Amazon recently announced plans to open a new technology center in Tempe near Arizona State University鈥檚 main campus, which is projected to create an additional 550 jobs in the Phoenix metro area over the next few years. 

Sandra Watson, president and CEO of the Arizona Commerce Authority, said the new Amazon location 鈥渉ighly skilled and growing workforce as well as our premier attractiveness for technology and innovation.鈥� 

Amazon is currently Arizona鈥檚 The new roles in the Tempe technology center will support Amazon鈥檚 operations in consumer retail, web services and operations. These opportunities are open for software development engineers, senior solution architects, project managers and business analysts. 

鈥淣ot only do Phoenix and Tempe have an incredible existing talent pipeline, but this is a place where people want to move to as well,鈥� Doug Welzel, site lead for Amazon鈥檚 Phoenix Tech Hub. 鈥淲e鈥檝e already created more than 5.000 corporate and tech jobs in the Phoenix area, and we are excited to continue investing here.鈥� 

Arizona State University鈥檚 close proximity to the expansion center is no doubt a draw for the company. ASU is one of the largest universities in the U.S. and produces thousands of graduates every year that are looking to join the workforce. 

Amazon officials have announced that the Tempe Tech Hub is going to be using two special hiring programs. Amazon Returnship is a program that focuses on helping professionals get back to work after they lost or left their jobs. The 16-week program is a paid opportunity available to people who have been without a job or underemployed for at least a year. At the end of the program, participants have the possibility of moving into a full-time position. 

The other special hiring program being used is Best Fit, which allows engineers to apply once and be considered for thousands of jobs throughout the company. 

Tempe Mayor Corey Woods believes that the investment 鈥渨ill continue to help Tempe attract more businesses and tech talent to our city.鈥�

Amazon signed for a 63,000-square-foot expansion at 100 S. Mill Avenue, positioned slightly west of the ASU main campus. The office expansion is projected to be open for employees in late 2022. 

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From open spaces to open minds, Arizona has the 鈥渉ighest potential鈥� of any state in the nation to successfully move into the new economy, said Arizona State University (ASU) president and innovation trailblazer Michael Crow. The university鈥檚 鈥渆nterprise鈥� model will help lead the way.

鈥淭he potential index for Arizona is off the charts. Off the charts. You can still build here and build well. You can design communities here. You can do new things here, and ASU is really representative of that,鈥� said Crow, who spoke last week at a virtual breakfast meeting of the nonprofit , the voice of the real estate in the Phoenix metro region. 鈥淲e have all the pieces. We have all the components. We still have small government. We still have a willingness to accept new ideas.鈥� 

About 150 real estate professionals and business and community leaders attended the event to hear Crow speak. He talked about what is needed to take Arizona鈥檚 economy to the next level, ASU鈥檚 response to COVID-19, and the school鈥檚 transformation into a leading global institution that has amassed vast real estate holdings and leases to attract tenants, corporate partners and startups.

Today, the university relies little on public funding, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars each year from corporations, donors and organizations, and tuition from students worldwide.

ASU now exceeds top research institutions 

Since becoming president in 2002, Crow鈥檚 vision and hard driving personality have positioned ASU as one of the top research universities in the country. 

The university has been named the most innovative university in America by U.S. News and World Report every year since the category was created six years ago.

ASU now rivals and exceeds institutions like Cambridge, MIT, Oxford, Stanford, UCLA and USC for research in both medical and non-medical innovation, Crow said. 

COVID-19 leader in testing, research 

ASU took a leading role when news surfaced in December that a new virus had surfaced in China. 

Since then, more than 200 COVID-19-related research groups have been created at ASU. Among its successes is one of the fastest saliva-based PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests for COVID.

In April, an ASU research team expects to complete a new microchip fluidity device that will allow anyone to spit into a microchip containing an internal 鈥渓aboratory鈥� that can produce a quick result and send an alert to an individual鈥檚 phone. 

As the world rushes to create a vaccine for the coronavirus, ASU will continue to develop new tools to protect lives in the coming years and build profit-making enterprises around it, he said.

Building recovery in fiercely competitive world 

Moving forward, Arizona鈥檚 number one challenge will be how to build an economy that grows faster than population growth. With per capita growth on the decline in recent years, this will be critical to its global standing, Crow said.

鈥淎rizona鈥檚 new economy is going to require us to leapfrog into an understanding that the world has become ever more competitive,鈥� he said. 鈥淚n Singapore, in Korea, in Europe, in Indonesia, in China and other places, are rising competitors, and significant competitors, on every possible level.鈥�

If Arizona and the nation do not stay in front of the pack, they will be overwhelmed by the scale of all the other competitors, he said.

鈥淪o the only way to be successful is to always be in the lead, to always be in front, to always be the most innovative, always to be the most creative.鈥� 

Knowledge-driven enterprises will lead the way    

Knowledge-driven enterprises with more technological underpinnings are necessary to push the economy higher here, Crow said.

Towards that end, ASU has been undergoing massive of its research, teaching and real estate operations to advance industry and high paying jobs, create tens of thousands of jobs over the next two decades, and to attract new students from around the globe.   

Expansion of 10 innovation corridors in Phoenix metro

Among its many projects, the university is expanding its global presence including building a new headquarters in Los Angeles and satellite campuses across the world to attract new investment and students. 

In Arizona, the university is building and expanding a host of facilities and projects including in its 10 鈥渋nnovation corridors鈥� including:

Health Futures Center ASU and Mayo Clinic are building a 150,000-square-foot building next to Mayo Clinic in North Phoenix that will feature a MedTech Accelerator, biomedical engineering and informatics research labs, nursing programs and an innovative education zone. Through the project, Phoenix expects to see $3.5 billion in capital investment over the next two years, an additional 4.4 million square feet of advanced facilities, creating more than 7,000 jobs. 

Entrepreneurship Residence Center This will be the first new residential space on the ASU Downtown Phoenix campus since 2008. It will house more than 1,200 students including 500 student entrepreneurs who will be launching their own companies. It is set to open next year. 

Mesa City Center Also under construction, this state-of-the-art project will jump-start the revitalization of downtown Mesa and train students in one of the biggest industries in the U.S.:  media production. Set to open in spring 2022, it will offer programs in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts in digital and sensory technology, experiential design, gaming, media arts, film production, and entrepreneurial development and support.

Polytechnic Research Park This facility near Phoenix-Gateway Airport and ASU鈥檚 Polytechnic campus in Mesa will specialize in hands-on exploration of solutions in aviation, alternate energy, human-technology integration, comprehensive commercial printing and design services, and on-demand digital manufacturing.

Phoenix Biomedical Campus A new biomedical campus is underway that is part of a development in downtown Phoenix that is owned by a public-private partnership that includes Phoenix, ASU, Wexford and Ventas. The Wexford Innovation Center is part of the $1.5 billion research and innovation pipeline with Ventas. Ventas is investing $800 million in four university-related developments totaling more than 1.3 million square feet. Upon completion, the campus will include seven buildings totaling more than 6 million square feet of research, academic and clinical facilities.

Novus Innovation Corridor This public/private partnership between the ASU and Catellus Development Corporation is under construction adjacent to the Tempe campus and has been dubbed the nation鈥檚 鈥渕ost progressive,鈥� urban, mixed-use developments for introducing leading-edge technologies into an urban landscape. Built in phases, it will house more than 11 million square feet of offices, residences, hotels, retail stores and restaurants throughout 355 acres.

A successful diverse student population is a must

In addition to research, ASU has not forgotten its mission as a public teaching institution, Crow said. Data backs that up.  

For example, the  engineering class went from 6,000 students with low retention rates their freshman year to 25,000 engineering students with a 90 percent retention rate today. This year, ASU is graduating four times more students than it did in 2002.

While geniuses are essential to any research university, ASU is focused on reaching down into high schools to make sure not only A and B students make it to college but lower performers as well. Recruiting in-state students, particularly Latinos, has been a major effort that has paid off. 

鈥淔or the first time in the history of the institution, the student body is completely representative of the population of the state, economically and ethnically,鈥� Crow said. 

Continuing that trend will be key to raising per capita income and building the economy, he said.

鈥淲e don鈥檛 want to build an economy that鈥檚 growing at 1 percent or 2 percent or 3 percent a year. We want an economy that鈥檚 growing at 4, 5 and 6 percent every year.鈥� 

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The founders of two top marketing agencies in Arizona, Bigfish Creative Group and Lucid Agency, launched a new larger company last week to take the concept of full-service to a higher level.听聽聽聽聽聽

The company — Highnoon — is bringing a 鈥渉olistic鈥� approach to marketing for today鈥檚 new generation of customers, said the three behind the award-winning agencies: Ken Bonham and Scott Kaufmann of Lucid and Joe Pizzimenti of Bigfish.

Lucid and Bigfish boasted clients like Cisco, Oregano鈥檚, Take Charge America and the Better Business Bureau. But in the past few years, clients are asking for more help in reaching across different channels to consumers.听

鈥淎 lot of our clients have been asking us to solve holistic business problems that intersect with marketing, communications and technology in different ways,鈥� Kaufmann said.听聽

Shift in how customers interact with brands聽

They began to envision a new kind of full-service agency. One that would directly address consumers鈥� shifting interactions with brands, he said.听

鈥淭here is this kind of democratization of ways that consumers are interacting with their favorite brands now. They can tweet the CEO directly, they get in touch with the shipping department, they look at the packaging design and tweet pictures of it when they鈥檙e opening a package for the first time, maybe communicate it on social media,鈥� Kaufmann said.

鈥淲e had to be able to service all of these areas, from communication to technology to marketing to strategy.鈥澛�

All under one roof聽聽

Instead of the traditional full-service approach of offering two or three services such as public relations, advertising and technology, Highnoon incorporates everything under one roof: creative, technology, performance, data, analytics, public relations, online and offline marketing, and consulting.

Analytics compares data and vendors

For analytics, they built an analytics and reporting platform, Monocle, that allows large organizations to compare their data across a gamut of different channels in social media and traditional advertising. The platform also allows clients to compare different agencies, vendors or other providers.

Home is downtown Tempe聽

Headquartered in Tempe, Bonham, Kaufmann and Pizzimenti launched the company in the city that brought them together as alumni of Arizona State University. Through the years, the three have won dozens of awards in their respective companies, including the Community Impact award from the Phoenix Business Journal鈥檚 Corporate Philanthropy Awards and AzCentral鈥檚 Top Companies to Work for in Arizona.听

For more information about Highnoon, visit .听

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