‘Collaboratory’ brings UCSD downtown

Seeing downtown as a new hub of innovation in the region, UC San Diego Extension and the Downtown San Diego Partnership are collaborating to unite young entrepreneurs with university experts to help startup businesses flourish.

The “Collaboratory for Downtown Innovation” will be a two-year initiative inside the Downtown San Diego Partnership’s head-quarters on B Street. It’s expected to open in mid-August and was called a first step downtown for the university during a Tuesday morning news conference at the site.

“This collaboration for downtown innovation is going to be a great boost for our economy and our startup community, which is thriving and growing in San Diego,” Mayor Kevin Faulconer said.

The “collaboratory” will host workshops where entrepreneurs will meet with researchers and scientists, mentor programs for new entrepreneurs, and educational opportunities in science and technology for middle and high school students in underserved communities.

The new attention to downtown represents a shift from Torrey Pines Mesa — home of the Science Research Park, Qualcomm, the Salk Institute and other entities — which for decades has been considered the center of innovation in the region.

In an April op-ed piece in The San Diego Union-Tribune, Downtown San Diego Partnership President and CEO Kris Michell and UC San Diego Extension Dean Mary Walshok recognized the need to create a stronger tie between the university and downtown.

Research conducted by the partnership and UC San Diego Extension had found that downtown is a magnet for millennials and startups in growing fields, they wrote.

Just as San Diego had once attracted physicists for its growing defense industry, they wrote, it now must focus on recruiting top-notch biologists, chemists and engineers to serve its growing life sciences and wireless communications industries.

“So how do we attract these computer scientists and software engineers?” they wrote. “You create an environment in which they want to live and work.”

The Collaboratory for Downtown Innovation will be a place for the new breed of entrepreneurs to learn from some of the top researchers and scientists from the university and the mesa.

“With more than 110 startups and counting, we know downtown is innovation’s next frontier,” Michell said at the news conference.

“To support the existing cluster, it’s critical we connect the known-how of UC San Diego and the Torrey Pines Mesa to help grow downtown’s emerging startup ecosystem,” she said.

Faulconer said the collaboration could help make San Diego an international hub of innovation.

The innovation center “will help create a tangible place for San Diego’s three defining qualities — talent, collaboration and innovation — to reside,” Faulconer said about the Collaboratory for Downtown Innovation.

Walshok said at the news conference that the collaboration will help UC San Diego’s effort to support and grow the region’s innovation economy and create a pipeline for talented youths.

“Our goal is to create coding academies, boot camps and programs for kids that get them into this wonderful world of innovation,” she said.

Frank Urtasun, chairman of the Downtown San Diego Partnership, said the collaboration also will use UC San Diego Extension’s certificate programs and pre-college classes to provide education and training programs in computer science and information technology skills to youths in underserved communities.

To prepare for the venture, the Downtown San Diego Partnership hired Andy White as its startup advocate. White had been working on the revitalization of downtown Las Vegas before coming aboard eight months ago.

“We want to give everyone an opportunity to earn additional resources to help development themselves,” White said.

Entrepreneurs with a startup, a business plan or just an idea will be able to meet for free with experts for advice on their next move, he said.

The “collaboratory” also will host forums about eight times a year to bring together people from UC San Diego and downtown businesses to brainstorm, White said.

“It will be engaging and interactive, as opposed to just a presentation about technology to business leaders,” he said. “We want to really talk about how this can be applied, where are the advantages, and how can we collaborate to get them from the idea stage in the lab out to a commercialized product,” he said.