Tag: Innovation Ecosystems

EI2 Hosts Colombian Delegation for Bootcamp Training

The Enterprise Innovation Institute hosted a delegation of technology professionals from Colombia for a week long bootcamp on technology extension services.

The Enterprise Innovation Institute’s (EI2) Innovation Ecosystems program recently hosted a delegation of 43 Colombian professionals, including presidents and executives of the Chambers of Commerce, SENA (Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje) instructors, and government officials during a week-long bootcamp program on Technology Extension Services (TES) Oct. 4-8.

This program is part of the EI2’s ongoing collaboration with Confecámaras and Colombia Productiva to support the design of a TES public policy and the implementation of the country’s signature Fábricas de Productividad program of technology extension.

Since 2017, the Innovation Ecosystems has trained a total of 155 Colombian professionals at Georgia Tech and assisted 40 companies in Colombia. The Fábricas de Productividad has served more than 3,300 companies since its launch in 2018. It is recognized as the largest and most successful national program of Technology Extension in Latin America and the Caribbean for its reach and impact in a short period of time.

Innovation Ecosystems Gives Presentation on Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Peru’s Semana Internacional del Emprendimiento

Mónica Novoa, an Innovation Ecosystems program manager, gives a presentation to attendees of the Semana Internacional del Emprendimiento at the Universidad del Pacífico in Lima, Peru.

During the week of Nov. 11-15, I had the honor of participating in the 10th edition of Semana Internacional del Emprendimiento at Universidad del Pacífico in Lima, Perú. As program manager of the Innovation Ecosystems program at the Georgia Institute of Technology, I was invited by Emprende UP, the Universidad del Pacífico’s business innovation and incubation center, to give a presentation about our collaboration on a project of capacity building and strengthening of the incubator’s programs and staff.

 

I also had the opportunity to speak about the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Atlanta and at Georgia Tech. The audience included Peruvian government officials, academic and private sector leaders, faculty, students, and entrepreneurs from the country’s leading universities.

 

We have been collaborating with Emprende UP since November 2016 on a project funded by Innóvate Perú under the National Contest for the Strengthening of Business Incubators. Under this project, our goal with Emprende UP was to create a framework of knowledge transfer and best practices in business incubation and acceleration to the Emprende UP staff.

 

Mónica Novoa (third from left), stands with Universidad del Pacífico officials.

In total, we completed three main tasks — an evaluation of the incubator’s programs and operations, an immersion program in innovation and business incubation at Georgia Tech, and a strategic capacity building workshop in Lima, on key topics around business incubation and technology transfer, with particular emphasis on the financial technology (FinTech) industry.

 

As a result of this project, the Emprende UP team strengthened its knowledge and expertise in entrepreneurship methods like Customer Discovery, Lean Startup, and Design Thinking. The team also incorporated these concepts to its incubation and acceleration programs.

 

In addition, we validated Emprende UP’s programs structure and its operations model based on a benchmarking against our sister program at Georgia Tech, the Advance Technology Development Center (ATDC), and a leading university incubator in Chile.

 

Emprende UP is one of 21 incubators that have received funds from Innóvate Perú and is consistently recognized as one of that nation’s leading organizations in the entrepreneurship ecosystem. Through this collaboration, we successfully transferred new knowledge and tools to the Emprende UP team so it can further provide the valuable startup incubation programs and services for which it is known.

 

It was an intense, vibrant week packed with outstanding presentations and meetings. I met amazing people and learned a lot about the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in Lima and Perú, and returned to Georgia Tech energized and very optimistic about the future of entrepreneurship in Perú.

Georgia Institute of Technology to assist University of South Africa in economic development effort

 

The University of South Africa (UNISA) is collaborating with the Georgia Institute of Technology to foster an innovation-focused, university-based economic development ecosystem is South Africa.

 

The agreement — solidified April 26, 2019 — calls for Tech’s assistance and guidance in the creation of an innovation ecosystem to support student entrepreneurship, curricular and extra-curricular programs, and faculty and student venture creation, as well as programs that small business development opportunities and industry engagement in South Africa. While South Africa is Africa’s second-wealthiest nation as ranked by gross domestic product, the country has an unemployment rate of 25 percent, one of the highest in the world.

 

“With this partnership, I am convinced that current and future generations will look back and say this was an intervention that turned the course of our university and communities through enterprise innovation,” said M.S. Makhanya, UNISA principal and vice chancellor. “This inspires us because we are very clear about the future we are building together.”

 

The effort comes after a delegation of UNISA educators spent two weeks in Atlanta to study Georgia Tech’s economic development group, the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2).

 

Comprised of a dozen programs, EI2 is the largest university-based economic development organization of its kind in the United States.

 

While on campus, the South African delegates met with various EI2 programs, including the Advanced Technology Development Center, Georgia’s technology incubator, the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which works with manufacturers to innovate, increase top-line growth and reduce bottom-line costs, and Innovation Corps., which prepares scientists and engineers to extend their focus beyond the laboratory and foster entrepreneurship. They also met with Georgia Tech’s Office of Industry Collaboration, and visited other economic development-oriented entities, including Georgia State University.

 

Leading the two-week immersion effort was EI2‘s Innovation Ecosystems program, which works with domestic and international communities, universities, and organizations to help them develop and implement entrepreneurship and business incubation programs, as well as ecosystem analysis, among other services. Innovation Ecosystems has done projects in the majority of Georgia’s 159 counties and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, as well as Peru, France, Algeria, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), an organization comprised of 21 countries that are mostly in the Asia-Pacific region.

 

“We have a three-pronged approach with this collaborative effort, ” said Juli Golemi, Innovation Ecosystems’ senior project manager. ” Our focus is to work with them to help them set up and build an innovation-centered ecosystem — one that’s built around students, faculty, and communities. The long-term goal is for that ecosystem to support and further expand sustainable innovation and economic growth.”

 

The project supports Georgia Tech’s overall mission and reflect’s its motto of progress and service, said Leslie Sharp, the Institute’s associate vice provost for Graduate Education and Faculty Development. Sharp represented the Institute at the signing ceremony between the two schools.

“This partnership is symbolic of our motto and our commitment to being the technological university of the  21st century,” Sharp said. “This underscores the history of Georgia Tech and city of Atlanta. We can progress together.”

Georgia Tech Soft Landings Program accepting applications from foreign companies

Brandy Nagel
Innovation Ecosystems’ program manager Brandy Nagel, left, explains the various components of the business and customer relationship to a group of entrepreneurs.

Expanding a business is always an exciting endeavor. It is also a risky proposition, one full of questions, assumptions, and unknowns. While a company may have mastered the manufacturing of a product or service, its marketing, and distribution, that mastery correlates to a particular customer profile within a specific market.

 

The target customer in a new market may look the same, but may think differently and have different expectations about how something is purchased or distributed. In addition, expanding into a new country brings additional challenges, such as regulations that could be different. These unknowns make the expansion a risky, lengthy and costly process.

 

The Georgia Tech Soft Landings Program is designed for those foreign companies looking to come to the United States to reduce the risk of expansion into a new market by maximizing a company’s use of time and resources. (Applications are now open.)

 

Companies take different approaches to solve this issue. They may pay a consulting firm for a market research study. This may be an in-depth study from a statistical point of view, mixed with focus groups results and surveys. While these studies can provide great information, they do not develop skills or personal connections in the entrepreneur or company. Another approach involves sending a company representative to the new target country. This learning approach provides valuable direct contact with the clients and other partners. However, these trips tend to be lone missions without a clear path. This lack of structure usually slows the process down significantly and may not result in the desired outcome.

 

The Soft Landings program will build capacity in the participating entrepreneurs by providing a structured and systematic approach to exploring the potential expansion to the U.S. market. The Soft Landings program will educate entrepreneurs and company representatives in legal, operational, and other important requirements for operating in the U.S. It will also provide mentorship, guidance, and accountability as participants complete their own business plans with validated assumptions about their clients, partners, and distributors.

 

The Soft Landings program will make introductions to potential partners and professional service for additional guidance. The content and structured approach will help the entrepreneurs and companies answer questions, validate assumptions and eliminate unknowns, thus reducing the risk of expanding into the United States.

Georgia Tech hosts inaugural University Center Roundtable

Lynne Henkiel
Lynne Henkiel, director of Georgia Tech’s EDA University Center, addresses attendees of the inaugural Atlanta Regional Office University Center Roundtable. (Photo: Péralte C. Paul)

The Georgia Institute of Technology’s EDA University Center hosted 13 schools from across the Southeast March 13 and 14 for the inaugural Atlanta Regional Office University Center Roundtable.

 

An initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA), these university centers marshal the resources found in colleges and universities to support regional economic development strategies in areas facing chronic and acute economic distress.

 

“This meeting was two-fold, for new EDA funding awardees, this was their opportunity to present their plans and discuss what projects they planned to take on,” said Lynne Henkiel, director of Tech’s EDA University Center. “For re-awardees like us at Tech, we shared our success stories regarding past projects and gave guidance on lessons learned from past award cycles.

 

The conference featured a dozen colleges and universities from the Southeast. (Photo: Péralte C. Paul)

“It was designed to be an exchange of ideas, strategies and best practices.”

 

Among the schools in attendance: Georgia Southern University, Auburn, the University of Kentucky, Mississippi State University, Fayetteville State University, Western Carolina University, the University of Florida, University of Tennessee, Tennessee Tech University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of South Carolina.

 

H. Philip Paradice Jr.
H. Philip Paradice Jr., the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s Southeast regional director, discusses EDA funding guidelines for projects. (Photo: Péralte C. Paul)

Georgia Tech has been an EDA award recipient since the program’s inception in the 1980s — the only school with that distinction — since the 1980s.

 

In her role, Henkiel leads a wide range of outreach activities designed to promote job creation, development of high-skilled regional talent pools, business expansion in innovation clusters, and to create and nurture regional economic ecosystems in the state of Georgia. In addition, the Center seeks to conduct technology-related economic and policy research that will enhance Georgia’s competitive position.

 

In fiscal year 2017, Tech’s EDA University Center’s work helped save or create 255 jobs and led to private sector investment of $132.9 million in Georgia.

 

The Georgia Tech EDA University Center is a program of the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2), which is Tech’s economic development and outreach arm.

Georgia Institute of Technology launches initiative to assist international companies seeking to do business in Georgia

14-week Soft Landings Program helps companies understand U.S. market.

 

The Georgia Institute of Technology has created a program to help foreign companies that want to establish or increase their business operations in the state as well as get a better understanding of the U.S. economy.

 

The Soft Landings Program is a 14-week-long series of educational instruction workshops to help companies quickly and efficiently assess multiple key factors to assist them in deciding if expansion in the U.S. makes sense, and if so, how.

 

The effort is focused specifically on foreign small and medium-sized enterprises that want to do business in Georgia.

 

“Georgia is open for business and as a designated Soft Landings site by the International Business Innovation Association (InBIA), we will be working with international companies that want to expand operations here by helping them identify and assess the critical factors affecting that decision,” said Lynne Henkiel, director of innovation ecosystems practices at Innovation Ecosystems. An offering of Tech’s Economic Development Lab (EDL), Innovation Ecosystems works with communities and organizations to analyze and apply innovation-based ideas that drive economic development.

 

“Our Soft Landings Program will equip them with the tools and tap into our economic development resources by leveraging our education, government, and business relationships.”

 

Among what participants will learn or receive:

 

  • Lean Startup Methodology and Customer Validation techniques.
  • Access to experts in the fields of accounting, labor and immigration laws, mergers and acquisitions, and site selection, among others.

While the program will be offered in the spring and the fall in an online, cohort-based model, participants will come to Atlanta for one week of intensive instruction and immersion in Atlanta. There will be follow-up mentorship post-visit.

 

The program follows InBIA’s designation of Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2) as a Soft Landings site in 2017. EI2 is Georgia Tech’s business outreach and economic development unit and its dozen programs include EDL.

 

The Soft Landings designation recognizes entrepreneurship centers that excel in providing international companies with various services to ensure a smooth landing in the United States.

 

In creating the program, EDL will be working with its state and local economic development partners, including the Georgia Department of Economic Development, the Metro Atlanta Chamber, Invest Atlanta, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ Office of International Affairs, and consular offices and trade agencies representing several countries.

 

“Georgia is a hub of economic development and it continues to attract a lot of interest and investment from foreign companies,” said Juli Golemi, manager of EDL’s Soft Landings Program. “But those firms don’t always know how to navigate the process of establishing operations here. This program that we developed will give companies the critical tools, knowledge, and insight to do that.”

 

Enrollment for the spring cohort is now open until May 17, 2018 and the cohort will begin on May 31, 2018. (REGISTER HERE)

 

About the Economic Development Lab (EDL)

Economic Development Lab, an economic development program of the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Enterprise Innovation Institute, helps communities and organizations apply innovative ideas to economic development. Areas of expertise include business incubation and commercialization, strategic planning, and economic sustainability. EDL helps communities create jobs and become more competitive, by advancing innovation-led economic development by providing expertise and connections to Georgia Tech research and resources. For more information, visit edl.gatech.edu.

 

About the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2)

The Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2) is the Georgia Institute of Technology’s economic development unit. It is charged with fulfilling Georgia Tech’s mission and goals of expanded local, regional, and global outreach. EI2 is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive university-based program of business and industry assistance, technology commercialization, and economic development. EI2 is creating the next innovation economy, not only for Georgia, but beyond. EI2’s expertise and reach are global in scope, with its programs in innovation, entrepreneurship, and ecosystem development serving governments, universities, nonprofits, and other organizations worldwide. To learn more, visit innovate.gatech.edu.