Innovation district takes off in NoVa

The launch of the National Innovation Quarter, or National IQ, in Arlington County continues to gather steam. Located in the National Landing area, the innovation district is on a mission to solve challenges in national competitiveness and next-gen technology.

Leaders from Arlington and Alexandria announced the district in early February from the National Landing Experience Center. Founding partners of National IQ include Amazon.com, Northrop Grumman and JBG Smith. The innovation district also has the support of Virginia Tech and entities like the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp. and the National Landing Business Improvement District.

As of this spring, the district’s leaders were busy with a national search for a full-time leader.

Until that person is hired, district board chair Michael Hauser, who leads the corporate venture capital arm of Reston-based Fortune 500federal contractor Science Applications International Corp. as managing partner of SAIC Ventures, is filling in as National IQ’s acting president.

“I would love to have a CEO driving this by the summer,” he says.

At the same time, Hauser is not willing to rush the search. He wants to find someone imbued with the same entrepreneurial spirit he sees in the district’s members.

“We’re really looking for someone who can take that on to help lead this with those mindsets, those behaviors, those tools and those experiences,” Hauser says.

Even without a full-time executive steering the ship, leaders with National IQ have been co-sponsoring and promoting programming and initiatives designed to drive economic and innovation outcomes.

On March 10, National IQ co-sponsored two events: A networking gathering that connected founders with investors in the national security tech sector and the Brave1 Invest Demo Day, which connected U.S. investors, defense experts and policymakers with leaders of Ukrainian startups who are working to develop defense technologies.

“All you’ve got to do is look at the website, right?” Hauser says. “There’s new stuff getting on there all the time.”

Future events could include innovation challenges and product showcases. Hauser’s eager to add more programming. To do that, he says, members need to get loud about what they want to do and see.

“It’s really a call to action to all of the members of this national security and technology ecosystem to start looking at this as something for them to help make what they need and they want out of it,” he says.