. -- "the next 100 million -- ameritech in 2050." he will be joined by delore zimmerman, co-founder and president and ceo of praxis strategy. 30 years of domestic and international experience working with local, regional, in national economic development groups, companies, in universities. he has been awarded eight small business innovation research awards from usda to develop leading edge practices and tools for use by development professionals and community leaders. he has written several scholarly works on economic development and productivity and co offered "redeveloping america's productive capacity -- the heartland development strategy" with his colleague and friend joel kotkin. joining me in welcoming these two gentlemen, the enterprising state study, led by joel kotkin and delore zimmerman. [applause] >> thank you very much. it is a pleasure to be here. we are going to talk in little bit about sort of the big picture and then a little bit about what some of the takeaways were. you know, i am not one to say that the private se