More than 130 people kicked off the Tech Garden’s new interactive center this weekend when they gathered in the space for nearly 30 hours in the course of three days to create and pitch small business ideas.

Formerly a large and unappealing room in the Harrison Street technology incubator, the “Power Up” room opened last week as a collaborative workspace geared especially for events and short-term programs, said Seth Mulligan, director of venture development at CenterState CEO, the organization that owns and operates the Tech Garden.

Whiteboard-lined walls and portable tables and chairs make the 1,850-square-foot space a great fit for team-driven programs such as the StartUp Weekend that took place in the room Friday-Sunday, he said.

“It was a room without a mission or a purpose, and it wasn’t doing a lot of good,” Mulligan said. “Now it has three programs that are attached to it that can run at different times throughout the year.”

The three programs are Syracuse StartUp Weekend, the annual event that tasks an average of 125 participants with pitching and creating 10-15 small businesses in the course of one weekend; StartUp Labs, a competitive, month-long accelerator program in which companies develop under intense mentorship; and Hack Upstate, a hackathon in which computer programmers and developers gather for a specific challenge.

The “Power Up” room stems from a partnership between utilities company National Grid and CenterState CEO, said Virginia Limmiatis, the National Grid media relations representative who covers Central New York.

Because economic development is part of the company’s mission, she said, National Grid has spent more than $10 million on creating jobs and supporting commercial businesses in Central New York this year alone. National Grid also sponsors Syracuse StartUp Labs and has funded the program with more than $250,000 since it began in Syracuse two years ago, she said.

The idea for the “Power Up” lab originated when National Grid identified a need for a more permanent collaborative space in the Tech Garden, she said.

The space that is now redesigned as the “Power Up” room had been used for large events such as StartUp Weekend in the past, said Mitchell Patterson, an organizer for the program. But participants tended to gather in the unappealing space only for the beginning and end of the weekend when pitching ideas or presenting their companies, he said.

The “Power Up” lab fosters a different dynamic, said Patterson, who is also managing director for the emerging business portfolio at CenterState CEO.

“By the end of the weekend, every wall was written on,” he said, adding that many teams stayed in the room throughout the weekend, even trading ideas with opposing teams rather than breaking off to individual conference rooms or other areas in the multi-suite Tech Garden complex. “It built a more collaborative atmosphere.”

This collaboration and interaction positively contribute to the innovative ideas that the Tech Garden aims to support, he added.

And considering small businesses and startups drive new job growth in the United States, Mulligan said, spaces such as the “Power Up” room become especially important.

Said Mulligan: “They represent the next wave of the American economy.”

Published on November 20, 2013 at 12:53 am