Houston Innovation District

McNair Project

Houston Innovation District
Project Information
Project Title	Houston Innovation District
Owner	Ben Baldazo, Dylan Dickens, Joe Reilly, Taylor Jacobe
Start Date	9/20/2017
Deadline	10/27/2017
Primary Billing
Notes
Has project status	Active
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Link to DOC: https://docs.google.com/a/rice.edu/document/d/1FiS-fRbNWLbV2on_OETkjqzu9GIcTUoIESLe7DIVQrE/edit?usp=sharing

Mayor of Houston has asked us to make recommendations about how to create an innovation district in Houston

• Go through patent data, find people with patents
• Find people who have done R&D work
• Carve up the world of innovative people in terms of data
  • Find their needs
  • Turn it into some sort of office space requirement
  • Try to find where this office space would be, what it would look like

Anticipated Paper Breakdown

1. Needs/Wants for an Innovation District
   1. Economic Factors
   2. Social Factors
   3. Environmental Factors
2. Diagnosis of Houston’s Current State
   1. How does it fulfill and not fulfill the requirements of an innovation district?
3. Recommendations for how to achieve an Innovation District in Houston
   1. What do we need in order to make a successful innovation district in Houston?
   2. What would it look like?
   3. How do we make it happen?
      1. Specific suggestions

Resources to pull from

Houston Entrepreneurship has info about:

• Start ups
• Accelerators/Incubators
• Entrepreneurship Ecosystems
• Small Business
• VC

We would ideally have data about:

• Patents in Houston
• R&D in Houston
• Factors relating to best Innovation Districts:

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/312173269_fig15_Figure-19-Key-success-factors-for-innovation-district-development

Ideal Factors for an Innovation district

Here, I will try to break down measurable ways of understanding how an area fulfills the requirements of an innovation district

Data needed is in bold

Optimize Land Use and Placemaking

• Flexibility, responding to market preferences
  • Available office space/undeveloped land in Houston
  • Availability of capital
    • equity
    • VC
    • Investors of all kinds
• Infrastructure and land as a platform for experimentation
  • Flexibility of space and infrastructure
  • Zoning?
• Placemaking to achieve critical mass of real estate and commercial activity and authentic sense of place
  • Location, location, location

Strategy as a City of Innovation

• and leverage the regional innovation context
  • What we currently have going for us as a city- who is here and how can we leverage them?
    • R&D Data
    • Patent Data
• Prioritize attention on city wide eco-system and development and networking
  • Current Government benefits to improve innovation ecosystem
  • What would we ideally have to attract business?
• Grow and support existing innovation firms and activity
• Manage externalities that arise
  • Houston's risk preparedness
  • Competition?
• Adapt through cycles
  • Predictability of Houston's economy data?

Build the City's Innovation Brand

• Leverage city DNA and expertise in promoting innovation
  • Where is Houston at the forefront?
• Develop innovation brand as a broad identity and shared narrative
  • How can we market the city as an innovator? How do we gain that image?
• Invite others to feel and experience the innovation culture
  • How accessibile is Houston?
    • Public transportation
    • Travel costs: flying, lodging

A thought: Houston's key capabilities seem to be in Oil/Gas/Energy and Medicine. Can we start by portraying Houston as a leading innovator in those areas? Innovation district can start with our core capabilities