The Spark Innovation Center

Research Park Chronicles

Links Referenced:

• Spark Innovation Center: https://www.tnresearchpark.org/spark/

Transcript

Rickey McCallum: Welcome back to The Research Park Chronicles podcast, where we’re documenting the exciting innovations of the University of Tennessee Research Park. I’m your host, Rickey McCallum. For this episode, we’re looking into the progressive and inspiring work being done at the Spark Innovation Center, which is currently housed inside the university’s Institute for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Facility at the Research Park. Spark Innovation Center focuses on entrepreneurship development and commercialization of regional technology-based startup companies. With a focus on clean technologies, a space in which Knoxville was rated as the 16th cleantech hub in the country, Spark has quickly become a significant contributor to the efforts here in the East Tennessee region.

The Spark Innovation Center is designed to be a place where selected startups come to meet some of their fundamental needs, primarily those looking for wet lab space, or sophisticated prototyping shops, with capabilities for providing high-level mentorship in business model development, financial planning, and investor readiness at its core. As a result, these young startups have access to some of the best entrepreneurial leadership the university has to offer. One of the leaders in the center is Tom Rogers, CEO of the UT Research Park, who sat down with us to give an overview of the Spark Innovation Center, its mission, and its purpose.

Tom Rogers: I became completely convinced that working with entrepreneurs, helping them find ways to take new ideas to the marketplace is a key to success in our local economy. We’re blessed with a national laboratory, our Research 1 university, a culture of ideas being valued, and putting together a support structure around that has really great potential for the future of this region. So, I think a lot of the challenges that entrepreneurs face is interaction with potential customers, spending time doing customer discovery, understanding, will the dogs eat the dog food? We have a lot of great technology around here and I’ve seen hundreds of would-be entrepreneurs talk with great passion about what they do and their little gizmo, and ‘look, it works’ without ever considering, does it solve a need in the marketplace? And that’s really one of the primary things that we emphasize, not just here at Spark, but in the other business accelerators in the region as well. Try to get real. Try to understand that your idea may be the greatest thing in the world, but if customers aren’t going to buy it, it’s not going to be a successful company.

Rickey McCallum: With a passion for getting early tech companies off the ground, the Spark Innovation Center and its programs are proving to be the perfect place for the region to manifest itself as a leader in tech. Another key figure in this regard is John Bruck, the director of the Spark Innovation Center. John’s history of success in engineering and his commitment to the Knoxville area, as well as his role as mentor and investor puts him at the cutting edge of helping the startups that are associated with the center and his two primary programs to ensure its success.

John Bruck: I am drawn to tech-based companies that are in their earliest stages. And there are really what has grown to be a hub of technological innovation and entrepreneurship here in Knoxville. I think one of the popular business journals has ranked Knoxville as the 16th largest innovation hub in the country, and that’s because of programs that have grown out of the University of Tennessee, that have grown out of Oak Ridge National Lab.

Rickey McCallum: An integral part of the local technology community, there are a handful of programs across the region in different organizations that have contributed assistance to help foster these young startups. One notable program is the Innovation Crossroads, housed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and most recently Techstars, which is a co-sponsored program between ORNL, TVA, and the University of Tennessee, all of which are working in collaboration with the Spark Innovation Center to create the ideal environment for tech startups to grow and hopefully call East Tennessee home.

John Bruck: Along with the Innovation Crossroads program, and particularly at UT and now the Research Park, we are positioned to really be a focus for early-stage tech-based companies and that’s specifically what has drawn me here, this particular region—specifically Knoxville region—along with the many sources of high intellect and innovation. The challenge that it faces is one of being able to provide the space that’s required by tech startups—and by that, I mean laboratory space—and tech-based mentorship and access to tech-oriented capital. But what we saw was the need for those things to match against companies that were growing out of the University of Tennessee and graduating from the University of Tennessee, companies that were graduating from the Innovation Crossroads program, and being able to place those companies into space that met their needs, was affordable, that was readily available, and could provide them with the other kinds of support that they needed to make the company successful. So, if they need programming, for example, a series of workshops on leadership or financial modeling or customer discovery, we’re equipped to help those companies, along with providing them with physical space that matches their needs. So, what I think Spark did that is turning out to be quite successful is matching what we offer with what our customers really require, which truly is even less than that we teach to our startups themselves. So, the Spark Innovation Center is an early-stage organization, and it has begun to really meet those needs.

Rickey McCallum: Within the Innovation Center, there are two major programs that help early startups get the assistance that they need to flourish in their respective areas of expertise. The first is the Spark Innovation Center, and the second is the Spark Cleantech Accelerator. Both programs bring specifically crafted support for cleantech startup companies in various stages of growth. Let’s look at the Spark Innovation Center, Spark’s flagship program.

This incubator is meaningfully crafted for early tech startup companies who must identify a clear need in cleantech marketplace and are producing a product that demonstrates a solid product-market fit. Companies in the program often build a working prototype before engaging with initial customers, of which there are some pretty interesting ones, to say the least. The incubator is designed to allow these companies the room to scale, both in terms of product and in capital. While this program serves as a catalyst for helping these young companies, at the end of the day, it’s the companies themselves who need to strive for excellence. For John, those companies need to demonstrate certain strengths and attributes.

John Bruck: The programs need to be collaborative. In fact, I like the mantra, “Collaborate first.” And we do. So, the three technical hubs which are Innovation Crossroads is the oldest, Techstars, and the Spark Innovation Center. The directors of those organizations are actually very close, they know each other, and we collaborate on things like how to increase our number of applications and the quality of our applications.

Rickey McCallum: With an emphasis on collaboration at the forefront, John fi...