations, spurring ongoing innovation. Rowen also recently inked a living laboratory agreement with Georgia’s public universities, college and technical schools, allowing researchers from all of Georgia’s public universities and technical colleges to roll up their sleeves and go to work on the 2,000-acre site, studying everything from environmental sustainability to energy systems.

“Collaboration across industry sectors is vital to bring about exponential innovation,” said the Senior Manager of Life Sciences & Digital Health for the Metro Atlanta Chamber Edward Lai. “We’ve seen the life sciences market in Atlanta accelerate recently, which paves the way for new discoveries to combat global challenges, especially in regards to health. Plus, the recent expansion of this market drives overall connectedness between the environment, health and well-being, agriculture and shared technology.”

Location is just as important in establishing a home for innovation to thrive, and Rowen is strategically placed at the intersection of the Atlanta, Athens and Gainesville metro areas, with more than 50 research and educational institutions providing over 75,000 top-tier graduates annually. The Rowen region – stretching from Metro Atlanta to Hall County to Athens-Clarke, offers a variety of housing and lifestyle choices, from dense urbanity and thriving small towns, to rural living and everything in between. On site, Rowen will feature a mix of medium- and low-density office and lab sites along with the bustling Rowen Village, which will offer residential, multi-tenant buildings, retail, hospitality and more.

Rowen is designed to be a place where all types of industry leaders can thrive. Not only will Rowen contribute significantly to Georgia’s economic health by providing more than 80,000 estimated jobs at full build-out, but it will usher in a more sustainable future by preserving more than 500 acres of forest with access to miles of walking and biking trails throughout the site.

The office of the future is one where community, collaboration, inspiration and innovation intersect, and that requires a unique environment. Rowen, with a bold vision, inspiring location and a talented, diverse labor pool, will be a place where Georgia’s – and the world’s – most pressing questions are answered.

To learn more about Rowen, please visit our website or follow us on social media, @RowenLife.

Two thousand carefully preserved acres along Highway 316 in Gwinnett County, Georgia, Rowen is a visionary knowledge community that will bring together entrepreneurs, researchers and innovators at the intersection of the Atlanta, Athens and Gainesville metropolitan statistical areas and more than 50 research and educational institutions. A new multi-use concept designed to foster discoveries in agricultural, medical and environmental sciences, Rowen will build on the land’s rich history of thoughtful environmental stewardship, while changing the economic and social trajectory of Gwinnett, Georgia, and our nation for generations.