Where will the next Silicon Valley spring up? Philip Auerswald, professor of public policy at George Mason University, knows where to look. He surveyed regional innovation trends across the U.S. and cobbled a list of up-and-coming tech centers. "The cities on this list aren't the places you'd expect to be up-and-coming centers for the next generation of technologies," said Auerswald, "But 30 years ago, few would have imagined Las Vegas as the center of a real estate boom." (forbes.com, March 10, 2008) One of those cities was Lake Charles in Southwest Louisiana, ranked by Forbes Magazine as a Top 10 Up-And-Coming Tech City.

Southwest Louisiana includes the parishes of Allen, Beauregard, Calcasieu, Cameron, and Jefferson Davis.