This is part two of Kenya’s IP Play and What Georgia Can Learn. See part one here.
Commentary by Randy Davidson, founder and CEO of Georgia Insider and Georgia Entertainment
Last week, I published commentary on global economic developments happening across the Atlantic that I believe deserves our attention.
Kenya is reconsidering intellectual property through an economic development lens. Its proposed reforms and national strategy raise a larger question about whether patents, copyrights, brands, stories, software and other intellectual property should be viewed simply as assets to protect or as infrastructure capable of generating investment and real job sustainability.
That conversation naturally brings Georgia to mind. The Peach State doesn’t need to start from scratch. In fact, one of the reasons this subject interests me is that we already have the foundation required to build what I believe could become an origination economy.
Our research universities commercialize discoveries and launch companies. Our technology community creates software, platforms and new business models. Our entertainment infrastructure supports one of the world’s most recognized production ecosystems. Our tourism organizations understand how stories, culture, sports, food, music and place can create lasting economic value.
The opportunity is to think more intentionally about how all of those pieces connect.
Georgia Is Already Doing It
One of the strongest examples is sitting inside our university system.
The Georgia Research Alliance has spent decades helping university discoveries move from laboratories toward commercialization. Its Innovation & Entrepreneurship program has invested $61 million in university inventions, supported 682 grants and deployed 98 startup loans. By the beginning of 2026, companies supported through the program had generated more than $2.1 billion in annual revenue and attracted another $2.5 billion in investment.
Georgia Tech has built an entire commercialization ecosystem around a similar philosophy, connecting technology licensing, VentureLab, CREATE-X, ATDC and other programs to help faculty and students move research and intellectual property toward companies and the marketplace. UGA’s Innovation Gateway similarly works with researchers to evaluate, protect, license and commercialize intellectual property.
That’s the origination economy already at work.
An idea begins here. Intellectual property is created around it. Capital finds it. A company forms. Employees are hired. Revenue is generated and outside investment flows into Georgia.
That last part deserves more attention from policymakers. The private sector needs an environment where companies, entrepreneurs and investors can thrive. The public sector benefits when that activity creates employment, investment, corporate growth and a broader tax base capable of supporting the communities where that growth occurs.
We Have Seen What Intentional Policy Can Do
Entertainment provides another useful example. Georgia made a deliberate policy decision to become globally competitive for film and television production. Whatever someone’s politics around incentives may be, the larger lesson is difficult to ignore: intentional policy can change economic behavior.
Thousands of Georgians built careers around an industry that looked very different here less than two decades ago. Now I think we should ask what comes next. Ownership creates jobs long after production ends.
Tourism Is Part of This Conversation Too
Tourism may not immediately come to mind when discussing intellectual property, but it should. Georgia welcomed 174.2 million visitors in 2024, generating $45.2 billion in visitor spending, $82 billion in statewide economic impact and $5.1 billion in state and local tax revenue.
Destinations spend years developing identities and reputations around food, music, history, sports, culture and experiences. Savannah is valuable as a destination because generations of experiences and storytelling have created an identity people recognize before they arrive.
That identity has economic value. The question becomes whether we are intentionally connecting those assets or simply benefiting when the connections happen organically.
What Happens If We Connect the Pieces?
This is where the Kenya conversation became especially interesting to me.
Georgia already has university commercialization. We have venture capital, although it remains fragmented. We have entertainment infrastructure. We have technology companies. We have creators. We have tourism destinations with globally recognizable identities. We have sophisticated economic development organizations.
We have the pieces.
What happens when university commercialization, venture capital, entertainment, technology, tourism and economic development begin viewing intellectual property through a shared economic lens?
What policies would make Georgia an easier place to originate an idea, protect it, finance it, commercialize it and build a company around it?
Could we become better at helping creators retain ownership?
Could tourism organizations capture more long-term value from the stories and intellectual property associated with their destinations?
The Origination Economy
I think of the opportunity as building an origination economy. Any state or country can pursue this, and many will. But few are better positioned than Georgia to move at the speed this moment requires.
An origination economy values the beginning of the economic chain. It recognizes the entrepreneur developing proprietary technology, the researcher creating a patent, the writer developing a story, the musician creating a catalog and the community building a distinctive destination brand.
Artificial intelligence makes that conversation even more vital. Creation is becoming faster and more accessible while ownership and commercialization are becoming increasingly complicated. The places that develop smart answers to those questions will have an opportunity to attract the professionals building the next generation of companies.
Can we connect those assets around a strategy that makes Georgia one of the best places in the world to create an idea, own it, commercialize it and build something around it?
See part one here.
