Personal Perspective: HCC Plays Role in Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

By Wayne Swann



An “ecosystem,” defined by Webster’s Dictionary, is “a system made up of a community of animals, plants and bacteria and its interrelated physical and chemical environment.” There is an inherent symbiotic (and sustaining) relationship between the various elements in an ecosystem. An entrepreneurial ecosystem is no different, and can be viewed as a community of entrepreneurial components that have a symbiotic relationship.

The Baltimore-Washington corridor has a number of impressive components in its regional entrepreneurial ecosystem. These range from physical infrastructure (technology parks and business incubators), to financing (angel investors and venture capital), to innovation and intellectual capital (colleges, universities, U.S. government laboratories), to business assistance programs (state and local programs). There are too many to name and they are spread out in many individual “micro-ecosystems” within the region.

Whether one views the ecosystem from a macro (national) or micro (local) viewpoint, a key element that is sometimes overlooked is entrepreneurial education. The education components of our regional ecosystem are impressive. To name a few, there are: the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business and Dingman Center of Entrepreneurship; University of Baltimore’s Merrick School of Business and the Center for Technology Commercialization; UMBC’s Alex Brown Center for Entrepreneurship; Towson University’s Business Program and new business incubator; and the Howard Community College (HCC) Entrepreneurship Program.



HCC Nurtures Entrepreneurs

Through entrepreneurship programs and the Center for Entrepreneurial & Business Excellence, Howard Community College has added a local educational component to Howard County’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. This evolving micro-ecosystem offers opportunities for experiential learning (including mentorship with community entrepreneurs), degree and credit transfer options and individualized course offerings. Interested in a course on Entrepreneurship and Creativity or Developing Business Opportunities and Plans? How about an individualized class on Marketing Plan Development?

Recently, HCC was awarded a three-year, $600,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) Partnerships Grant and now serves as the lead institution to develop a Technology Assessment Program. The NSF grant partners include: the Howard County Economic Development Authority; the Howard County Public School System; and U.S. government (USG) partner laboratories including the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, the USDA and NASA.

One of the key objectives of the grant is to prepare students and prospective entrepreneurs to work in an innovative enterprise. This includes reaching out to high school students to enhance dissemination of entrepreneurship to non-traditional audiences. Another key objective is to provide additional resources to USG laboratories in evaluating innovations and placing technology into new or existing businesses for public benefit. A new course has been developed to achieve these objectives.



Technology Transfer: From Invention to Marketplace

The new course is designed to enable teams of students to successfully complete the facets of technology transfer, from an initial evaluation of a new innovation through to commercialization. Each student team is assigned a different innovation from USG partner laboratories and a mentor is selected from the local business community.

Class sessions are divided into two segments: the first, a lecture on specific phases of technology transfer, and the second, discussions of each team’s invention as it relates to the lecture. Each team evaluates the invention, prepares a written technology assessment report and presents its findings during a capstone event. The assessment reports and presentations are submitted to the USG technology transfer offices to aid in their technology transfer efforts — including new company startups.



Global Environmental Pressures

Today, most new jobs and new inventions are generated by new and small businesses — many by entrepreneurs taking high-risk, high-reward gambles. Decades ago, the economic environment in the United States generally was characterized by stable markets and national competition, where competitive advantage was driven by economies of scale and innovative industrial mechanisms. The nation is now seeing more unstable markets, with short-term product lifecycles and global competition. It’s an environment where competitive advantage is being driven by innovation in an increasingly digitized, high tech, global arena.

But what happens if we lose our competitive advantage? What happens if we stop generating the jobs being created by new and small businesses? What happens if the rest of the world “out-innovates” us? Will we as a nation, in let’s say two generations, be accepting jobs from other countries … wanting to outsource their jobs to us?



Taking Care of Our Tiger Economy

The U.S. economy continues to lead the world and has remained atop the “innovation leader-board” for many years (à la Tiger Woods). The U.S. is the model the world emulates in areas such as new business startups, angel and venture capital, technology transfer and business incubators — important components in our entrepreneurial ecosystem. In a world where the competitive edge is becoming razor sharp, a little slice here or a little hook there could put us into the rough. That’s why it’s important to nurture our region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, so that entrepreneurial seeds can continue to take root and prosper — for the good of the region, and the nation.



Wayne Swann was the founding director of the Office of Technology Transfer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and is adjunct faculty and instructor of Technology Transfer: From Laboratory to Marketplace at Howard Community College. He can be reached at wswann@howardcc.edu.