Silicon Prairie News (SPN) and Technical.ly are thrilled to announce a new editorial partnership to co-publish a series of stories exploring themes and challenges that resonate across their respective innovation ecosystems. The collaboration is part of a larger shared goal to foster a community of ecosystem storytellers, connecting leaders, founders and storytellers from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic.

This partnership will focus on shared issues like bringing more underrepresented folks into entrepreneurship, capital access, talent retention, tech workforce development and the unique cultural and economic drivers shaping local startup communities. By surfacing insights from across both regions, the series will highlight the common ground and diverse approaches fueling innovation outside the coasts.

“This partnership reflects a growing recognition that the most important stories in tech and entrepreneurship aren’t just coming out of Silicon Valley or New York — they’re being built every day in Omaha, Philadelphia, Baltimore and beyond,” said Silicon Prairie News Editor Stefanie Monge.

Monge will discuss this new collaboration during her upcoming appearance in Philadelphia on a panel at the 2025 Builders Conference by Technical.ly — an annual gathering of ecosystem builders, economic developers and journalists working to shape the future of local innovation economies.

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The first co-published story drops today with a focus on the impact of robotics clusters on a regional economy, comparing Nebraska and Southwestern Pennsylvania. Both Lincoln and Pittsburgh are using federal Build Back Better funding to tackle shared challenges like workforce shortages and slow regional growth by focusing on robotics and automation to strengthen their economies.

Nebraska’s Heartland Robotics Cluster and the New Economy Collaborative of Southwestern Pennsylvania are using similar strategies — investing in education, established companies and startup support — tailored to their regional strengths in agriculture and manufacturing, respectively.

Collaborative efforts across government, education and private sectors are key to the success of these regional strategies, highlighting the importance of coalition-based approaches to scaling robotics and economic resilience.