Partnering to Build Georgia’s Innovation Ecosystem

On October 24, 2013 President Peterson spoke to the Commerce Club.



Thank you for inviting us to join you today. I am proud to be here to talk with you about Georgia Tech and the impact it has on the City of Atlanta and the State of Georgia. We also have a number of Georgia Tech faculty and staff here who would be happy to talk with you about Tech after my remarks. I won’t introduce them, but will all of our faculty and staff please raise your hand? Are there any Georgia Tech alumni here today? Please raise your hand. I always like to get the lay of the land! You are among more than 138 thousand Georgia Tech alumni living and working around the world.

We are experiencing a time of positive momentum at Georgia Tech. During just the first week of fall classes: On Sunday the New York Times ran a cover story on our new Online Master of Science in Computer Science; on Tuesday engineering student Nick Selby, our sophomore speaker at the freshman convocation ceremony, went viral on YouTube with several million hits; on Thursday President Obama mentioned our OMS CS program in his education speech; and on Friday we had a campus visit from Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. Then, the next Monday, Anderson Cooper 360 included us in interviews about STEM education.

Just last week we commemorated the 10th anniversary of Technology Square. The idea for Tech Square as we know it came about the time of the 1996 Olympics, when faculty, staff and students used Fifth Street as the main campus entrance to leave other roads clear for events. Back then, Fifth Street was a blighted area with underdeveloped real estate, vacant lots and barbed wire. It has now become central to one of the leading innovation ecosystems in the Southeast – Tech Square. It is home to the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center, the Global Learning Center, the Scheller College of Business, retail shops and restaurants, and Centergy One.

Let’s look at the progression of Tech Square in these slides.

The Department of Transportation widened the 5th Street Bridge in 2007, providing a welcoming connecting point between Tech Square and the rest of Georgia Tech’s campus. During football games, it is filled with people tailgating.

Last week we met with the Georgia Tech Advisory Board, a group of successful businessmen and women from around the world. We had dinner here at the Commerce Club Friday night and were privileged to hear from Georgia Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Chris Clark. He talked about partnering to build tomorrow’s workforce. He quoted Gallup Chairman Jim Clifton from his book “The Coming Jobs War.” Clifton said that leaders should focus on creating good jobs, because that determines the fate of nations, and we could add states. The two key factors to winning that Chris mentioned were good local leadership, with business getting involved, and the work of universities in the community, including attracting and keeping talent.

A good example is Centergy One in Tech Square, home to 40 ATDC startups and dozens of other companies, along with Georgia’s Department of Economic Development.

Small businesses are core to our economic future, as they represent 97 percent of all employers and employ nearly half of the private sector workforce. By working with small businesses and startups, Georgia Tech is helping to create jobs in Georgia.

Large companies are also taking advantage of the resources and atmosphere of Tech Square. In August, AT&T opened the AT&T Foundry innovation center here, the fourth in the world. Georgia Tech and AT&T share a common focus on innovation and already partner in a number of areas. Other companies include Panasonic with their Automotive Innovation Center, GM, EY, formerly Ernst and Young, Penguin Computing, and ThyssenKrupp Elevator America. These companies are creating even greater opportunities for students and faculty while taking full advantage of the resources at Tech and participating in the exciting growth of Midtown as an innovation district.

Most of these companies are working closely with Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute, or EI2.

The Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2) is Georgia Tech’s primary business outreach and economic development organization. We focus on commercialization, entrepreneurship and connection to the existing business sector to help drive technology-based economic development in the state and beyond.

Today, EI2 manages over 16 programs that drive positive economic development and support entrepreneurship through commercialization of Georgia Tech technology, development of technology startup firms, and direct extension services to existing businesses throughout the state.

EI2 provides a vital doorway for the manufacturing sector to engage with the numerous research centers of Georgia Tech including the Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute. The Georgia Tech Manufacturing Institute is separate from EI2, but there is much collaboration. GTMI brings together top researchers and thought leaders from the varied disciplines that shape manufacturing — including science, engineering, policy, robotics, and management — to help define and solve some of the greatest challenges facing the U.S. today. It is helping to create quality jobs, ensure global competiveness, and advance economic and environmental sustainability.

The Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership under EI2 helps manufacturers improve competitiveness through strategic planning, innovation management, process improvement, ISO standards, sustainability, and energy services. Our MEP service has been in place since 1960 and last year alone it served more than 1,200 manufacturing firms in Georgia, resulting in increased sales of over $250 million as reported by these firms.

EI2 recently expanded our services in the healthcare field by implementing lean manufacturing techniques in healthcare facilities. One example is Meadows Regional Medical Center in Vidalia.

Another key program in EI2 is Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center, or ATDC, which has helped launch more than 140 companies that, together, have created thousands of jobs and attracted more than $2 billion in investment. This year ATDC was named by Forbes magazine as one of 12 business incubators that are, quote, “Changing the World.” ATDC now has more than 30 select member companies including Pindrop Security and Soneter.

ATDC provides coaching, connections, and a community to foster the development of technology startups in Georgia. Our ATDC incubator has also just expanded its mentoring staff, adding a Manufacturing Startup Catalyst to help drive more “product-based, manufacturing type” startups through the ATDC process. 

Georgia Tech also has regional offices and local outreach professionals around the state who provide expertise and support to help build better businesses and strengthen Georgia’s economy.

We have regional office locations in Albany, Athens, Atlanta, Augusta, Carrollton, Columbus, Dublin, Gainesville, LaGrange, Macon, Rome, Savannah, Smyrna, and Warner Robins. In addition, we have 11 professional offices throughout the state.

You may remember the Intel commercials with the slogan, “Intel Inside.” We could say the same about Georgia Tech. Georgia Tech plays a behind-the-scenes role in helping to attract new business and industry to the state. For example, on Monday the Governor’s Office announced that King’s Hawaiian, a state-of-the-art bakery and distribution company, will expand its existing operations in Oakwood in Hall County to create more than 400 new jobs in phases by 2016. The company reached out to some of our EI2 people earlier this fall for advice.

I want to share just a few examples of how Georgia Tech’s partnerships with business and industry are improving the economy. Take GIW Industries, which has facilities in both Groveton and Thomas, Georgia. They produce slurry pumps used in settings such as mining sites and dredge ships. Their production plants total about 100,000 square feet and they have 500 employees. In 2011, they began working with the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership’s Augusta regional office to analyze ways to improve their on-time delivery rate. After implementing various production improvements, their rate went from 90 to 94 percent, allowing the firm to save about $250,000 in labor and material costs.

GaMEP also worked with OrthoCare Labs in LaGrange, which produces custom orthotics, or shoe inserts, for athletes, diabetics and others. The company receives orders from physicians who either make digital measurements of patients’ feet or use physical casts, such as plaster molds. Georgia Tech helped the company increase production by 200 percent, including a sales increase of $1.1 million annually and cost savings of $230,000.

Then there’s Max Manufacturing based in Pelham. It makes “Just Ice,” a giant ice-vending machine housed in a building. When Tim Maxwell, the president, owner and founder of the 10-employee company wanted to begin manufacturing its ice buildings four years ago, he turned to GaMEP to implement lean production techniques. Today, the company credits its success to the approach it learned from GaMEP, saying those lean methods boost annual sales by as much as $1 million and save up to $40,000 in yearly expenses.

Georgia Tech is engaged in high-impact, real-world research and economic development. Tech’s research and economic development activities have been organized into 12 areas — including biomedicine and bioscience, energy, manufacturing, materials, nanotechnology and national security — to align with strategic industry and commercialization opportunities in the state of Georgia.

We believe that much of the research that will change our world will be interdisciplinary in nature, and as a result we continue to work to create the world’s foremost innovation ecosystem, one that incorporates the pursuit of “game changing” research and moves the results toward commercialization. This will provide our industry partners with a competitive advantage while benefiting the economy and society.

Another vital element in this ecosystem, now and for the future, is our commitment to engaging students in innovation. Georgia Tech offers a growing number of incentives and opportunities for students, including the InVenture Prize, Capstone Design Expos, Invention Studio, the Convergence Challenge, and the GE Smart Grid Challenge.

We are also committed to encouraging students in K-12 to consider, and prepare for, careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, or STEM fields. Although it doesn’t have an education college, Georgia Tech is one of the state’s leaders in working with young people to increase the number of STEM students, which will expand our future workforce and help drive our economy. For 25 years, Tech’s Center for Education Integrating Science, Mathematics and Computing (CEISMC) has connected Tech with educational groups, schools, corporations and opinion leaders around the state and nation.

In this photo, principal research engineer Jud Ready teaches a lesson on growing carbon nanotubes as part of GTRI’s Direct-to-Discovery program. The students are watching from 66 miles away at Jasper County High School through videoconferencing technology. This high-speed Internet connection and high-definition, real-time video allow the students to participate in the research as it happens.

One of the ways we reach people throughout the world is through Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCS. While we had some very smart people working on Tech’s strategic plan, nobody predicted the amazing rapidity with which “technology assisted instruction” would be adopted. This is a new arena for higher education, and Georgia Tech is one of the leaders. We started offering MOOCS one year ago, and so far, we have had more than 500,000 students in 18 courses. It is the most rapidly growing enrollment in the country.

Our Online Master of Science in Computer Science announcement in partnership with AT&T in May has received extensive national coverage, as well as interest from business and industry. It is the first professional Master of Science in Computer Science that can be earned completely through the “massive online” format. We opened registration on October 9 and have already received more than 1,300 applications. The OMS CS could help address the nation’s growing shortage of qualified workers in STEM fields, which is one of the primary reasons AT&T decided to lend its financial support. It has the potential to double the number of trained computer professionals worldwide in as little as a decade. Courses related to the OMS CS will be available free of charge on the Udacity site, but only those students granted admission to Georgia Tech will receive credit.

Students in far-flung locations aren’t the only ones benefitting from Georgia Tech’s MOOCS. Faculty who have taught MOOCs have credited the experience with improving their classroom teaching, and they are integrating MOOCS into their on-campus classes. Students studying on campus are gaining more opportunities for interaction in class due to flipped classrooms where they view the lectures online and come to class for discussion. We’re also exploring ways to use MOOCs to help students avoid the “bottleneck” that some experience as they near graduation. Some required courses not taught on campus that semester could be taken online.

Online education not only enhances a traditional college education, it also helps people participate in lifelong learning. Today, Georgia Tech’s Distance Learning offers 40 areas of study to students ages 16 to 85. Last year 17,000 individuals from more than 3,500 corporations and government organizations took part in Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE) programs. And they represented about half of the world’s countries.

I’ve touched on just some of the things we’re doing at Georgia Tech to partner with Georgia business and industry, government and education in creating a strong innovation ecosystem. Working together, we can create an even stronger hub of innovation, creating jobs and stimulating the economy, today and in the future.

Thank you.