We are less than a week away from Election Day in Colorado, with the race for governor headlining the ticket.
Term-limited John Hickenlooper will leave the post he has held since 2011, potentially moving on to a rumored presidential run in the near future. During his time as governor, Hickenlooper was lauded by the innovation community for his work fostering a stronger startup culture in Colorado.
He launched the Colorado Innovation Network in 2011, which in turn launched Denver Startup Week, and in June, he appointed 12 people to the Council for the Advancement of Blockchain Technology.
With two main challengers for the soon-to-be-open governor spot, Jared Polis and Walker Stapleton, we decided to take a quick look at how each has addressed innovation during the campaign.
Jared Polis
Polis came to the political scene as an entrepreneur, starting and selling numerous companies like ProFlowers and co-founding startup accelerator TechStars in Boulder.
He looks at politics like someone with a business background would. Telling 5280 Magazine, “I always approach problems as a business person and say: ‘What is the bottom line and how can we improve it?’”
When it comes to the Colorado innovation ecosystem, Polis has two primary pillars: blockchain and broadband infrastructure.
“My goal is to establish Colorado as a national hub for blockchain innovation in business and government,” Polis writes on his campaign website.
If elected, Polis told Gizmodo his blockchain policies would encourage fintech company investment, remove some licensing requirements for token securities and exempt cryptocurrencies from state money transmission laws.
Polis is looking at ways to continue Hickenlooper’s push to bring high-speed internet to rural parts of Colorado, telling Gizmodo he’d work with the legislature to allow local governments to enact municipal broadband without hosting an election.
Walker Stapleton
Stapleton also has a background in innovation, working in California tech startups and a publicly traded real estate company, before becoming state treasurer.
Mention of the startup community and innovation has been sparse during Stapleton’s campaign. He’s focused instead on infrastructure, health care and housing.
When asked at an October forum hosted by the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and Denver Business Journal what sectors he’d like to expand in Colorado if elected, Stapleton said mental health, homelessness and issues in the State’s Department of Corrections.
When posed with the same question, Polis said that he’d like to expand the startup economy beyond the Front Range.
