The Western Alabama and Eastern Mississippi (WAEM) WIRED zone focuses on building and leveraging partnerships with regional stakeholders to create a world-renowned regional identity built around its enterprise-centric workforce.

WAEM's vision is to,” Transform a mostly rural collection of people and places into an enterprising region known for its entrepreneurship, innovative workforce systems, and wealth creation, i.e., one that is “enterprise ready”.

“Enterprise-Ready” means “prepared for and committed to value-added activity”, whether individually based, organization based, or community based.  An “Enterpise ready” region is one in which:

• Business formation and innovation occur easily and often;
• Entrepreneurs and innovation abound;
• A well-trained, skilled workforce has a strong work ethics and values productivity and quality;
• Civic entrepreneurs and regional leaders play strong support and encouragement roles, and;
• A sense of and commitment to entrepreneurship, innovation, and enterprise pervade the region from the retirement community down through the K-12 and youth development programs.

Mission:  Develop Enterprise-Ready Places, People, Programs, and Regional Identity.

Goal 1:  Fashion an Enterprise-Ready regional identity and civic culture from persistent engagement of leadership in enterprise and innovation based planning and development activities.

Goal 2: Spur and sustain rural economic transformation through a regional, integrated-system approach to economic and community entrepreneurship.

Goal 3: Credential, Certify, and transform to a regionally-branded workforce.

Goal 4: Engage K-12 schools and youth development programs in regional branding and Enterprise-Ready activities.

For more information about WIRED visit them online at www.waem.us.