An Interview With Debera Johnson, Founder And Executive Director, Pratt Design Incubator For Sustainable Innovation (Part 6)

By guest authors Irina Patterson and Candice Arnold

Irina: Are there any other metrics that you measure?

Debera: No, just whether [the companies are] able to shift from needing the support of the incubator to being their own companies. That’s our goal, basically, that they’re launched and they’re successful.

Nobody really leaves the incubator. They are there as mentors for the new people coming in. It’s a community of people who have grown up together. It’s like being on a team. You may have been a Yankee in ’96 or you may be a Yankee now, but you’re a part of the group. It’s the same way when you go to college; you’re an alumnus of the school. That’s a better analogy.

Irina: So, the incubator is financially supported by the school and what else?

Debera: And by its consultancy. And we do workshops on sustainability. We’re about to hold what we call a sustainability crash course. We’ll charge admission for non-students and non-faculty to that. It’s a part of my job description here; the incubator’s not the only thing I’m doing.

I’m looking for funding for a director for the incubator. I’m happy to continue to do the main outreach and a lot of the strategic work around the incubator, but we’re really at the stage now where for us to be sustainable, and for us to grow in the way we want to grow, we need to bring in a director. So, we’re actively seeking funding for that.

Irina: When you find a director, what will you be focusing on?

Debera: Basically, the director will be focusing on working with the people in the incubator and building the systems.

To answer your question from way back, we provide them space, a phone and infrastructure. They can hire work-study students, for up to 10 hours per week, free. [At] 20 hours, [they pay] half price. We give them access to our mentors, access to our network. We’re actively working with them on their funding issues.

We may partner with them as an educational institution on a research grant that will help to fund their R&D, those sorts of things.

Irina: What will you personally be focusing on?

Debera: I will be focusing on the next phase of the incubator. What want to continue the growth model. We’ll test out with maybe one or two companies who I think of as someone from our community – the Brooklyn community – who’s starting a business, so we help to support our community entrepreneurs.

That could be somebody starting some kind of food business. I don’t know, but somebody from our local community, not just our Pratt community or the academic community.

The other thing is being able to offer this virtually. Are we creating enough value that we could help develop an incubator in San Francisco, let’s say?

And connect with other people trying to do this, whether it’s Pratt or other art design colleges or just other people who are interested in an incubator that has the values of sustainability, but still are part of the community. What we don’t want to lose is that sense of community, that we’re in this together. It’s an important part of that model. We’re in this together. The future is ours to live. We need to be able to collaborate and care about each other. It’s all about my own values.

Irina: Thank you, Debera. I love your work and your ideas.

This segment is part 6 in the series : An Interview With Debera Johnson, Founder And Executive Director, Pratt Design Incubator For Sustainable Innovation
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