Eric Paul Smith
Senior Advisor, Office of Innovation & Entrepreneurship
U.S. Economic Development Administration
Washington, DC
For over a decade, Eric has blended technical, legal, and policy expertise to lead innovation small and large, whether during all-night coding sessions or through collaborative policy design. Eric’s career in technology entrepreneurship started in high school at a hometown startup and grew into companies where he built technologies that spanned dynamic pricing, medical imaging, and intelligent manufacturing job scheduling. He later moved into legal practice, focusing on software licensing and intellectual property protection in fintech, before transitioning into the public sector at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. There, he examined applications and issued patents on telecommunications technologies that power the Internet of Things and next-generation wireless infrastructure and applications.
Eric synthesized this experience to help build OIE from its infancy around its core mission: to foster innovation and accelerate technology commercialization. As OIE’s Senior Policy Advisor, Eric co-leads the Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) program, through which OIE invests in projects that build regional capacity to translate research into economic prosperity. Since OIE made its first RIS investments in 2015, Eric built a portfolio from zero to 140 grants and $125 million. He also co-leads the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE), which recommends Federal policies to bolster innovation capacity, increase access to capital, and catalyze the creation of new, scalable businesses.
With experience driving economic dynamism, Eric has represented EDA and OIE in a variety of interagency fora, including the National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on Technology’s Lab-to-Market Subcommittee, and has spoken extensively on the intersection of innovation and entrepreneurship with sectors that span smart cities to bioscience and with organizations that range from municipal governments to universities.
Eric received his J.D. from the Indiana University Maurer School of Law and his B.S. in computer science and mathematics, along with a technical translation certificate in German, from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. He is licensed to practice in the State of New York.