Colleges and universities across the Inland Empire are investing in the region through new entrepreneurship programs.
The hoped-for dividend? A dramatically improved economy.
In recent years, programs designed to promote entrepreneurship and foster innovation have been established or expanded at Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State San Bernardino, UC Riverside and the University of La Verne. The goal is to turn out students who will establish new businesses and perhaps bring whole new industries into the region. Also, administrators hope the programs will draw businesses attracted to the resources that universities offer, including highly educated, highly skilled workers.
Even without specialized entrepreneurship or innovation programs, a major college or university can pump tens to hundreds of millions of dollars into the regional economy. But despite this long-established link between the presence of a four-year university and improved economic conditions in a region, there’s less proof that entrepreneurship and innovation programs will have a similar effect.
“It’s not so easy to measure the economic impact of these innovation centers, because they take a long time to grow,” said Robert Kleinhenz, a senior research fellow at the Inland Empire Economic Partnership and the founder of Kleinhenz Economics.
But backers have high hopes.
“By having programs and an infrastructure that helps our students and our faculty and the community start companies, you activate that economy,” said Rosibel Ochoa, who leads the innovation and entrepreneurship efforts at UCR’s Office of Technology Partnerships.
Ochoa previously ran an entrepreneurship program at UC San Diego. She credits the university’s presence for helping change San Diego from a city focused on tourism and the military to a “knowledge-economy” town. More than 200 companies started in the area, clustered around the university, while Ochoa was at UC San Diego.
“We have great universities in the Inland Empire,” Ochoa said. “UCR is a $200-million research university that, in any other state, would be considered one of the largest.”
A January 2021 impact study released by the University of California reports that the UC system as a whole means an additional 25,577 jobs in the Inland Empire and $3.1 billion in spending in the region. More than 20,000 jobs and $2.3 billion of that are due to UCR alone, according to Ochoa.
She points to the lively business communities surrounding MIT and the Silicon Valley.
“All those areas have grown because of their proximity to universities,” Ochoa said. “To me, the most important thing is to create and educate the talent that we need, and keep it here.”
To do that, last August, Cal State San Bernardino announced it was spinning off the entrepreneurship program offered through its business school into a full-fledged School of Entrepreneurship. The school will offer eight academic programs in entrepreneurship, including a dedicated graduate degree in entrepreneurship and innovation.
In March, the University of La Verne announced the Randall Lewis Center for Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Social Impact in Ontario. The center will provide entrepreneurial training for small groups of students and academic and hands-on approaches to job creation and long-term career support, according to the university. The center will make a special effort to work with underserved communities in the Inland Empire.
And in June, Congress approved $1 million grant for Cal Poly Pomona to develop an entrepreneurial and social hub for startup businesses in the Inland Empire. The Bronco STEA2M Innovation Hub will provide resources, support and training opportunities to help entrepreneurs and small- and family-owned businesses advance their goals. Cal Poly plans to locate the hub in downtown Pomona.
Even the most successful of these projects isn’t likely to turn the Inland Empire into another Silicon Valley, with many high tech businesses in multiple fields, Kleinhenz cautions.
But, he notes, many parts of the country have developed more specialized counterparts, centered on biotechnology or other, more specialized fields. But the next wave of business leaders appear to be out there.
According to Ochoa, in the past five years, more than 6,500 patents have been assigned to Inland Empire inventors — just shy of the 6,800 assigned to those in Orange County.
“One of the things that’s exciting about the Inland Empire is not only that it’s growing extremely fast, but it’s also very young,” Ochoa said.
Since 2016, UCR has worked with more than 600 start-ups, 60% of them coming from outside the university community. In the past three years, the companies have raised more than $22 million in venture capital funding, with $15.4 million raised in 2020-21.
“Five years ago,” there was skepticism about investing in the Inland Empire, Ochoa said. “But now, you show them the data … That’s no longer the case.”
This fall, UC Riverside will attempt to bring together more Inland Empire entrepreneurs with mentors and funding at the Riverside Angel Summit 2021, which will run from September through November. Beyond that, university officials hope to build the OASIS Clean Technology Park in the coming years to serve as a research park, university extension and start-up incubator and accelerator space. Administrators hope to open doors of the first phase in 2025.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct an error in two photo captions. Steve Abbott is a full-time lecturer in Cal State San Bernardino’s School of Entrepreneurship and serves as its full-time entrepreneur in residence.