Silicon Slopes
Silicon Slopes is a term that describes the part of Utah, in the western United States, that is a major economic center for technology and innovation businesses.
[1][2][3] The region encompasses a cluster of information technology, software development, and hardware manufacturing and research firms along the Wasatch Front.
[4] The term Silicon Slopes is the brainchild of Josh James (founder and CEO of Domo) for the purpose to create a branding campaign to promote Utah's growing technology community.
[8] Examples of early local tech businesses and founders that helped attract more start-ups to the area include: Evans & Sutherland, founded in Salt Lake City by David Evans and Ivan Sutherland in 1968, as the world's first computer graphics company[9] (in operation for over four decades supplying advanced computer graphics technologies to the market); David C. Evans, founder and first chairman of the University of Utah School of Computing from 1965 to 1973; James H. Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics, Inc; John Warnock, a co-founder of Adobe Systems; Alan Ashton, co-founder of Wordperfect; Edwin Catmull, co-founder of Pixar.
During his time in office, Leavitt made monthly trips to Silicon Valley and used his slogan, "We have workers, we have space, we have proximity," to increase his influence there.
Leavitt was a key factor in enticing eBay to locate their main customer service center in Utah and in bringing in new research operations for Intel.
[15] Governor Leavitt laid the groundwork for his successors to build on his achievements and continue to make Utah a business-friendly state, particularly for high-tech companies.
Utah has a long history of partnerships with the U.S. Department of Defense that have contributed to laying the groundwork for the state's high-tech business environment and infrastructure.
David C. Evans,[16] a native of Salt Lake City, was one of the original pioneers of computer science in Utah and its groundbreaking work with the DoD.
In 1965, Evans was recruited back to Salt Lake City to create a computer science department at the University of Utah, and brought DoD contacts with him, including Ivan Sutherland.
Utah also has a low probability of large-scale natural disasters and wide open spaces that provide enough room for chemical weapons testing and drone pilot training.
[20] In order to meet the demand and facilitate more partnerships, the University of Utah recently added a new Big Data certificate program[21] within its School of Computing.
[23] Evidence of the prominence of the Silicon Slopes tech industry is the growing amount of venture capital coming into the area.
Qualtrics, a customer analytics software firm, was acquired for 8 billion dollars by SAP[24] Utah has often been ranked as one of the top five states for businesses.
This was made possible in 2009 by Governor Gary Herbert who focused on four cornerstones to strengthen the economy of Utah: jobs, energy, education and self-determination.
[30] Universities and high schools in the area have worked on expanding computer science programs in response to the growth of Silicon Slopes.
In the early 2000s, the Utah Legislature allocated around $100 million to the state's universities in order to bolster their computer science programs and significantly increase the number of graduates in the field.
To qualify for the tax benefits or grant programs associated with the Silicon Slopes region, there are specific guidelines in place to determine if the state will offer incentives to encourage relocation.
To monitor these qualifications, grants and tax credits are only awarded after each corporation has proven its ability to provide the jobs and revenue required.
