Mark your calendar for the Inaugural Innovation Ecosystem Speaker Series presentation by Dr. Joel West at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 9, in the Carver-Turner Room of the Havener Center. The launch will be held on the evening of the fourth annual Kummer Day celebration, and the Innovation Ecosystem Inaugural Summit.

West is a professor of entrepreneurship at Hildegard College and professor emeritus at the Keck Graduate Institute and the San José State University’s Lucas College of Business. His research has been cited more than 25,000 times and has been presented on seven continents. His talk is titled “Creating an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: Lessons from San Diego.”

Today San Diego has a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem that supports the creation of new technology-based firms, and also concentrations of firms in industries such as biotechnology, medical devices and telecommunications. Alongside Seattle and Austin, San Diego is well established as a major hub for technology entrepreneurship, after the traditional powerhouses of Boston and Silicon Valley. But this is a comparatively recent development.

How did the transformation take place? The creation of the University of California San Diego (UCSD) played a role, but the university’s alumni and faculty entrepreneurs had a broader impact than any technology developed or licensed by the institution. More importantly, the university supported the creation of CONNECT, a unique public-private partnership that built local entrepreneurial networks and provided key support for local tech startups.

West will discuss the emergence of UCSD, CONNECT and the region’s entrepreneurial hub in the late 20th century, and offer advice for creating such a region.

Creating S&T’s ecosystem

Missouri S&T is hoping to create a similar transformation, says Dr. Venkat Allada, professor of engineering management and systems engineering and director of S&T’s one-year Innovation Ecosystem Design Initiative.

“I’m excited to lead this initiative, which will lead to building and maintaining an open innovation ecosystem to support and inspire entrepreneurs and innovators across our region,” he says.

Hosting the Innovation Ecosystem Inaugural Summit on Oct. 9 is a first step in developing recommendations and plans, he says. The summit will include a workshop hosted by Dan Reus, founder and CEO of Openly Disruptive, and attendees will learn about next steps for S&T.

The initiative’s activities will also include organizing an entrepreneurs-in-residence program and various events, establishing a council of local and regional innovators and entrepreneurs, and hosting visitors representing several backgrounds and specialties. Results of these activities will inform the strategy for creating the Rolla-based ecosystem.

Allada says they are using MIT’s Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program (REAP) as a model when it comes to the categories of stakeholders. The general categories are university-affiliated students, faculty and alumni; government policymakers; entrepreneurs; businesses; and investors, although S&T’s ecosystem will be open to anybody in the region who what wants to collaborate.  

“Everybody has scarce resources,” Allada says. “In a region-based network, you can share those resources, such as labs or equipment. Small companies are the backbone of the U.S. but they often don’t have access to university expertise.”

Allada says they hope to grow to a network of hundreds and expand the startup culture mentality at Missouri S&T. The university has several strengths to leverage: the talent of student and faculty researchers, strength in STEM disciplines, an experiential learning mindset, successful alumni, the Kummer College and the many facets of the Kummer Institute.

Stayed tuned to the Kummer College email newsletter for updates on S&T’s innovation ecosystem.