Maurice Foxworth, principal at Innovation Works, is an expert at things that can be difficult to describe, such as “innovation-based product commercialization” and “intellectual property services.”
A lawyer by training, Foxworth explains what exactly he does in more simple terms in the interview below. What is exceptionally clear is why he does this innovative, high-flying work: he wants African Americans to play a productive, important role in the economy of the future, which is already here.
“The main thing, my big piece, is how can we ensure that our presence and influence in this new economy is felt,” Foxworth said. “A lot of times we look at the tangible aspects in life, but what adds value is intellectual content. Encouraging and finding ways to bring the African-American community into that world is my passion.”
The St. Louis American: What’s new with Innovation Works?
Maurice Foxworth: Right now I am doing a lot of work with Jackie Joyner Kersee in urban farming and urban agriculture, specifically in North St Louis.
The American: What are you doing in urban agriculture?
Foxworth: I am working with Jackie to develop a program to encourage underserved communities to engage in plant science and really provide broader opportunities in plant science and the agricultural movement, which is a large part of the future of this region.
The American: What is needed to expand these opportunities?
Foxworth: First, people need to know about the opportunities, and we need to provide preparation for those communities to take advantage of the situations in front of us in terms of economic opportunities and education innovation.
The American: What is your role?
Foxworth: To facilitate the strategy and build the relationships required to make the promise into a reality in implementing Jackie’s vision.
The American: Do you have other partners in this effort?
Foxworth: Jackie Joyner Kersee is the primary owner, but we are working with farmer and businessman Mark Scholl, Anthony Thompson of Kwame Building Group, Family Farms of Brighton, Illinois and Lincoln University.
The American: What can you tell a parent who wants to get their kid involved?
Foxworth: Right now we are in the early stages of forming a relationship with the St. Louis Science Center. We hope to work with them in developing an overall curriculum using some of their programs, as well as to create an open curriculum with the Noble Foundation, the largest private agricultural foundation in the United States.
The American: Your resume says you specialize in “innovation-based product commercialization.” What is that?
Foxworth: It’s when you take early-stage ideas from a number of different but related disciplines and transform them into viable business ideas and businesses that are earning revenue.
The American: How did you become an expert at doing that?
Foxworth: Long story. I started off in graduate school in 1988 at Howard University. While there, I had a professor who encouraged me to look into issues surrounding the lack of African Americans in science and how the nation could enhance and increase the number African Americans in science. He encouraged me to examine artificial intelligence in the curricula of black colleges and universities as a means of getting more African Americans involved in computer science, particularly Artificial Intelligence.
At the same time, the university was going through its reaccreditation process. Part of that process was a self-study where the university had to set a few goals, and one goal was to become a tier 1 research institution to compete with others like Wake Forest, Yale, predominantly majority institutions. I was part of a small task force that looked at what it would take to do that, in terms of infrastructure, faculty, policies. It gave me great insight into how to build research capacity within an HBCU or any institution that is under-performing in scientific research.
From there, in 1989 I went to NASA and worked on computer-based systems for training purposes. NASA was interested in expanding the research capacity of HBCUs in order to expand the research pool for the entire nation. At that time, being one of a few people who had looked into the issue and studied it pretty thoroughly, I worked with NASA internally developing a new program to expand the capability of HBCUs, Hispanic-serving institutions and tribal colleges.
In 1991 I left NASA and started working for a series of contractors, primarily in project management. My specialty was mostly computer simulation. I went from one consulting firm to another, doing the same thing. Then I went into business for myself in 1992, starting Foxworth and Dinkins in Washington, D.C., with a focus on transforming the capacity of HBCUs to develop products and goods sold at the marketplace. That was the next logical progression. Now that we have developed some research capacity, how do we transform that into economic power and capability?
The American: Your resume also says you provide “intellectual property services.” What is that?
Foxworth: I identify if you have any value in your intellectual property and is it protectable. Protection provides some sense of value – if you can protect it, that creates scarcity, and scarcity creates the opportunity for value. Scarcity connected to an actual demand in the market enhances value. Linking actual supply and development of technology to the market’s demands – that’s what I do.
The American: How do you judge market demand?
Foxworth: The best way – through the folks who are doing it every day. I don’t have to gauge – I let the market gauge. I don’t pick winners and loser – I present opportunities, and market demand makes the ultimate decision.
The American: How did you get connected to Jackie Joyner Kersee?
Foxworth: In 2008 a friend I attended Wichita State with as an undergrad, Phyllis Johnson, thought it would be good for me to meet Jackie. We are working together on a few projects, specifically concerning her intellectual property and her brand.
The American: What are you suggesting she do with her “brand”?
Foxworth: To add value to her brand. We sat down and looked at ways to extend her brand into perhaps new areas, to refocus her brand with a future orientation. No one wants to have a present or future career built on just speaking about things that happened in the past, like her Olympic career. I want to refocus her efforts on what she wants to do in the future and some things she could leave as a legacy. “Jackie Joyner Kersee” stands for competition, being a champion, being in the community, being committed to fitness and overall health and wellbeing. So we took those issues and shaped them around nutrition and agriculture.
The American: Have you ever done any farm work?
Foxworth: No. I grew up in Mississippi and spent time on the family farm picking eggs out of the barn and slopping a few hogs, but I don’t think that’s farm work. I think that would be selling farming short.
The American: Where in Mississippi?
Foxworth: Prentiss, Mississippi.
The American: How did you get out?
Foxworth: I grew up in St. Louis, but I spent summers in Prentiss, visiting my relatives, who are all farmers.
The American: Doesn’t American history provide some obstacles in terms of African Americans embracing farming?
Foxworth: With urban communities in general, there is an historical barrier. However, right now agriculture and plant science are leading the way into the new economy and new opportunities for a very bright future, so this is precisely the time we should not be deterred from the past and be more focused on the future.
African Americans are great-minded folks. One of my favorite inventors of all time is someone you have probably never heard of named Ned. He was the first documented slave who applied for a patent. Ned had created a cotton scraper. Back in those days, the ruling of the court was that a slave was property, so they ruled that he couldn’t own a patent – he was the same as livestock or any piece of property.
I often say to folks that African Americans missed the first agricultural revolution because of slavery and we missed most of the industrial revolution because of Jim Crow, and now we are on the edge of a biological economy driven by information technology and we can’t pass up too many of these revolutions and still be relevant to the U.S. economy.
So when we talk about wealth in our country, look back 50 or 60 years ago and most wealth was held by railroad and oil barons and real estate moguls – tangible property owners. In 2014, wealth is primarily intellectual property. African Americans need to make the transition to creators and innovators and play in the space of intellectual property and innovation – be innovators, not just consumers of intellectual property.
The American: What do you think of the macroeconomic argument that the St. Louis region will not be able to compete, given how many African Americans live here, until the black community becomes better educated and more productive?
Foxworth: It’s difficult for a region to compete with stellar, strong, competent regions with one arm behind our back, taking half our resources off the table, in a difficult fight begin with. For our region to believe that is possible is a delusion of grandeur.
The American: How do we get more people to grasp that argument?
Foxworth: How do you inspire a community? When I try to encourage people, I talk about STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education. Oftentimes when we encourage young people involving STEM, that means algebra, science, biology. And while that is important for a great foundation, most of those things are not inspiring, except as the means to an end.
I am here to provide that end – to show how technology inspires lives and can help you make a decent living. I’m not going to inspire kids to study calculus thinking at the end they will be making $30,000 a year as a post-doc. That’s not going to happen. But I can encourage people to get inspired to change the world and make a difference and make a great living, and STEM is the tool you do that by.
The American: I must say, you don’t talk like a lawyer.
Foxworth: Good.
The American: Do you use your law training?
Foxworth: I use it in every aspect – transactions, contracts, agreements, licensing, everything I work with on a daily basis in understanding and developing intellectual property. It’s the bedrock of my practice.
The American: I see you went through a minority executive program (at Dartmouth University’s Tuck School of Business). What did you get out of that?
Foxworth: That was a life-altering experience. Through the program, I was instructed by Tuck School professors, some of the best minds in the country. That’s guided me in terms of putting a business context into everything I do. I stay well abreast of the cutting edge of what’s going on in management strategy.
The main thing, my big piece, is how can we ensure our presence and influence in this new economy is felt. A lot of times we look at the tangible aspects in life, but what adds value is intellectual content. Encouraging and finding ways to bring the African-American community into that world is my passion.