Two business-centric downtown organizations — the Wilmington Renaissance Corporation and the Wilmington Leaders Alliance — have consolidated into a new organization that will be an “ally for the city of Wilmington (at a level) that has never existed before.”

In an 11 a.m. press conference featuring a who’s who of Wilmington political and business leaders and economic development executives, the two organizations — one that’s been around for a quarter century and one that’s just three years old — are announcing they’ve become the Wilmington Alliance.

Observers say the WLA brings more senior board representation and a focus on workforce development, job creation, leadership development, and community safety, while 26-year-old Wilmington Renaissance brings infrastructure and staffing that will allow the new organization to hit the ground running and double down on “creative place making” and retail recruitment.

Wilmington Renaissance has been involved in the revitalization of the Market Street Corridor since its inception in 1993 as Wilmington 2000. It has also the driven development of the downtown LOMA apartments, the Delaware College of Art and Design, the Creative District, and NewMarketWilm.

Read more about this exciting alliance:
https://www.delawarebusinesstimes.com/wilmington-renaissance-leaders-alliance-come-together/

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon visited Wilmington today (Aug. 5) to tour Zip Code Wilmington ; have lunch at the Stitch House Brewery, whose $400,000 financing support from True Access Capital includes a $50,000 grant from a Chase-funded community revitalization fund; and meet with many of Chase’s 11,000 employees in Delaware – many of them either working for the bank’s huge credit-card operation or in new technology center on Concord Pike. And over the next few months and years, the bank will be adding more than 50 employees at 10-12 branches it’s planning to open.

Dimon has been CEO since December 31, 2005, becoming chairman a year later. He joined JPMorgan Chase in July 2004 following the bank’s merger with Bank One Corporation, where he had been chairman and CEO for four years. Chase’s Delaware credit-card operation has its roots at First USA.

Dimon took some time to talk to DBT Editor Peter Osborne prior to his arrival in Wilmington. He touched on a number of topics, including the changing education paths for the people JPMorgan Chase is hiring, the bank’s growth in Delaware, and the threat of cyber security, which made the news on July 29 when Capital One disclosed that a lone hacker had managed to steal the personal information of more than 100 million customers who had applied for credit cards between 2005 and early 2019. Dimon addressed the threat in his 2019 Letter to Shareholders in April when he wrote, “the threat of cyber security may very well be the biggest threat to the U.S. financial system. The financial system is interconnected, and adversaries are smart and relentless – so we must continue to be vigilant.”

Read more about Jamie Dimon's visit:
https://www.delawarebusinesstimes.com/jpmorgan-ceo-jamie-dimon-visits-wilmington/

University of Delaware researchers have teamed up with an Israeli tech firm to manufacture a new antenna that would solve the biggest problems that companies like Verizon and AT&T are having rolling out 5G technology.

Imagine trying to download a YouTube video or refresh your Twitter feed, and a single wall or glass window blocks your connection. That is the challenge facing 5G, the new wireless standard that is so high-frequency it can’t travel far without hitting obstacles.

Verizon began selling the first 5G phone in April and AT&T has been quietly running trials of a 5G hotspot with businesses in 19 cities. The problem is that each cell site tends to only provide coverage within 300 600 feet of their cell sites, and there are a lot of struggles with downloads.

This means new infrastructure is necessary to deliver higher speeds to users. So University of Delaware researchers have teamed up with the Israeli tech firm XJet Ltd to manufacture an antenna that would clear the way for 5G connection.

Read more about the partnership:
https://www.delawarebusinesstimes.com/5g-ud-xjet-3dprinting/