Meet the Innovator: Enigma Science & Technology
Get to know the Social Innovation Lab’s Accelerator Cohort 2021–22 over the coming weeks. For this interview, we spoke with Malik Little, founder of Enigma Science & Technology. In addition to his entrepreneurial endeavors, Malik is an engineer with 15+ years’ experience with Georgia Tech Research Institute, Northrup Grumman, and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. Malik is a husband and father to two beautiful children.
Enigma S&T aims to bring science and technology to the forefront of solving current and future challenges impacting our society, starting with public safety.
SIL: Tell us about your company. What are you working on?
Enigma Science and Technology was established to build solutions grounded in scientific understanding and technical capabilities to strengthen our communities and improve our world. We aim to address some of the challenges we have seen throughout the years related to public safety. We believe some of these issues can be resolved with technology when implemented properly and will be beneficial to all within our society. The first issue that we are addressing is arrest-related deaths within our country. We have determined a solution that could potentially prevent arrest- related deaths and are working hard to get it out there for testing purposes before production.
SIL: Why did you decide to start this? Where did the idea come from?
After seeing the issues surrounding public safety and law enforcement in 2020, I wondered in what way could I help to resolve some of these issues. I realized that there is knowledge and capabilities used in the STEM fields daily that could have a transformative good impact when applied to public safety and law enforcement. From there, I went through a period of investigating the issue (primarily arrest-related deaths) to make sure I truly understood it holistically to determine a solution that would support preventing these types of incidents from occurring so often.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between June 2015 — March 2016, there were an estimated 135 arrest-related deaths (ARDs) per month in the USA. ARDs can result from multiple circumstances — including underlying medical conditions, substance abuse, and excessive use of force. Under certain circumstances, ARDs can damage the reputation and public trust in law enforcement.
In 2021, I received the Archimedes Award from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab which provided a pathway to go full-time towards building Enigma Science & Technology with solutions that will solve some of society’s toughest challenges, starting with reduction of ARDs.
SIL: What constitutes success for you?
Seeing wide adoption of our product(s) designed to help make a difference in our communities and country as a whole. We truly believe that for every issue/problem we face there is a solution that is more apparent and achievable than we may originally think. These solutions can be bridge builders to help bring and keep us together as a society when implemented properly.
SIL: What have you accomplished so far?
We have finalized a license agreement with my previous employer that will allow Enigma Science and Technology to bring our first product to market to help reduce the amount of arrest related deaths across our country. We also have conducted many customer discovery efforts before and while in SIL to ensure we truly understand the public safety/law enforcement environment and to determine if our initial product is needed and will be beneficial. We have also been accepted to the spring 2022 cohort of Conscious Venture Labs.
SIL: How can people get involved in supporting you in your venture?
We would recommend following our company on LinkedIn. Once we come out of “stealth” mode we will be providing more status updates and information on how to get involved.
SIL: What have been some of the biggest challenges in scaling your venture during the pandemic?
So far, discussions around our first product have been well received but ensuring we have enough capital to bring everything to fruition is a challenge. I believe this is part of the standard aspect of being an early-stage venture. Raising the necessary capital to “make it happen” is the first major hurdle to really get things off the ground.
SIL: What do you like most about the Baltimore entrepreneurial community? What would you like to see more of?
We are new to the community and we have come across so many founders, organizations and groups willing to provide advice and support. This was something that was not expected but are very grateful to have and will make sure to pay it forward to others.
SIL: What advice do you have for would-be social entrepreneurs thinking about starting a venture?
Don’t doubt yourself. Just try your best to make it happen. This is something I tell myself over and over again because starting a new venture is not easy. You will experience things that will make you second-, triple- and quadruple-guess yourself and, more than likely, your initial entrepreneurial goals will not occur on your desired timelines. So, again, don’t doubt yourself. Just try your best to make it happen.
SIL: Why did you apply to SIL?
I applied to SIL because it is an accelerator program designed to help entrepreneurs that are more grounded in improving society. Our company is a “tech venture” but we are developing and providing tech capabilities with the sole purpose of strengthening our communities and improving our world.
SIL: How have you grown personally during your time in the Accelerator?
I have learned a lot and continue to learn what it takes to build an organization that has a good impact on our society. This has been a learning experience for me since I am coming from different environment and way of thinking. For example, when working in certain STEM fields, we may be more laser focused to ensure a particular product or an aspect of the product’s capability meets the desired need or impact. With establishing a business, you need to ensure the overall case for your business (financial and operations), the purpose, the why, behind your mission and goals are fully established. This needs to be done because you are not just building one, two or more products. You are now building a new environment which needs to foster and develop these products to help grow your business and have an overall beneficial impact on society.
Want to get connected with Malik and learn more about Enigma Science & Technology? Learn more here.
