Public-Private Partnerships for Scalable Regional Growth

At its core, a public-private partnership is creating some sort of consortium or some sort of project that can leverage both the strengths of the public sector, so access to larger procurement dollars, you know, having a little bit more of a convening power, a little bit more of like that soft and hard power that comes from elected offices, and then combining that with the flexibility, the nimbleness, the connections, the narrower scope of a private entity.

Good morning, good afternoon in some places, perhaps even good night. My name is Paul O'Brien. I'm in Austin, Texas, and we were just joking about the fact that it is, as of right now, both morning and afternoon. So welcome everyone. My work with Founder Institute is in what's called public affairs or government relations. You might be familiar with Founder Institute. In the context that we run local programs in about 300 cities throughout the world. We're certainly here to help you understand how to do that and get an incubator and accelerator live to help entrepreneurs develop enduring and meaningful companies. But we're here to have a different conversation today. We've been doing a lot of research over the past couple of years about what makes startup development organizations really work. And both at an academic level and through startup development organizations, we continue to find that there are better methodologies, there are better approaches for your city that explore things like working in closer conjunction with universities, for example, in commercialization or tech transfer, or working with your economic development office to put in place a public-private partnership that reaches far more people throughout the world, or perhaps working more closely with venture capitalists to fund or underwrite a startup program that could be meaningful for a specific sector of your economy. One of those studies that we've been looking at and writing about rather extensively is the fact that what we're finding is in your community, the local culture, the local history, and the sectors that you have experience with are best driven and defined by the local leaders, entrepreneurs, and investors there. But that there's tremendous value in partnering with other organizations to ensure that other mentors, perhaps sector-specific partners, and perhaps investors from throughout the world are accessible, available to the startups that you're developing. We're gonna have a little bit of a talk about that today with an organization out of Washington, DC called PennWest. Before I get to the team that's joined me for this conversation, let me share a couple of housekeeping notes. Please, by all means, use the chat to introduce yourselves in the sidebar of Airmeet. Also, go ahead and use the Q&A experience that's there. Well, we're gonna have a discussion about how these public-private partnerships work how regional partnerships work, and how collaboration works and can work in your part of the world. I certainly wanna hear from you as well, and we'll try to weave in any meaningful questions as we have time and it's appropriate to do so. As I said, I'm here in Austin, Texas, and so by way of a bit of a heads up, in just about a month, we have South by Southwest in this part of the world. And so I'm gonna encourage you to take a look at what's going on there since the entire Founder Institute Austin team and Texas team is pretty heavily involved with a series of events throughout the week. I will also be mentoring startups and economic development professionals that come to South by Southwest to learn how to do this. So take advantage of that and connect with me if you'd like to learn more. Let's turn it over to the rest of the team though, to have a conversation. Joining me today is Elizabeth Packner, who has had a conversation with us before, so I'm excited to see her back from Golden Triangle. Guccio Asenci is also with Founder Institute. He's what we call an innovation partner. I'm going to let him explain what that means, but it's a rather important role that we have in Founder Institute that helps us more meaningfully develop innovative ecosystems throughout the world. And I've also asked Adam Latimore to join us. He's with the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development in Washington, D.C. And so you can already see how bit of a relationship is starting to form through these three different organizations with different objectives and how we can build something more meaningful with them. How are y'all?

Thank you. Thank you.

Fantastic.

Good. Adam, I got you on the left-hand side of my screen. So why don't you tell me a little bit more about yourself and your organization and how you got involved in what we're doing here.

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, hi everybody, my name is Adam Lattimore. I'm the Director of Technology and Innovation with the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. My office sort of oversees all of the economic development functions for the city of Washington, D.C. So that looks like real estate, that looks like business development, that looks like a lot of different things. But my role specifically focuses on how we can diversify our economy away from being sort of solely reliant on the federal government and how we can start to sort of expand our economy in key sectors in the technology sort of space. And so I manage a couple of different programs for the district government. We've got a venture capital program, which I can talk about at some point today. We also have a technology ecosystem fund, which is a new sort of fund that we've created this year to help to support incubators and accelerators like Founders Institute. But I also just generally sort of advise the Deputy Mayor and vis-à-vis the Mayor on how we can sort of, how we can best sort of play in the technology space and what sort of the value adds that the district has and how we can continue to sort of expand and grow our technology economy, support entrepreneurs, support startups, and, you know, continue to grow our space.

Wonderful. Great. Glad you're here. And I think Elizabeth, you're probably the, perfect person to help explain that shift from the national government, or in our case, the federal government in Washington, to how we might be doing things a little bit more locally. Tell me, tell me and tell us a bit about your past and your work.

Yeah, hi everyone, my name is Elizabeth Packer. I'm with the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District. So for folks who might not be familiar with what BIDs are, um, they're a type of organization that exists in cities across the U.S. and they take a place-based approach to fostering neighborhood vitality, and also supporting economic development. So, for the Golden Triangle bid, the neighborhood we serve is kind of the core of downtown Washington, D.C. So, it's a traditional central business district full of offices. So, in the post-pandemic era, we have been working closely with our partners at the city to think about what is the future of downtown and how do we think about keeping this neighborhood vibrant and activated even though we don't have the same office usage that we did in the past, given work from home and hybrid models. So one of those efforts has been thinking about how do we bring in more startups and entrepreneurs and tech companies, people who might not traditionally have thought about downtown DC as a place to, to do their work. So you mentioned this initiative at the start, Paul, but in partnership with the city, with Adam's office, We launched an initiative called the Penn West Equity and Innovation District to try to brand and market this specific neighborhood as a hub for DC's tech community. So, you know, given that the bid is very geographically focused, we are taking a place-based approach to growing the ecosystem here in this neighborhood, and we see value in aggregating people together. And so one of the programs that we're doing has been in partnership with Gooch and Founder Institute to run an in-person accelerator here in the neighborhood. So I know a lot of Founder Institute programs are often hybrid or virtual only, but we thought there was value again in having that in-person gathering. Everyone has been working out of the same coworking space. So we think that's been really positive and that's the kind of in-person activity that we want to be building more of here in our part of DC.

Wonderful.

Yeah.

Wonderful, because you're right. We've been going through an era where we found we can work remotely. We found we can connect throughout the world. We found we can reach out to people and be on Zoom or AirMeets like this with everyone. And yet there's a lot to be said for the concentration of people in a specific part of the world. Gucci, you helped frame this relationship. You're involved pretty heavily with Founder Institute. Go ahead and share a bit of your background as well and give us some more depth to what PennWest is and how that was put together.

Yeah, perfect. Thank you. Thanks for having us. And, you know, as always, it's a pleasure to be with Elizabeth and Adam. So I've been in the tech industry for quite a while, almost 30 years. I was with big tech companies, Cisco, HP for about 15 years. And then afterwards I turned entrepreneur. And build my own B2B SaaS, software as a service venture, you know, funded from VCs, grown in regions, and eventually after 7 years, right before the pandemic, we've been acquired and I successfully exited. And since then, I've been trying to help early stage, mostly pre-seed and seed stage startups, running the, not only the accelerator Founder Institute's Washington, DC chapter, but also bringing people together, organizing in-person panels every month, at least once a month, sometimes twice. And I realized that, as you said, Paul, working remotely is a great opportunity. So you can have, you know, teams from all around the world, right? Gather people from all around the world without traveling and access to their talents. However, working together every once in a while, at least, really, it really is invaluable. So this is what we are experiencing here as we partner with the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District, Elizabeth, and the Deputy Mayor's Office in DC with Adam. So we recruited 20 startups from all around the world. So we have people join to this program from Europe, UK, Serbia, Canada, all around, all across the, the US, and they actually physically are in DC. So this is a 14-week program, so almost 4 months. For 4 months they have been here in the city physically experiencing what the city offers, right? So it's a great vibe, not only the city's vibe but also the experts in this area, the talent. It's so seriously invaluable because if you look at the numbers, this, the C region, including, you know, The Greater Washington, D.C. region is the most educated, has the most educated population. But on the other hand, just like Adam said, most of the businesses focused on government contracting, federal businesses and funding, stuff like that. However, what we see after, what we experience after the pandemic is people are You know this, they quit their jobs, right? They quit their comfort zones because I believe what I see is, well, just one life, maybe we need to chase our dreams and create an impact, whatever they're dreaming. So what we're going to discuss today is I can talk about the entrepreneurial side, which I experienced a lot And then the accelerator side. So instead of reinventing the wheel, so bringing the know-how and resources together and partnering with the ecosystem speeds up the process and really encourages everyone to join to create an effective ecosystem. So ecosystem building matters. That's for sure.

It certainly matters. Let's start there if we can, and I'd love to have you each ask this so we get your— or answer this rather— so we get your perspective on it. It's a pretty simple question, but Gucci pointed it out. You have people from all over the world, but I'm happy to see Seattle and Maryland and Serbia and Hamburg. Hi, Nicole, in the audience. And so let's start by framing the kind of entity that was put in place for PennWest. Let's talk about what a public-private partnership means. And in each case, you might have a different perspective on that. I'd like to make sure everybody understands it because in my, in my conversations throughout the world, I find that, you know, folks are, folks are generally just trying to get an incubator live. We just want to have an accelerator here. And that's, that's not actually what this is. This, this is a combination of different organizations that came together to build something a little bit more meaningful. If you were to just define what that, what that means holistically, what's a public-private partnership? Give it a shot. Adam, you want to take a crack at it first?

Sure, yeah. I mean, so a public-private partnership, you know, I'll just go back to the actual words, is, you know, it is a partnership put together between public and private entities, right? And so, but those can look like any sort of type of group. And so for this example, you know, we've got the public space, which is the district government through DMPED, my office. Providing funding to a private entity, in this instance, a business improvement district for a sort of place-based activation around technology. And so at its core, a public-private partnership is creating some sort of consortium or some sort of project that can leverage both the strengths of the public sector. So access to larger procurement dollars, you know, having a little bit more of a convening power, a little bit more of like that that soft and hard power that comes from elected offices, and then combining that with the flexibility, the nimbleness, the connections, the, you know, narrower scope of a private entity. And so that's really what we tried to sort of create here with the PennWest Initiative, using dollars that, you know, at the time came from— this is the COVID era, so we had a lot of ARPA dollars that were flowing to the district that we wanted to find creative and effective ways to use. And so we were able to sort of put this together so that we could start to create some real movement and intentionality behind the technology ecosystem and the economy here in the district.

Really quickly, you refer to ARPA dollars. I'm not sure most people know what that is.

Right. So the American Rescue Plan Act was a massive spending bill and stimulus package that was passed during the COVID pandemic as a way to make sure that, you know, the economy could continue to move in a time where, you know, we were facing unprecedented challenges. And so One of the many sort of ways that ARPA dollars were utilized were towards stimulating businesses and making sure that businesses were able to stay open, but that also that localities or jurisdictions and states could continue to invest in parts of the business sectors that they thought were going to be important to their economies, you know, not only during that COVID era, but also afterwards.

Elizabeth, do you have a loosely different take, or is that, is that textbook definition of what people should be thinking about putting together?

Yeah, well, I mean, yes, a public-private partnership is when public entities and private entities work together on shared goals. I think that this partnership is a little unique, especially in the context of innovation districts. For one thing, Abid is— we're not a private company, we're a nonprofit. So, you know, yes, we operate different than the public sector, but we also operate very differently than a private sector. And often in innovation districts, you'll see a corporate— like, like a corporate partner works with government to advance, you know, maybe research to benefit both, but also it's, it's, you know, R&D for that private company. So that's, I think, something that's unique in this model. The other partner that's part of this initiative is George Washington University. So again, we often see in innovation districts that there is a an academic institution that builds in as part of that public-private partnership. So GW brings its resources and it's located in the neighborhood. So again, it's still about putting everyone together in one place and the advantages of having everyone working together while also leveraging the resources that a major R1 university brings at the table. So I think with PennWest, you know, it's been a lot of working with the district to understand their goals around growing DC's tech ecosystem and then thinking about what that looks like here on the ground. And then so one outgrowth of that has been this program with Gooch to do the in-person accelerator to support seed stage companies since we know there's a need for that. We've also done a lot to host events on a regular basis, again, to give the DC tech community ways to gather in spaces to come together. And then we've done a few other business attraction efforts, again, to complement the public sector's goals and think about what that looks like here on the ground in the neighborhood.

And Gooch, you probably best represent that private sector piece. Yes. Your take.

Yeah, exactly. So, What I can say is I think we learn from each other. Okay, so no one entity is enough to grow an ecosystem, especially the tech ecosystem, right? Because tech is— technology is— yes, it's growing at a— or, you know, it's really growing at a warp pace, right? So it's fast. But, but the other thing is it's just one piece of the equation. So we have to look at it we have to look at the big picture, and there are so many pieces in the puzzle. Instead of one entity or one perspective trying to paint the whole picture, which is not doable, instead, if we collaborate, if we partner with different strengths, different expertise, different organizations, especially policymaking, the government institutions, because they not only have resources, so those resources are quite unknown from, and maybe sometimes unreachable from the private side, especially the entrepreneurs. And entrepreneurial life is quite hectic. It's a very, very difficult journey by itself. So getting, trying to access those resources on the other side, it's almost impossible most of the time. So one big resource is coming from that side, the policymaking, the federal institutions. And then universities, just like, you know, Elizabeth said, yes, there are universities, great universities in this region, but they have another perspective. They are very good at one side, like research and teaching, stuff like that. But then there's this reality and the real industry, the how to sell, how to test, how to grow. So that's another thing. So bringing everybody together as a partnership in a— on a platform and running it with the know-how that We have, as the Founder Institute, I mean, Founder Institute is around for 16 years, bringing all those local leaders like myself who are coming from the industry side and have been entrepreneurs, either exited entrepreneurs or somehow ecosystem leaders. So we can't do this just by ourselves. They can't do this just by themselves, and the others can't do that just by themselves. So there's no need to reinvent the wheel. So if we come together, it's a big opportunity to really make things happen.

You touched on resources a bit, and Brian, thank you for asking a question. By the way, everyone, if you have questions, just drop them in the chat. There's also a Q&A function you could use to throw some stuff our way. Brian wanted to know if ARPA dollars were actually even still available, but even Gucci— so Adam, I'll have you clarify that, but even Gucci touched on the fact that there are usually a lot more resources available in different countries and in every country than founders and even incubators are aware of. So why don't we talk about that a little bit? Adam, you want to kick that off first just to clarify those ARPA dollars or anything else you're aware of? I do some stuff with the SBA and SIBER grants and so forth, and there's that kind of money available even for things like this. Yeah, talk a bit more about that if you don't mind.

Yeah, so I think, uh, and I would have to double-check this, but I'm pretty sure that ARPA dollars had to be expended by, uh, 2026. Um, and so each— so the way that this was done is that states were given an allotment of funding, and then those states or jurisdictions, for the, uh, you know, sake of DC since we're not technically a state, then sort allocated those dollars across all of their agencies. And so there are probably agencies that still have ARPA dollars that are available. States and jurisdictions are able to sort of put in requests for extensions on these funding. I know that there's been a lot of changes made at the federal level to like how states are able to sort of disseminate these dollars. But for the most part, I would say that agencies and states and jurisdictions have probably already created the avenues for which they're going to expend those dollars. And so more than likely, some of the opportunities that you're seeing at the state and local level that are funded by the government may have some ARPA dollars in them, but there's not necessarily like a specific section where you would go to find just only ARPA dollars, right? They're, they were infused into programs that were already funded by the government, uh, or by government agencies to sort of offset or expand the cost centers at they did have.

And, and, Gooch, it's your experience that these kind of dollars are readily available, if not ARPA, and it's just a matter of connecting with folks in, in policy or economic development? Give me, give me a sense for— give, give the audience a sense for how to get, get access to those kind of things and get something like this going.

So let me tell you what we did here in Washington, DC, right? So we came together Yes, the, you know, Adam mentioned the ARPA dollars. So there was this, this, this resource. So how could we best utilize that resource for, for, for creating jobs, economic development through technology, attracting the innovation and talent to DC? Right? So one way was to create a custom program with the know-how Foundry Institute has, with the resources that the federal government and the support that BID has, because there are so many buildings to be utilized. So instead of running a virtual program, We created this custom program and recruited those promising startups from all around the world to physically be here for free. The program is free, equity-free, registration fee-free, with all the mentors that we have and the structured program we have. So as Adam said, so there are so many different organizations, entities in the federal government and local governments, different states. Different countries do have different programs as well, but even we see this amongst different countries, okay? So not only within the States, but actually, just like we have some folks joining the call today from Europe, so the countries have realized that it's not just themselves to to provide money and other resources to make this a success. So because, I mean, it's a global world, right? So the talent is everywhere. So there should be ways to utilize those resources. It's a puzzle, okay? Even if you just have a look at the resources here in the DC region, so many agencies, right? If you look at the country, 51 states, if you look at the world, so many countries, but I think the key is to keep on building relationships and partnering and collaborating with everyone. So I don't really personally, and Foundry Institute mentality is the same, we don't see it as a competition. It is, well, at most it is competition, right? So there is we work together to create something bigger. Okay, the market grows as we work together, even competition. I mean, you look at it, you know, of course, well, as you compete, you grow the market. But I think instead of just running after dollars at specific agencies, I think for me, being an ex-entrepreneur, running after expertise and know-how and building relationships is the key because today there is dollars here and then tomorrow there is another resource here. If you look at, you know, from a dollar perspective, but it's going to be limited, right? So it's not sustainable. What is critical is to keep on building those relationships and partnerships. That's why it's public-private partnerships. It's not called, I think, public money to be used, or private money to be utilized, because anyhow, there's so much money everywhere, right? I know it's not easy when I say that people say it's difficult to fundraise and everything. Yes, but it is You need to somehow create a sustainable model and not depend on donors, on free money, right, on grants. So this is what we're trying to do with this partnership with the PanWest program. What we are trying to do with these, working with those 20 startups for 4 months, is to assess their business model. Right? Their revenue models, their go-to-market models, uh, how to embrace, uh, customer discovery throughout their life, not just the beginning, right? So even when they become a huge big enterprise, they still need to do that. So, uh, instead of asking the question, where is the money, uh, I think the right question is, how do I build partnerships and value together with my partners and access to those people who want to help. Because I think there's a great way to attract help and, you know, the attention to startups. Because startups are, to be honest, I mean, everybody loves startups, right? Because there's technology, innovation involved, it's exciting, right? So if you say you're a startup founder Well, people admire because it's difficult and that means you're brave and you're trying to survive and they want to help. Okay.

So I think to your point too, Gucci, like relationship building is really, really important. And from the perspective of someone who sits in government specifically with like an economic development lens, there are offices in every major city, but also every sort of locality or town. That focuses on economic development, right? Everywhere in the country is trying to figure out how they can generate more tax revenue, provide more services for their constituents, you know, create an environment that can help to sort of grow and scale businesses. And so those priorities for each of those agencies are going to look different depending on where you are, but you won't know what those priorities are unless you do the work to make the relationship with the people who are in charge of bringing those strategies to life. And so I also think that, you know, economic development from a business development standpoint for so long has been focused on HQ and corporate attraction, right? How do we get the Amazons, the Googles, the Microsofts to leave wherever they are and establish a new amazing large office in my town? Because then we are gonna generate tax revenue off of that property. We're gonna have more people with high revenues living in our city, and then we can create more income tax, right? I think that paradigm, while it still exists, and there is definitely still value in sort of headhunting for companies and making sure that you have anchor institutions that, you know, people want to be around, that's still important. But I think there is a growing understanding that Ecosystem building and entrepreneurial pathway development is just as, if not more beneficial to a locality or jurisdiction or city or whatever you wanna call it in the long run than just going out and hunting for HQs. And so there are a lot of practitioners who are working in the government or in economic development organizations or business improvement districts like Elizabeth that sort of understand the value of supporting entrepreneurs and small business growth and startup growth. And so one of the best things you can do is learn who is doing that in your area, meet them, understand what their priorities are, what the leader of that city or that town's sort of understanding of entrepreneurship or, or startup growth is, and then figure out how you can support that, right? And maybe there's an opportunity immediately for you for funding, uh, for your business, Maybe there's not, but maybe there's ways for you to connect those actors to the ecosystem that already exists, right? Because I'll be the first person to say, like, I am not the best person to say what, you know, everything is that's going on in the startup ecosystem in DC, right? Like, Gucc is in many ways more on the ground than I am. And that startup, you know, founder is better connected to other like startups than I could be. And so, those relationships, from my perspective, are important for me to have, but they're also really important for you to have with the people who are making the decision and setting the strategy and the direction for the area that you live in.

We're dancing around— actually, you make a wonderful point that I'd like to reinforce since I'm watching the chat thread. Most cities think of job growth as moving a corporate headquarters, and I want to reiterate moving a corporate headquarters, because we're really starting to appreciate in economic development that all you're really doing is transferring jobs. You're not actually creating them. It's the small business development, the new small businesses, it's the startup development that is what actually creates jobs and creates wealth in your ecosystem through a host of different ways. We may touch on that a little bit more if we have time. I want to jump ahead a little bit next, but I actually want to back up just one more time. What I want to jump ahead to, and Elizabeth, I'd like you to tackle this when appropriate, but, you know, a lot of questions about encouraging resources or investors or other partners to get involved. And so I wanna start talking about a little bit more why these programs are so effective. But before I get there, just because it's consistent with the thread we've been on, Brian and Prajeeth, thank you for chiming in a little bit more. There's still some questions about where to start. And I see, you know, is it the economic development office? Is it a consultant? Is it a— Is it something, you know, in the city, someone in the city in particular? Let me chime in first, and please everyone clarify further. The answer is it depends. And that isn't actually a challenging answer, Brian. It depends because you got to have a conversation with folks about what we want to have in this ecosystem. In Texas, for example, we did one in Abilene through the Chamber of Commerce. In Bellevue and Seattle, Washington, we've got something like this with some corporate involvement, where the corporate is the private entity. As far as the public is concerned, in my experience, it could be the mayor's office, which is a bit of Adam's purview. It could be an innovation district, which is Elizabeth's focus. It could be the economic development office, could be Chamber of Commerce. You're going to find the public support in, in a number of different channels. Anything you might add to folks wanting to clarify that, everyone?

No, I mean, I think that's a good summation. If you're thinking about you want, you want to bring an innovation accelerator to your neighborhood, I mean, for our perspective and our goals and like the way that the bid was working with the city, again, like our emphasis was really how do we create a place-based program that's bringing people people into the neighborhood. And so to the point about relationships, I was introduced to Gooch through another kind of DC tech event, and we got to talking and kind of thinking through how we could take advantage of Founder Institute's expertise at running an accelerator, because that's certainly not the BID's expertise. So how could we work together to accomplish mutual goals? And that was how we structured the program. So that worked in this specific scenario, but obviously, as you were saying, Paul, it's gonna depend on a variety of contexts. So I think if the goal is— if the questions are getting at how do we bring or start up an incubator accelerator program, I mean, like everyone's been saying, for one of the first steps is just the relationship building and having conversations to identify who the partners are are going to be, and then kind of building from there.

Yeah. Yeah, and I'd add the point in ensuring someone like Gus from Founder Institute is on the call is, of course, there are a lot of people, as he referred, there are a lot of people that just do this work on behalf of ecosystems. I do. I'm not a consultant. If you want to just reach out to me and have a conversation about your city, I'm happy to do that. We do a lot of research about your ecosystem and what may or may not work, and we try to help you put the pieces together. With or without Founder Institute, frankly, because as we also shared, these conceptually aren't competitive. The idea here is we're trying to build what's right for different cities throughout the world. Talk about that a little bit more, Elizabeth, if you don't mind. What do you find is most effective about your program in particular? What's more effective than it not being a partnership? If you were just to have a standalone incubator, what is it about this collaboration that makes it a lot more meaningful and effective? And I think that would help answer some of these questions we're seeing in the chat too about why do this and how do this. Well, it's, it's more meaningful than just, just a singular entity trying to put in place. Talk about that a little bit for us.

Yeah, well, I mean, for one thing, just at the BID, we don't have the resources in terms of capacity, know-how, and a variety of other ways. We don't have the resources to run an incubator. So our goal, which comes from the city and the funds that we had, was work to build the neighborhood as a hub for entrepreneurs and startups. So in thinking about, okay, well, what does that look like and how can we attract startups to this neighborhood, knowing that what I bring to the table is the city funding, where can I find partners who do have the know-how and the expertise to successfully run incubators and support startups? So that was how the conversation with Gooch came about. As he said, Founder Institute has been around for many years now and has a system and approach and a large network here in DC that they would be able to bring to the table. And so it wasn't just plugging in their, their standard approach, it was using the framework and the resources they have to build something that would work for our overall goals of having the incubator here. In D.C. So I think, you know, being able to work together on defining kind of the program goals was useful, and bringing on a partner allowed us to run a program that otherwise we wouldn't have been able to do. And, you know, this is the first time we've done it. It's wrapping up now. So, you know, we're looking forward to seeing what the ultimate outcomes are. And the goal is to be able to continue this program and run future cohorts. And part of that is going to be bringing other partners on board to help bring resources to enable us to have future cohorts of the program. So that's kind of looking ahead where we plan on going.

Good. Any other thoughts? Or Adam, any other thoughts on the distinct benefits that people might look for in putting this kind of thing together? What, you know, what What draws more resources to this kind of partnership?

I think just one thing to add. I think Elizabeth really summarized it pretty well. When, as I said at the very beginning, if you look at this from a broad perspective, the big picture, I think Working together with as many partners as possible and having their buy-in and, you know, resources and expertise here, it really helps with not only very obvious KPIs like we say job creation. Yes, job creation, but, you know, just like you said, maybe it's just job transfer, right? So, and, and with the With all the new things in technology with AI, so many questions going on, right? So is this very same job is going to be here next year, whatever. I think it is know-how creation. And just like, you know, we go to higher education to understand and to learn how to learn something, right? So we're not an expert when we get out of that higher education institution. So you learn how to learn. So I think this is the way— this should be the way to go. So as you partner and form a very well-structured program, just like we're doing right now, that helps other KPIs to be met. Okay, so wealth creation, right? That takes generations normally. I mean, job creation, yes, or maybe occupancy at real— those buildings, the real estate, yes, that's great. But I think we need to look at it from a broader perspective and in the long run, longer run, I think being the center of innovation and creating new ideas and new businesses, sustainable new businesses, helps shift mentalities and grow communities. That's what I think. So it's— I think there is an— apart from the economic perspective, there is the impact side. And sustainability. Because again, coming back to dollars, whatever dollars, it's ARPA or whatever the name is, it's going to be there or may not be there, but it is not definitely sustainable to depend on something. Rather, if we create a unified collaborative environment, then we can create that impactful growth machine, no matter what kind of technology or economic environment is in front of us. Because things will change. Today it's AI, it's going to evolve to something else. And then maybe other things, not maybe, definitely some other things are going to be happening. All around the world. So to be able to live through and create sustainable businesses, we need to collaborate and utilize that partnership opportunities much, much more efficiently.

I think, and I'm going to try to address maybe like one or two questions that I've seen in the chat here about like funding and, you know, how do we do some of this other stuff. I know an incubator and accelerator is not the sol— is not like just that alone is not the solution, right? And so like we, you need to think to your point, Gucci, you need to think more broadly and more high level about what it actually takes in an ecosystem to create success. And so that does look like funding for pre-seed, seed stage companies. That does look like funding for incubators and accelerators, but that also looks like support for universities that are, you know, that have cutting-edge research that they need to commercialize. That also looks like getting buy-in from institutional-level funders for companies once they reach the growth stage. And so it's not just about putting an incubator and accelerator into wherever you live. Because that's great. But if there isn't a density of like a creative class that is generating companies or new ideas, then you have no companies to put into that accelerator. And if you don't have funders that are willing to put $10,000 to $100,000 into an idea that someone has or a prototype that someone's created in their house, you don't have anybody to sort of fill those seats. And so this isn't unfortunately like a one-size-fits-all model. You really have to sort of think about the full spectrum of a company's life and what it takes to get them from just an idea to being scaled across a region or a country, right? And so that's why I think for us, like in DC, we've started And right, you can't do all this all at once, right? You just, it's not going to happen. It's going to take time. We've started to sort of develop these levers that we can support the ecosystem at different sort of entry points. And so the venture capital fund is a $26 million fund that's backed by the US Treasury that we are using to invest in seed and pre-seed stage companies that are based in DC, right? We've identified a gap. We don't have a lot of early-stage funding here in the district. We've started to get some more VCs that are starting to locate here in the DMV because of the density of talent and the density of technology, right? But there is still that gap. And so we're going to try and fill that with the venture capital fund, try to spur some, you know, activity there, and then see how that goes. The technology ecosystem fund right now is being focused on how do we support incubators and accelerators? Of those companies that are getting some of that early-stage dollars to help them sort of grow and expand. We've got a growth fund that is specifically geared towards companies that have a product, they've got revenues, they have an office maybe, but they're looking to sort of expand their size and they wanna sort of access the DC market in a different way. And then we have our vitality fund, which is the HQ sort of bucket. So we've got $5 million that's for HQ-sized companies that are looking to expand their office space, expand their— the number of jobs that they have, and sort of, uh, you know, that's— we're providing funding in that way, right? There are still other areas that we could focus on, right? DC is a very high-cost market, and so how do we make— how do we find ways to, you know, bring down the cost of office space here in the District and make it sort of competitive with some of our more low-cost, you know, neighboring jurisdictions. But I think in summary, what I'm trying to say is like, you can't solve all your problems with just an incubator and accelerator. You have to sort of make sure that you are building those partnerships with other organizations that do things that are different from what your organization do, but has a tangential effect on your success.

PK is asking another good question. And by the way, everyone, we've got about 12 minutes left. So if you do have a great question, make sure you throw it in there. I want to be conscientious of everybody's time and schedule. PK's got an interesting question that is loosely related, and I see it in Washington, DC as well, about Chicago and Milwaukee, or really to frame it for the entire audience. The question is kind of how do you navigate when there's a major city and then surrounding smaller cities or hubs or perhaps a county structure. My point about Washington, D.C., of course, is we see a lot of interest from Arlington, Virginia, which is literally right there, right? So how does, how do those kind of ecosystems work together? Might you share some thoughts? And I think we've sort of touched on it, right? To some extent, you can look for existing demand to do that, everyone. To some extent, you can also sort of create the demand or create the opportunity and chase the right conversations, the right kind of people to do that. But do you have any other perspective on how something a little bit more regional might come together meaningfully for people and where to start those conversations?

Yeah, I think so. The DMV region is unique, right? Because we— you've got Maryland and Virginia, both are states. You've got D.C., which is not a state, sort of smack dab in the middle. And we are all within like a 50-square-mile of each other. and we all have our unique value adds and we all have our sort of, you know, the sectors that we're trying to go after. I think more and more what you are seeing is the DMV starting to act as a region and less as a competitor. And so you see events that are supported by district actors that are based in Virginia. You see TEDCO, which is the, for those who don't know, is like the main investing arm arm of Maryland investing in companies that are based in DC and Virginia, so long as they have any economic impact at all on the state of Maryland. I think it is certainly a challenge to find resources because there aren't so many, but they are all sort of stratified across, you know, different websites and different people. And so what you've started to see is some resources pop up. I'm, you know, Atlanta is one that does a really good job of sort of aggregating all of the resources into one. They've got Invest Atlanta, which is a website that you can literally put in, I am a startup and I am looking for pre-seed funding, right? And like, it will pull all of the resources from across the area and present them to you, which is a cool way of utilizing using sort of this new technology and AI to sort of serve the public good. There are some examples that we've done, not in the economic development space, but more in like the workforce development space here in DC on that. But yeah, it's definitely a challenge, I think. But that goes back to sort of Kooch's point of you have to be intentional about the relationships that you build and do some of the research as to who's doing the work in your area and then go and sort of establish those relationships so they can provide you the information you need.

And just, just, just to add one thing, I totally agree, Adam, with kind of this specialization, right? So I think, because I think the most critical thing is reaching out to know-how and resources. So you can't really have everything all at once at the same location. Well, if you can access, that's great. But I think specialization, meaning, well, in— to your point, the DMV acting as a region totally, totally makes sense. And this is invaluable for, for everybody here. I live in Maryland but working in the bid in the Golden Triangle, so I'm at WeWork right now, which is a partner to this program. So Maryland, because there is NIH, is focusing you know, medtech, healthtech, biotech, they have the vet labs or whatever. But then Arlington, Virginia, they have the defense dual-use access to those resources because, you know, those government entities or agencies are already there, and the data centers. So physically everything is over there. And then the DC right in the middle. So I think specialization and creating a strategy to make this available to first recruit the most promising potential founders. This is one side. Capital, this is another side. So you mentioned, Adam, all those resources you're trying to create the capital arm as well. So creating a fund of funds, that's, that's wonderful. This is also, by the way, another initiative by Founder Institute's sister company VC Lab, which is trying to create new micro VCs to focus and fund, uh, very early-stage, pre-seed-stage startups globally. So there are, I think they're in, uh, cohort 16 or so, and then they hold it.

Yeah.

Yeah, 16, and they created about 800, is it? 800 VCs?

By the last count I heard, that's correct.

Yeah, I mean, it's unbelievable. Yes, they are small micro VCs, but that's what we need, right? So from $10K to $100K, right? Check sizes. So bring in— so there are different pieces, okay? Specialization, the entrepreneurs pull them and give them the chance to spend the time and focus full-time, maybe just cover their 1 year or 2 years, hopefully, if you can support them with the VC arm, create VCs and network, right? And the network and the know-how, that's how the accelerator or incubator piece is coming. So creating those networks, the structured programs, the money, and yeah, also the universities, the higher education is a critical piece as well.

Perhaps my last discussion point that seems to steer us— thanks to the audience, everyone, thank you— seems to steer us to the fact that a lot of folks are thinking more sector-specific, and Gooch, you've touched on specialization a few times. Certainly, we're seeing parts of the world that want to focus on cleantech or consumer packaged goods. I saw a couple of questions about just a hardware thing. Lawrence, thank you even as well for asking whether or not there are other models for startup development organizations. One of the models that relates to specialization is called a venture studio, so that's worth looking into. My reason for steering us this direction is it's a good good kind of wrap-up point, folks, that the role that you might think of with Founder Institute is infrastructure and methodology, that you can call someone like me here and I can help you figure it out. You can call someone like Gucci and he's a little bit more hands-on. What Founder Institute puts in place is effectively a white label of our platform that you then build upon top of. And so you get access to all of the mentors in the, in the Founder Institute global network. You get access to the foundational programming that's in place to teach startups. But then if you want to build a consumer packaged goods or an e-commerce sector program or an AI program on top of that, where we started the conversation, local culture, local history, local expertise, what you then do is you drop in place the partners. And specialty-oriented mentors and advisors, and perhaps even some additional talks that are specific to that sector to make it work. And that's pretty turnkey for us. Like I said, if you just wanna reach out to us, we could talk about how that works. You can also go to fi.co/government. My question for the panel to kind of wrap up, have you seen other sectors of the economy holistically worldwide, where it makes a lot of sense to encourage all of our listeners, the audience here, to look at that there are more resources available for that sector. You know, what I'm driving at is we tend to start— want to start a startup incubator for everything or an accelerator for everything. Well, that has some merit, that works in some cases, but What are the things that we're seeing emerge or have strength in having a lot of demand for a lot of expertise in this kind of thing in particular? Any suggestions or ideas where people could steer their attention? You know, are we seeing a lot of demand for AI accelerators, for example, or cryptocurrency? Right. Those are, those are still hot topics. Or are we seeing it in more traditional contexts? Are we seeing you know, robotics labs or health tech and pharma?

I think there was energy in Africa, that's what I know. And then there was this food tech in Northern Europe, I think in Finland. So yes, there are some focus, you know, programs from all around the globe. So I think, like, perhaps Detroit, like the, that, that part of the nation could be focusing on manufacturing and automotive.

Yep.

Perhaps.

I think it really depends on the area that you're in, right? There's like a lot of different value adds to different sort of parts of the country. I think for DC specifically, we are seeing a lot of, I mean, our value add that the way that we pitch ourselves, right, is that we are the closest you can get to federal regulators. If you are creating a company that has, that is in a regulated market, that like there is no better area for you to be than in the back door, than in the backyard of the person who's going to be sort of regulating your industry. And so we've seen a lot of natural growth, uh, in the defense, but specifically in like the technologies that have dual-use capabilities sectors. As well as in the life sciences and the medtech sectors, because we have Children's National Hospital here. We've got George Washington and Georgetown, Georgetown with their own hospital system, Howard, which has their own hospital system. Right. So there's a lot of research being done in that life sciences space. And so for us, that's really what we're seeing as two of the most highly fast-growing areas of our technology sector. Whereas in the past, you know, we've been, the DC area has been sort of like coined as like the feds, eds, and meds. And so like meds and feds still works, but like maybe educational tech is, we're seeing a little bit less of a focus on, and maybe a little bit more of a pivot towards defense and dual use.

Good thoughts. Gooch, Elizabeth, you have an event coming up. You have graduation coming up, I believe, for PennWest. Share a little bit about what's going on there. And how folks can get involved if they're curious, even if they just want to learn more or talk with you.

Yeah. So, Elizabeth, you want to go maybe?

No, go for it.

No. Okay. Yeah. So next, next Thursday, we're hosting our Demo Day graduation event after 14 weeks of this PennVEST accelerator. So 20 started. We're going to have about I think 15 of them graduating. They're still in the program hustling. So we're going to be here at WeWork in the Golden Triangle district, 1701 Rhode Island Avenue. So if I think we have the registration link, if you can share it, I'll be glad here on the chat window. So please go ahead. And if you're in town, if you're around, please join us. We'll have food and drinks and obviously great pitches throughout the night. So yeah, thank you.

As, as you all leave us today, our team has thrown up a poll that I'd love to have you all take a look at and answer. We will certainly get this video out in the next couple of days. I always tend to write it up as well and add some more colors and context. So we'll take a look at your thoughts about this poll question. What would help you most better develop your ecosystem through public-private partnerships? I'll take the opportunity with that poll to see if we can answer some more of those questions for you and get you some more guidance as to what to do. Like I said, though, one of the best ways to do that is just hit fi.co/government, drop your name in there. That'll get me in touch with you. That'll get us connected. Certainly, I know you can connect with Elizabeth and Gooch and Adam on LinkedIn. I encourage you to do that. And touch base with them all next week for graduation. I'm excited to hear that. Last thought that I have, of course, is like I said at the start of the hour, in just about a month, hopefully I will find you in Texas for South by Southwest because we have a— last count, I think we have about 12 different events going on throughout the week. If you're just curious about South by Southwest or you want to get involved because you already plan to be here, go ahead and drop me a note and ask me about that as well. Guc, Elizabeth, Adam, thank you so very much for being here for your time today. Any parting wisdom or parting thoughts? And we'll wrap it up with that.

Thanks for having us.

Cheers. Thank you.

Connect, connect with us and connect with just someone today and tomorrow, maybe one person every day and build the relationship.

Cheers to that. That's the right way to get it started. So thank you all. I'm glad you're all here. You've already started that process. Have a great— what day is it? Wednesday? Thursday? Middle of the week. It's only Tuesday.

Tuesday.

Man, have a great long rest of the week.

All right, have a good one.

Thank you.

Bye. Thank you, everybody.