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Wednesday, Mar 27, 2024
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CONNECT Goes to Washington

Most high-tech entrepreneurs and innovators don’t have time to put on a tie and sit through a three-hour meeting about policy issues in Washington, D.C. They are too busy creating the next generation of digital mobile applications and lifesaving health care products, and creating jobs for the new innovation economy. There has not been a strong voice or presence in the nation’s capital to represent these innovators, who neither have the money nor bandwidth to lobby or educate representatives on their needs and interests — until now.

CONNECT, a San Diego-based nonprofit tech organization, has opened an office in Washington, D.C., to help facilitate, from a federal level, the needs of local high tech and life science entrepreneurs and their companies.

“This is a unique constituency that other groups in Washington, D.C., and in San Diego do not focus their efforts on,” said Camille Sobrian, CONNECT’s chief operating officer. “CONNECT has a 25-year history of supporting innovators. This gives us a deep understanding of the needs and interests of researchers and early and growth stage companies.”

CONNECT’s new Washington, D.C., office — which will cost about $400,000 to launch — will be located at the University of California Washington Center, a multi-campus residential, instructional and research center. CONNECT’s policy coordinator Jessie Womble will set up and run the new office for the next six months while the organization looks for a full-time policy advocate. Through its new Washington, D.C., locale, CONNECT plans to participate in federal policy issues that will foster or hinder innovation in San Diego, including intellectual property, work force development, regulations, research funding, trade and antitrust issues, investment capital and incentives.

Innovation Economy

“Now more than ever, decisions made in Washington, D.C., will have a material impact on the financing and commercialization of innovative technologies,” said CONNECT CEO Duane Roth. “The federal government is now directly involved in setting policy on issues that affect San Diego’s innovation community.”

Roth said CONNECT will work with local trade organizations, city and county officials, CONNECT members, its Springboard companies and other small businesses in San Diego in pushing innovation issues to the front of the federal agenda. Many industries and trade organizations in San Diego are also represented on CONNECT’s policy committee.

CONNECT’s new Washington, D.C., presence is part of a $10 million effort, announced by the organization in late 2009, aimed at enhancing San Diego’s position as an “innovation economy.” And the organization has already begun to raise funds from private and public sources for this effort. Besides hiring a lobbyist in Washington, D.C., CONNECT’s other goals under the initiative include starting a seed loan fund in San Diego; developing new funding sources for early-stage companies; assisting innovation companies to outsource to local product development companies in order to reduce risk and costs; and expanding scientific research.

“More than 70 percent of funding for innovation companies in San Diego right now is coming from the federal government,” Sobrian said. “There is a need in D.C. for new and fresh voices. Lobbyists and trade organizations are often viewed by policymakers as special interests, whereas CONNECT is viewed as a neutral party. Our constituency is developing life-saving cures, cleaning up our environment, increasing our security, improving our quality of life and creating jobs. That gives us a much more powerful voice on issues that are critical to the entire life sciences and technology community.

“There is no substitute for being there,” she added. “Whether we’re talking about backroom discussions on policy development or last minute amendments, it’s critical that CONNECT be at the table to explain the impact on innovation and small business. To become aware of and gain access to these critical discussions we have to have a consistent presence and close relationships with the legislative offices and administration officials.”

Advocating Job Creation

CONNECT’s entrance into the nation’s foremost political venue couldn’t come at a better time, according to Dave Schroeder, assistant director of government research relations at UC San Diego.

“With the focus on job creation and the Obama Administration and Congress zeroing in on solutions for that, there’s no better time to enhance CONNECT’s presence in Washington, D.C.,” said Schroeder, also a member of CONNECT’s policy committee.

“CONNECT has been an incredible advocate for innovation here in our region and statewide, so this will be a real advantage for small businesses and innovators to have a similarly strong voice in D.C. in the thick of the policymaking process.

“It will also be a tremendous resource to staff on the Hill and in the agencies, who will benefit from having ready access to CONNECT’s expertise on complex and specialized issues that are so critical to small business and the innovation economy, like SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) funding, antitrust and intellectual property, to name a few,’ Schroeder added.

Rock Star Entrepreneurs

Jonathan Ortmans, a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation, captured the need for a strong Washington, D.C., presence for entrepreneurs in a recent post on the Policy Dialogue on Entrepreneurship Blog, “Rock Star Entrepreneurs Don’t Come to Washington.”

“If you have met any young serial ‘rock star’ entrepreneurs, you know they don’t fit the mold of the traditional Washington trade association. They are impatient with meetings and probably don’t own a tie, let alone a gray suit, and would not last more than an hour at the typical Washington trade association fly-in,” Ortmans said in an interview with the San Diego Business Journal. “To get a glimpse of how they do operate, take a look at Elliot Bisnow’s Summit Series that brings together many of the world’s top CEOs, entrepreneurs and philanthropists under 35. You could also look at the team at StartupWeekend.com that brings together startup enthusiasts for a 54-hour event that moves entrepreneurs from idea to launch.

“Although we hear every elected official in Washington praise small business, I am not entirely sure they really understand what inspires new entrepreneurs and makes them tick,” Ortmans added. “It is important to include policymakers in these non-traditional gatherings and meetings. … They need to understand that this new generation of startup entrepreneurs, driven by a desire to do well and do good through the marketplace, sees a world of national boundaries porous to innovation. They don’t see a world as so many do on the Capitol Hill of nations stealing jobs from each other, but an open source globe where the best and most exciting ideas and solutions are found at the very intersection of cultures and disciplines. Policymakers must embrace innovation as a way to create more magnets for talent in the United States rather than focus on putting up trade barriers and walls to keep jobs here.”

Global Competition

Even if federal policymakers are beginning to sit at the same table with entrepreneurs, there is much ground to cover, Ortmans said. One of the biggest issues for these entrepreneurs and their companies is immigration.

“High skill immigrants have two significant positive impacts on growth — first as critical engineering and science talent at U.S. companies, and second as potential entrepreneurs of new U.S.-based companies,” he said. “Unfortunately, the existing system of immigration into the U.S. is unfriendly to potential new entrepreneurs. Visas and green cards are bureaucratic, and the number of high-skill migrants allowed into the United States is capped at an artificially low level. As we speed up moving innovations into the marketplace, America now risks losing its attraction as a ‘brain magnet’ in contrast to other nations that are reforming in order to compete for this critical human capital on a global scale. American universities attract some of the brightest foreigners. Not permitting them to stay afterwards when they want to start a high growth business that creates jobs and grows our economy does not make sense. That’s why many have been arguing in favor of a new entrepreneur’s visa, allowing more of these highly educated innovators a chance to give birth to their ideas in the marketplace by creating a company here in America.”

Andrea Siedsma is a freelance writer for the Business Journal.

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