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An Interview With Debera Johnson, Founder And Executive Director, Pratt Design Incubator For Sustainable Innovation (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: What other business development tools do you use?

Debera: There are lots of tools for developing business plans. We use those. That’s fairly structured. Then, around [such tools] is the fairly chaotic experience of the other people in the incubator as well as all the mentors we have. >>>

An Interview With Debera Johnson, Founder And Executive Director, Pratt Design Incubator For Sustainable Innovation (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: How many companies were funded by angels during their incubation period?

Debera: At this point, Sam Cochran, [the CEO of SMIT, which runs] the Solar Ivy company got about $250,000 in angel funding. The other companies are less needy, less technology based. They’re not actually looking for angel money.

They’re looking to keep their businesses. We encourage them to hang on to as much as possible. They may go into a friends and family round. We don’t necessarily encourage them to try to get financing. >>>

An Interview With Debera Johnson, Founder And Executive Director, Pratt Design Incubator For Sustainable Innovation (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: How many companies have you incubated since inception?

Debera: Up until now, we’ve been involved with 20. We just brought in four new companies. The fourth will be coming in March. Of those, 16 are still in business. >>>

An Interview With Debera Johnson, Founder And Executive Director, Pratt Design Incubator For Sustainable Innovation (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Can students apply to your incubator?

Debera: They cannot be students. They have to have graduated. I don’t want to interfere with their education. So, we take people either when they’ve just graduated, who we feel have the ability and are energized and smart and have the characteristics of an entrepreneur and are willing to take it on and learn a lot and work hard. >>>

An Interview With Danny Robinson, CEO, British Columbia Innovation Council (Part 5)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: What do you do day to day?

Danny: There’s no consistency at all. Right now we’re putting together the strategy of how we’re going to execute over the next year. So, there’s lots of consulting with the community and organizations and the board and everybody I work with to decide what that looks like. >>>

An Interview With Danny Robinson, CEO, British Columbia Innovation Council (Part 4)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Danny: We’ve got some role models, and we’re using them as poster children. For example, Stewart Butterfield created Flickr in Vancouver. Stewart is a great example of somebody who has built a company, sold it to the States, and ended up coming back to Vancouver and starting his next company here. Bringing all that credibility and financial resources to the region has been fantastic. >>>

An Interview With Danny Robinson, CEO, British Columbia Innovation Council (Part 3)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: You fund programs and events but you don’t directly invest in companies, right?

Danny: Yes. Unfortunately, we’re not allowed to do that. >>>

An Interview With Danny Robinson, CEO, British Columbia Innovation Council (Part 2)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Danny: I thought that BCIC would be a better place for me to cover all the sectors, make sure the entire [entrepreneurial] ecosystem’s intact, reach all the other industries and regions. I represent all of British Columbia, not just Vancouver. There are about nine regional areas where science technology is being developed in the province, and we cover all of them. >>>