Yesterday, the front page of The Providence Sunday Journal asked “What does our new economy look like?” and a host of RISD people answered. Seniors Tino Chow and Aaron Perry-Zucker (co-organizers with junior Justin Rosengarten of the upcoming What We Do campus event) are planning to stay in Providence after they graduate in May, convinced after having made so many professional connections here, that “Rhode Island is the perfect place to innovate.”

The Journal notes that recent alums Matthew Grigsby and Joseph Gebbia are building Ecolect, a three-year-old firm that runs an online clearinghouse for information about sustainable materials, in Providence (the company also has offices in Chicago and San Francisco).

RISD students and alumni who remain in RI are examples of a new generation of innovators who are creating new business models for the 21st century. “A business incubator is nice, but that was the 20th-century model,” President John Maeda said in the article, urging the government to become a stakeholder in the process. The president says the state should guide entrepreneurs as they start their businesses, and universities should give a boost to them in their classrooms. “We have to make graduates feel desirable. There needs to be a personal passion from our leaders to make that happen. That’s [the new] incubating.”