Augusta Cyberworks hopes to usher in revolution (Atlanta, Kennesaw: rental car, 2013)

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Starting today, the Augusta Chronicle will be doing a week-long series discussing how the cyber security field will have an impact on the Augusta area.

EDTS, which provides remote network and cybersecurity services, is Cyberworks’ first tenant. The 72-employee company moved into 32,000 square feet of renovated space in the mill’s old cotton warehouse last summer.
The space is just a fraction of what’s available in the 500,000-square-foot Sibley Mill, and the 600,000-square-foot King Mill next door. Johnson and his Cape Augusta partners envision the 19th century textile mills becoming a “tech citadel” in the urban Harrisburg neighborhood just west of downtown.
The ambitious project is just one of many byproducts of the region’s rapidly growing cybersecurity industry, which was kick-started when the Army selected Fort Gordon as its headquarters for electronic warfare in late 2013.
The infusion of IT talent and resources is evident in other parts of the central city, from the state-funded construction of the Hull McKnight Georgia Cyber Training and Innovation Center along the riverfront to the renovation of a 94-year-old YMCA building on Broad Street, where tax software firm TaxSlayer plans to house its creative staff.
Those soon-to-be-completed developments will join established tech enclaves, such as Unisys Corp.’s massive client service facility at Discovery Plaza and Rural Sourcing Inc.’s software development center at Enterprise Mill, in creating the foundation for Augusta’s burgeoning IT industry.
As substantial as those investments are, they could just be the tip of the iceberg, said G.B. Cazes, a former executive at Louisiana’s National Cyber Research Park.

Augusta Cyberworks hopes to usher in revolution - News - The Augusta Chronicle - Augusta, GA

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Parker tends not to use terms such as “innovation center” or “business incubator” to describe the idea factory he co-founded with Grace Belangia, the organizer of TEDxAugusta. He prefers the term “collaborative incubator” to differentiate it from ordinary shared office spaces.

“What we do is really drive the interaction between everybody so they can learn from each other’s successes and failures, and be more successful,” Parker said. “Without that, everybody’s working in their own vacuum and they don’t have a sense of community.”


The focus on creative collaboration comes at a time when Georgia, like other states, has shifted its economic development efforts toward high-tech industries that have the most potential to create new products and services.

It has to do with the growing theory of innovation economics: When innovation grows, productivity rises. It’s not necessarily about accumulating capital; it’s about accumulating knowledge.

That means fostering creativity. Tech giant Google and animation studio Pixar might offer the best-known examples of that. Each of their offices is famous for being “flexible workspaces” – no cubicles, comfortable furniture, easy access to food and recreational diversions such as pool tables and bowling alleys. The idea is to maximize interaction, which kindles creativity.

“I used to equate theClubhou.se with Leonardo da Vinci’s workshop for the 21st century,” Parker said. “We were providing all the tools and equipment so that you could make anything you wanted and be inventive, but were also providing this place where you can exchange ideas and learn from people.”

Innovative communities, Parker said, require “gravitational centers.” In other words, da Vinci’s workshop wouldn’t have worked without da Vinci. But the most successful people rarely succeeded by themselves. Thomas Edison, largely considered to be America’s most successful inventor, didn’t toil in solitude: His workspace in Menlo Park, N.J., where he employed dozens of scientific experts, is considered the first industrial research lab.

At theClubhou.se, the notion is building a culture around technology and entrepreneurship. It lays claim to helping start about 35 businesses, which have created more than 90 jobs and an estimated annual economic impact of about $7 million.

Clubhou.se promotes high-tech collaboration - News - The Augusta Chronicle - Augusta, GA

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RSI’s 15,000-square-foot Augusta operation uses “enterprise software” applications, such as SAP, to custom-build new products and tools for companies around the world. If a rental car business, for example, needs to create a new online payment system, it could be RSI’s Augusta employees who build the platform.

Its clients – which include the world’s largest maker of generic pharmaceuticals – are generally companies that found outsourcing software development overseas troublesome because of time zone differences, cultural barriers and concerns over intellectual property theft.

The Atlanta-based software firm competes with low-cost foreign firms by employing developers in second- and third-tier markets, where labor costs are a fraction of what they would be in tech hotbeds such as Silicon Valley.

RSI: Meet the software developer next door - News - The Augusta Chronicle - Augusta, GA

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But a nice newish building in the middle of suburbia isn’t the type of place many tech workers want to spend their days, or their evenings. And that’s one of the reasons the homegrown tax-preparation software firm has bought the building at 945 Broad St.
TaxSlayer CEO Brian Rhodes said the soon-to-be-completed renovation of the former Downtown Family Y building will be offices for more than 100 of its software developers and administrators.

The multimillion-dollar expansion will convert the downtown gym into an “innovation and technology campus” designed to help “create an environment to get the creative juices flowing.”
“Our employees are very excited to join this technology boom going on downtown, to become a part of it,” Rhodes said. “Basically the tech growth that downtown is experiencing right now, we want to be in the middle of it. We believe it will help us recruit top talent.”

TaxSlayer plants corporate flag in downtown Augusta - News - The Augusta Chronicle - Augusta, GA

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Kenneth Ferderer, a managing partner of InnoVacient, a Silicon Valley-based consultancy, said facilities such as the Hull McKnight center are one of the few ways governments can help encourage private-sector innovation. But he said entrepreneurism can be stifled by micromanagement or by allowing the facility to lose focus.
“If it’s just kind of a one-time shot, it’s probably going to be a nice building that will get re-purposed into something else,” said Ferderer, whose firm advises governments and corporations on innovation and commercialization strategies.
His partner, Jeffrey Wells, former director of cyber development for the state of Maryland, said it can take many years for an innovation center to create an “ecosystem.”

“Just because you build it immediately doesn’t mean everybody is going to want to have an office there,” Wells said. “Eventually, over time, people will set up shop, but it doesn’t immediately mean everybody is going to want to be right next door. In cyber, you don’t have to be right next door.”
But proximity to Augusta’s booming downtown is what AU experts are counting on. Dr. William Hatcher, director of AU’s Master of Public Administration program, said he believes the new campus “will have a significant and positive effect on” the downtown economy.
He said the facility “will house professionals who will spend large portions of their days in the downtown. They will shop and eat. They will spend money in the downtown contributing to local businesses and the community’s tax base.”
Dr. Richard Franza, dean of AU’s James M. Hull College of Business, also expects the center to spur growth.
“I haven’t seen any direct economic impact studies, but here’s the way I rationalize it: My sense is, because of that facility, you’re going to have a lot more new businesses and existing businesses here in town. There are probably some already here based on the work at Fort Gordon,” he said.
Franza took several economic development trips to study incubators and accelerators in cities such as Dallas, Chicago and Denver when he was senior associate dean of the Michael J. Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University.
He said the advantage Augusta’s center has is its narrow focus and diverse tenant mix. He said the impact will be felt throughout the metro area; “not just downtown but in the surrounding communities.”

Cyber Center: What will it do for Augusta's economy? - News - The Augusta Chronicle - Augusta, GA