The way Jim Chung sees it, few organizations are able to incubate ideas and deliver innovation as effectively as a university: they are hives of creativity, energy and knowledge on an incredibly wide range of subjects.
“Who knows if we have the next inventor of Facebook or Google walking around?” he says.
Mr. Chung is hoping to find out. As the newly appointed director of the Office of Entrepreneurship, his division will be working to foster that innovation and shepherd budding ideas into reality.
The new division, which includes the existing Office of Technology Transfer, is under the umbrella of the Office of the Vice President for Research.
“This is a major step for The George Washington University in becoming a leading research institution,” says Leo M. Chalupa, vice president for research at GW. “Under Jim’s leadership, I am confident we can hit the ground running and begin to build a solid foundation of cultivating ideas and entrepreneurship.”
Mr. Chung arrived on campus this month by way of the University of Maryland, where for two and a half years he served as the director of the VentureAccelerator program at the university’s Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute, managing the process for spinning-off tech companies developed at the school – everything from evaluating projects to licensing to building business plans and fundraising.
During his time there Mr. Chung helped launch seven companies, which have raised millions of dollars in funding and revenues, hired dozens of employees during the recession and claimed international prizes.
While there Mr. Chung also served as director of the Chesapeake Bay Seed Capital Fund, working with the state’s Department of Natural Resources to invest $250,000 annually in Maryland-based environmental tech startups.
At GW, Mr. Chung says he ultimately hopes to build a “hotbed of entrepreneurship.”
“What excited me so much about this position was the incredible potential that we have here at the university,” he says. A big part of that is the abundant opportunity for building bridges across departments and individuals when mere city blocks separate the vast disciplines of science, law, business, engineering and the arts.
“Entrepreneurship really is an interdisciplinary endeavor,” he says, “It’s not something that you can just do within one school. So having that at GW has incredible potential.”
And he will be diving right in: Look for Mr. Chung this week at the university’s Summit on Entrepreneurship (April 15-16), which will include more than 100 student teams competing to win $30,000 in startup cash in the second annual GW Business Plan Competition.
As the office gets up to speed, Mr. Chung says he envisions a hub for developing the inventions and business ideas of faculty, students, alumni and even the broader D.C. community. “When people want to start a company the goal is to have them think first of GW as a place to come for resources and ideas and talent.”
Prior to his work at University of Maryland, Mr. Chung served as director of new business development at the D.C.-based Corporate Executive Board research firm and was vice president at a Cambridge, Mass., private equity firm that invested in the oil and gas industry. He has also worked as a seed stage venture capitalist, focusing on startups emerging from Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Mr. Chung received a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s in international policy studies, both from Stanford University.