You may remember a project kicked off by the state of Oregon that was designed to fund a series of “Innovation Hubs” around the state. Establishing these hubs was proposed to be a way to further innovation and connectivity in specific regions around the state — like the Portland metro area — while creating a network of entities that could collaborate to ensure that all of Oregon was improving its innovation.
Well, any number of organizations went after budget to support these efforts. And Portland was one of the successful awardees. But now, they need to spend that money. By paying someone to run the whole thing and other folks to help people navigate the region. To wit:
Portland State University is on the frontline of developing new ideas, technologies and programming that focus on addressing the major issues of the 21st century. Propel PSU believes entrepreneurship and commercialization increase the impact of innovative ideas. That’s why we partner with students, faculty members and client companies—to provide the wrap-around resources and support that grow ideas into positive impacts that transform Portland and beyond.
Portland State University will facilitate and host the Metro Region Innovation Hub (the Hub) beginning in July of 2024. Funded by Business Oregon and other community partners, the Hub serves the tri-county Metro area and will provide regional entrepreneurs from all sectors, backgrounds, and business stages with accessible paths to all existing regional resources in networking, coaching, education, and capital access in order to foster and grow innovation-based businesses.The Hub Director will be responsible for planning and overseeing the many activities within the Hub, directing significant programs and operations through a team of 2-3 ecosystem navigators and program leads, interfacing with and managing an oversight board and regional convening function with 37+ regional partners, and working towards long term funding sustainability for the Hub and its partners. They will set Hub strategies and objectives in alignment with the overall strategy of the University and the hub Oversight Board. They will be accountable for managing and communicating long-term direction and achieving the strategies and metrics of the Hub as determined by funders and the Hub Oversight Board, and for ensuring that Hub programs are accessible and equitable to all communities in the region.
That’s the Executive Director. The Navigator? That role will be doing more of this sort of thing…
The Hub Navigators will fill this role for the Hub. Navigators will, at a high level, acquire and maintain relationships with and knowledge of regional ecosystem resources and providers, meet and assess the needs of individuals and small companies in the region, refer or case-manage those entrepreneurs to regional resources and providers, and follow up with these engagements to ensure and “map” out what is most effective. They will also drive resource deployment in other Hub programs by uncovering emergent needs among entrepreneurs in the region. Navigators should be familiar with the Hub’s service priorities for both innovation-based, traded sector businesses and for equity and accessibility for communities who may not have known about or taken advantage of regional resources. Navigators should have excellent cross-cultural communication competence.
Navigators will serve as leaders and experts for the Hub programs, managing unique and challenging issues that have significant impact on the Hub and the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem. They may lead other employees and students in executing these programs. Their work will be guided by overall objectives but may have minimal day to day supervision, and they will need to make decisions with a high level of professional judgment based on loose guidelines. Keeping a current inventory of ecosystem resources and guiding people and small companies through them requires complex and specialized knowledge and execution, and each task and engagement may be diverse and unpredictable. The ability to flexibly and creatively adapt technical know-how to novel situations is a must. They will help set Hub objectives and related milestones in collaboration with the Hub director and oversight board. Successful navigators will be highly organized and milestone-driven, but also natural connectors and able to easily translate between “entrepreneurship”, “business”, and “normal” ways of addressing innovative and business ideas.
If either of these roles sounds like something you’d like to be doing, maybe take a look at the full set of requirements and expectations for both the Executive Director and the Navigator.
I’ll probably bug you about this a few more times. Because as I’ve said any number of times: Portland really needs this.
[Full disclosure: Built Oregon and PIE have been part of an advisory committee for this project. I am the cofounder of both Built Oregon and PIE.]
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