Innovate or get left behind. The phrase may seem bold, but in the business world it’s never been more accurate.

The Regional Accelerator and Innovation Network (RAIN), is a bold new proposal to foster entrepreneurial activity in the south Willamette Valley.

Michael Crooke is: A) former CEO of Patagonia and Revolution Living (parent company of Flexcar); B) a former Navy SEAL; C) the University of Oregon's first Professor of Practice; D) helping the Lundquist College's new Business Innovation Institute redefine the space where entrepreneurship and sustainability intersect.

When Lundquist College of Business undergraduate Brittany Lundberg set out for her first Bend Venture Conference last year, she was "intrigued, but not quite sure what it was." When she left a day and a half later, her mind was made up: "I knew without a doubt I wanted to be an entrepreneur." This year, Lundberg--now the marketing officer of the college's Entrepreneurship Club--headed back to Bend with nine of her fellow club members to watch aspiring startups compete for $265,000 in seed money.

"When we started, no one bought TVs at WalMart," Vizio founder and CEO William Wang recalled, in a Q&A session with Lundquist College students and faculty this October. Radically reshaping the shopping landscape is just one of the ways that Wang's ten-year-old company has changed the world of consumer electronics. During a discussion moderated by Dean Kees de Kluyver, Wang described the "perfect storm" that helped drive his company's success and covered some of the other game-changers Vizio pioneered.

Between the recent $1 billion sale of Instagram and Facebook's imminent IPO, social media is center stage these days. Aiming to grab some of the spotlight is Stublisher, a photo- and video-sharing web service launched this April by undergrads Kyle Bañuelos and Ryan Jesenik, and their cofounder and CTO, Zachary Collins, a high-schooler with several previous ventures to his name.

Sixteen teams of entrepreneurially minded graduate students came to Portland, Oregon, to test their mettle in the University of Oregon's New Venture Championship.

"Having entrepreneurs on campus is great, because we actually get to see what we've learned in the classroom being applied in the real world," said Niloo Mirani, describing how she and her fellow MBA candidates benefited from their time with Rick Miller, the founder and CEO of the Avamere Family of Companies, one of the Pacific Northwest's largest senior care and housing providers.