Tech Wise, Business Friendly, Dollar Strong
Prince George’s Community College Opens Innovation Hub To Aid New Ideas And Empower Business
Story And Photography By Raoul Dennis // Additional Audio Reporting By Eric Ross
With a broad smile, Prince George’s Community College President Dr. Charlene Dukes said “Are you ready?” to the reception audience and media just before squeezing the oversized scissors on the doorway ribbon March 10.
The doorway to PGCC’s Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Innovation Hub (InnoHub), packed with nearly 100 educators, students, media, and business and banking leaders, opened to the public to bring good business ideas to light and success.
InnoHub will allow those who come to it the opportunity to flesh out business ideas, develop them into strong opportunities and bring them to the marketplace.
The Center has four components: The Product Design Studio, The Human Capital Lab, The Coding lab and the Advisory Studio. See Innovation Hub graphic below.
“We believe that by leveraging the college’s assets and the community’s assets through the innovation hub, Prince George’s Community College will be yet again at the forefront of developing new technologies and pursuing new strategies that will help local and regional companies grow and prosper,” said Prince George’s Community College President Dr. Charlene Dukes. (Hear Dr. Dukes’ remarks in “The Opening of the Innovation Hub” in audio)
Team InnoHub: (l-r) Shawnell Joyner Operations Manager, Principal Mark Lawrence and Director June Evans. PHOTO: RAOUL DENNIS // PRINCE GEORGE’S SUITE MAGAZINE & MEDIA
InnoHub is led by Director June Evans and Principal Mark Lawrence. Lawrence is founder and managing partner of Inncuvate, an innovation consultancy and venture studio dedicated to “generating and growing the next wave of innovative businesses in the communities that need them the most..” He says “It’s a professional services firm that focuses on providing innovative solutions that create economic equity..”
“We want to provide our local communities, aspiring entrepreneurs and current entrepreneurs and business owners and government agencies with a space and a platform to bring in ideas fully vet those ideas to bring those ideas to market,” Evans says of the vision for InnoHub.
Dr. Charlene Dukes, President of Prince George’s Community College. PHOTO: RAOUL DENNIS // PRINCE GEORGE’S SUITE MAGAZINE & MEDIA
Evans brings insight and experience to the table that will significantly empower InnoHub and efforts to attract fiscal and strategic partners going forward. She’s been working at the college for over 10 years in varying capacities regarding business development—including the Center for Minority Business Development. She’s aided over 50 local construction firms in the county in building capacity and in gaining sustainable, game-changing contracts. Through it all, Evans knows these gains were just the beginning. More needed to be done.
“Inserting innovation into all of our businesses would take this to the next level and InnoHub is that opportunity,” she says.
“It has been a great journey to create this,” Lawrence remarked. “The idea was to find [ways] we can open up the college and leverage those ideas. We teamed with Apple, for example, to provide a resource to entrepreneurs [that would allow us to create an affordable app where necessary],” he explained of the Coding Lab aspect of the center.
Lawrence is a big picture professional. His company, Inncuvate, is designed to create and elevate new economic arenas. “It’s what we call ecosystem building,” he says. “We take a systematic view of innovation and economic development and how it impacts underserved communities nationwide, particularly communities of color..”
Calling InnoHub his passion project, Lawrence brings 17 years of experience working for large consulting firms to the county. He envisions a positioning opportunity for the county based on revitalizing strategic geographic corridors—including the area surrounding the college.
Partners Industrial Bank and FSC First embrace the potential of InnoHub.
“InnoHub is ideal at this time of the college life and the community life: it’s a culmination of different ideas. The coming together of those ideas in a central location is a great way to introduce those ideas into our community,” says Shelly Gross Wade, president & CEO of FSC First, a non-traditional lending institution for small businesses in the county.
FSC First President Shelly M. Gross-Wade (left) and Industrial Bank President and CEO B. Doyle Mitchell Jr. PHOTO: RAOUL DENNIS // PRINCE GEORGE’S SUITE MAGAZINE & MEDIA
Both Industrial and FSC leaders are convinced that InnoHub will contribute to the county’s fiscal pipelines and economic development.
“It’s an ecosystem that’s being developed and has been for some time in Prince George’s,” Mitchell says. “You start with innovation hubs like this where young entrepreneurs can create ideas and have programs around them that will help shape and develop their ideas. Then you have a variety of different types of lenders – and FSC is one of them. They do loans that we are not able to do and later some of those clients graduate to work directly with us to access more traditional loans.”
Gross-Wade applauds the partnership the two institutions share.
“Industrial Bank under Doyle’s leadership has been a staunch supporter of the Financial Services Corporation,” the financial executive says. “Industrial Bank is one of the participating banks in our revolving loan fund so that it’s a collaborative effort to make sure that as business ideas are developed that there are also innovative ways to approach and gain access to capital.”
Industrial and FSC bring financial muscle to help InnoHub get businesses started.
“We could not exist without Industrial Bank and banks like it that have come to the table and leverage $5.5 million in our revolving loan fund. That allows us to be innovative and creative in how we fund the ideas to come out of the Innovation Hub,” Gross-Wade says.
Associate Vice President of Workforce Development & Continuing Education Dr. Yvette Snowden. PHOTO: RAOUL DENNIS // PRINCE GEORGE’S SUITE MAGAZINE & MEDIA
Industrial will be opening a branch near the campus in Largo in 2021. Mitchell says the new branch will have an innovation lab space as well.
But at the core of all the great ideas and vision for economic development regarding InnoHub is job creation. The Associate Vice President for Workforce Development and Continuing Education Dr. Yvette Snowden maintains high expectations that the new center will contribute to the college’s already well-established role in strengthening the county’s work-ready labor force.
“The InnoHub falls within my area,” she says. “We think it’s important for the community and the region in terms of developing talent.”
