Between February 2012 and the end of September, the Stamford Innovation Center at 175 Atlantic St. in Stamford notched 6,625 cumulative visits.
Many of those were return visits by American dreamers, eager to network, solve, assist, and perhaps even share a pizza ”” all in the name of making it.
A pair of exemplars on a recent sun-splashed afternoon embodied much of the center”™s mission as one of four hubs of the statewide Innovation Ecosystem that includes the Business Council of Fairfield County. In the center”™s parlance they are co-workers, at their tasks on their own computers in high-ceilinged and graphically adorned co-work rooms.
Rodney Green is a potential game changer. He said he has already designed a window with an R-value of 8.33, robust by any standards, that is available to architects and engineers. By his account and according to his website, greenview-windows.com, “Our next generation of windows, due to be in production by spring 2014, will revolutionize the fenestration industry by generating active solar heat and maintain an R-14 or better insulation value in the dark.”
Father-and-son entrepreneurs Alex, the father and retired advertising agency principal, and web designer Ryan Virvo, too, are potential game-changers. They are so bold as to imagine a world where artists actually make a living off their art.
The Virvos are trying to wrest the support of artists from the altruistic to the capitalistic. Their Localartcard.com project has enlisted 75 retailers and restaurants that will offer discounts to shoppers who purchase the cards, benefitting the artists. The cards generate savings of 5 percent to 20 percent, making them worthwhile assets. A second project, Greatlocalart.com, will sell art, T-shirts and lithographs, all strictly local; and a third site targets kids, for which they seek sponsorship. The artist cards themselves are professionally produced in the shape, size and rigidity of credit cards. Ryan acknowledged the three sites will not be fully functional until November.
“We are coming up with clever, atypical ways to get art into the community,” Alex Virvo said.
In a cubicle-themed meeting center, the two startups might never have crossed paths. That they have little in common businesswise is undeniable, yet each, in turn, said essentially the same thing: The center”™s open, cooperative atmosphere has taken them to the launch pads upon which they stand.
“We started coming here in January,” Alex Virvo said. “After a few false starts, we were frustrated. We did not possess a lot of resources.” At the center the Virvos found, “great people, willing to share. The environment is fluid and the relationships are terrific. You feel unstoppable.”
Green called it “a great place to network.”
The center hosts Hacker Night every Tuesday, 5-10 p.m., a networking/pizza get-together for marketers and tech people. Fifty had attended on a recent night; 25-50 is typical. Ryan Virvo got a car at a Hacker Night. “The whole idea is to put something out there,” he said. Said Alex: “We need to build a base of technologists. Tech puts people in the middle of things.”
The Stamford Innovation Center is the umbrella that offers resources for startups and established businesses alike. An education arm ”” Stamford Innovation Ed ”” sprang from a desire within the business community to learn about startups, such as skills required, and to formulate pertinent “learn, do, create” classes to build success for them. Classes are taught by actual practitioners of the topic at hand. The physical work space in the old Stamford municipal headquarters is the crowning jewel; it has been newly rebranded as Stamford Workspace, emphasizing its bona fides as “a collaborative work environment and dynamic community hub.”
After 15 years with IBM, the center”™s vice president for marketing, Peter Propp, has a tangible enthusiasm for the programs and for the 16,000-square-foot space the Stamford Innovation Center calls home.
“The focus can be on any work of any variety,” he said. “This is a place to collaborate. A place to get that energy. Our job is to create a successful startup climate in Fairfield County.”
