SCN Member Sammy Popat wears many hats for the University of Maryland (UMD). He works to empower entrepreneurship through Startup UMD, the Terp Entrepreneur Network, the local chapter of the Global Entrepreneurship Network, and Innov8MD. He supports innovation through MAVRIC, managing the Innovation Gateway, and running the Innovation Catalysts program; he’s involved with economic development through his efforts within the Discovery District & Greater College Park, and he’s a collaborator and community partner through the University’s Economic Impact Committee (EIC) and as its first-ever Campus Connector.
All of these hats add up to a role we all know well: entrepreneurial ecosystem builder. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that Sammy IS the Entrepreneur Ecosystem Builder on campus at UMD, as well as an ecosystem builder for the surrounding community in the region.
The UMD Ecosystem
As the Campus Connector and Discovery District Manager for the Office of Innovation and Economic Development at the University of Maryland, Sammy’s role is to support, grow, and facilitate greater interaction amongst the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. The University has roughly five dozen innovation and entrepreneurship resources including programs, centers and incubators, as well as hosts an annual signature event celebrating innovation campus-wide called Innovate Maryland.
“All of these disparate pieces didn’t always come together,” Sammy says. “In the past they weren’t regularly communicating, sharing resources, or cross-promoting.”
As the Campus Connector, Sammy’s main priority is to empower this community by way of the EIC. This committee consists of more than two dozen colleagues across the campus (from multiple departments) who get together to ensure that greater connection, communication, and collaboration are happening more effectively and strategically.
“Through that role, I’ve also been given the opportunity to develop the Innovation Gateway, an online repository of the innovation and entrepreneurship resources available to faculty, alumni, students, and the local community.”
Sammy also looks beyond connecting the students, staff, faculty and programs as he helped to co-create the Terp Entrepreneur Network (TEN) through the University’s Alumni Association. The TEN is a group designed to engage aspiring and seasoned alumni entrepreneurs and to foster more connections between them along with informing them of the resources available through the University and beyond.
In addition to these programs and resources, the University of Maryland has a 150 acre research park called the Discovery District that Sammy manages. He is responsible for community engagement, placemaking, marketing, communications and connecting the dots between the institution, researchers, faculty, students, and the community who are integral to the Discovery District.
“Similar to being a Startup Champion, we want to make sure the ecosystem is filling gaps and offering resources that are necessary for them to thrive and to foster much more engagement within it,” explains Sammy.
Like many ecosystem builders, Sammy is juggling a lot to support entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland. But there’s more to it than that. Sammy’s passion for entrepreneurship goes beyond the UMD campus and extends to the community-at-large - or shall we say the ecosystem-at-large. Universities play a major role in the growth of entrepreneurial ecosystems, something that Sammy feels very passionate about.
“My vision is to make the University a more proactive player in the community. I think universities, overall, are good at creating offices for community engagement, but they don’t always have a dedicated plan for an overall, comprehensive engagement strategy. I think it’s much more effective when you don’t just look at community engagement solely from the lens of service or volunteerism, but you look at it from the perspective of public good. How can you drive more impact into the community? How can you drive transformational impact into society?
As opposed to measuring dollars per person, maybe there’s greater value in terms of how many people’s lives you’ve enhanced through exposure to education and upskilling, as well as providing them access to resources, programs, events, conferences…That’s kind of what my role is tangentially. It’s not measured as part of my PRDs, but it is a way I think we as an institution and we as all institutions should be moving toward, especially now with the conversation of what is the value of a higher education in a remote-learning world. Where are we innovating and driving value?
Maybe we have to do more than just worry about our students. We may need to develop and support the local or regional workforce by providing access and opportunities to the people who are underserved and underemployed in our communities. What can we do to add value to them and to enhance their lives as a public institution, which is partially funded and supported by the State of Maryland? These taxpayers play a role in us being here, so what can we do to drive more impact out to them?”
Building an XR Community
In addition to helping build and connect the entrepreneurial ecosystem on campus and beyond, Sammy is Co-founder the interim Director of MAVRIC (Mixed, Augmented, Virtual Reality Innovation Center) where he has been instrumental in engaging and connecting a community of XR professionals (XR is an umbrella term encompassing augmented, virtual, and mixed reality technologies). MAVRIC was launched in October 2017 and funded through an economic development grant that was matched by the University of Maryland. After three years of scaling the XR community by supporting startups, businesses, researchers and others interested in becoming more involved with the extended reality community throughout Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Virginia, MAVRIC is partnering with UMD’s new Immersive Media Design program to foster a more robust, inclusive, and interdisciplinary XR community throughout the campus.
XR is a growing technology field that has a lot of potential - especially in the remote world we are living in currently.
“We can use VR and AR for education, military training, medical simulation, implicit bias training for police reform, etc. There are a lot of innovative applications coming out of the XR community, and we are trying to connect to those people in the community who are doing really cool, applicable research or even transitioning their project or idea into a startup,” says Sammy.
Challenges
Like every ecosystem builder, one of Sammy’s biggest challenges is funding.
“We are resource strapped. I end up becoming the person who does marketing. I manage two Twitter accounts, two Linkedin pages, update the website, and serve as the chief storyteller. If we had more funding, we could hire a dedicated communications and marketing person,” explains Sammy. “There are new initiatives that we would like to take on that we don’t have the bandwidth for. If we had more people power or other resources we could do more,” he adds.
COVID definitely didn’t help with the funding. This year, the budget was cut for their Innovation Catalyst internship program. Students in this program get mentoring from Sammy and others within the university entrepreneurship ecosystem while working on an innovation project (usually connected to the institution and their education experience). Luckily, Sammy was able to pivot the program thanks to the Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which graciously offered the Innovation Catalysts an opportunity to attain academic credit for participating in an independent study course focused on furthering their innovation projects.
“Unfortunately, there were a few students who wanted to work with me, but they had to take another internship or job because they were paid. We lost out on those individuals,” says Sammy.
As a member of SCN...
Sammy is hoping to plug into the SCN network and have more conversations with people who understand and empathize with his work.
“I would love to learn best practices, be part of conversations where others are thinking along the same lines and hear about experiences and challenges others are experiencing or overcoming. I like the comradery of having individuals who understand and empathize with what we’re about, why we exist, and what we’re doing.”