Colorado Innovation Institute

Insight. Collaboration. Stewardship.

Stewarding
Colorado’s
innovation future.

A statewide ambition. A shared responsibility.

We bring research, people, and capital together to help Colorado become the world’s most attractive innovation ecosystem—and a place where more people can build a good life.

Explore our workOur 2035 ambition
Colorado Innovation InstituteBuilding for the long term.

01 / The institute

Extraordinary assets.
A greater shared possibility.

Colorado has the people, ideas, and institutions to shape what comes next. Our work is to help them achieve more together.

The Colorado Innovation Institute is a stewardship initiative working across business, research, investment, public leadership, and communities. We connect long-term ambition to practical work: clearer evidence, stronger collaboration, and projects with measurable results.

We start with the institutions and capabilities already here, then work on the gaps between them—where research becomes a company, investment becomes productive capacity, and growth becomes opportunity.

Read about the institute

02 / The 2035 ambition

Three missions.
One Colorado.

Big goals give the work direction.
Evidence and collaboration move it forward.

01 / Economic growth
$1T

Grow Colorado’s economy.

Help Colorado reach $1 trillion in annual GDP by 2035, with productivity, affordability, and quality of life in view.

02 / Innovation capital
$75B

Put capital to work.

Attract and deploy innovation capital across companies, research, infrastructure, and the capabilities Colorado needs to grow.

03 / Jobs & opportunity
500K

Expand what’s possible.

Create new jobs and meaningful opportunities for people to earn, contribute, and build as the nature of work changes.

Statewide ambitions, pursued with partners. Capital and opportunity missions use a 2026–2035 working horizon; measurement definitions are being developed.

The thinking behind the missions

03 / Work you can explore

See the system.
Find the next useful step.

Two early research resources make Colorado’s capabilities, connections, and constraints easier to understand.

04 / How we work

From insight
to useful outcomes.

Our contribution is to connect the question, the people who can act, and the evidence that shows whether it worked.

01

Understand.

Study structural shifts, map existing strengths, and identify the constraints that matter.

02

Bring people together.

Connect leaders across sectors around a defined opportunity and a shared purpose.

03

Build and learn.

Develop focused projects with clear ownership, test the assumptions, and measure the result.

04

Steward progress.

Share what we learn and help promising work endure across political and economic cycles.

05 / Ideas for Colorado’s future

The thinking
behind the work.

Research, arguments, and practical questions about the future we can build together.

All writing on Substack

Writing from the Colorado Innovation Institute.

06 / Leadership

Built on experience.
Oriented toward possibility.

Co-founders bringing complementary experience in innovation, company building, strategic insight, and leadership.

Tommy Knoll

Co-founder

Tommy Knoll

Tommy has advised innovation leaders across global companies, federal research labs, nonprofits, and startups. His experience founding and scaling eight ventures informs CII’s focus on collaboration and practical execution.

Joseph Logan

Co-founder

Joseph Logan

Joseph is a forecaster and strategic coach for founders and investors. He brings 17 years of experience helping leaders navigate change, and created the Hari projection framework to turn structural signals into actionable insight.