Silicon Heartland: Transforming the Midwest from Rust Belt to Tech Belt

Chronicling her return to America's heartland, CNBC contributor Rebecca A. Fannin provides an optimistic and engaging look at the current entrepreneurial comeback happening in the Midwest, documenting its transformation from Rust Belt to Tech Belt.

The American Midwest was once a proud bastion of good-paying jobs and middle-class life. Recently it has come to evoke bleakness: job loss, opiate addiction, despair. But without fanfare, a pivotal movement has grown, quietly transforming the heartland into a high-tech hub.

In Silicon Heartland, tech journalist Rebecca A. Fannin returns to her hometown region to report on how tech ecosystems—of entrepreneurial talent, venture capital, accelerators, incubators, universities, and R&D—are retooling midsized heartland cities and Appalachian towns. Remote regions that were nearly forgotten when the money and power shifted to Silicon Valley—and to China—are being rebooted and reenergized like never before. This movement of tech startups burgeoning in Middle America bodes well not only for leading the region to greater heights, but also for boosting our economy and morale nationwide.

Structured around Fannin’s road trip across Middle America, her stories and interviews with venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and business from the Midwest make for a personal yet comprehensive look at the economic rebirth of a region that has been overlooked and underestimated for far too long. Highlighting the successes and efforts that continue to surprise coastal elites, Fannin introduces the resourceful people and the behind-the-scene stories that are reinventing the American Midwest.