Victor Godinez:
From fledgling to flying
Conference will explain how to secure grants, state funding
08:57 AM CDT on Tuesday, June 6, 2006
Small businesses trying to build and commercialize their products might want to drop by the Bill J. Priest campus at El Centro College in Dallas later this month.
Mona Reeder/DMN
Jim Berish (left) is the director of technology assistance at the North Texas Small Business Development Center in Dallas. He recently advised Adam Vishinsky, president of Rivlan Inc.
The North Texas Small Business Development Center will host a conference on June 23 on how to secure federal grants as well as state funding.
Small business innovation research grants are handed out by federal agencies to companies working on products Uncle Sam might eventually be interested in buying. The goal isn't to subsidize small businesses, but to help them become profitable companies.
The grants are offered in three phases.
The government provides cash in the first two phases, but not in the third phase, when the companies are expected to find private sector customers or other forms of government funding.
Jim Berish, director of technology assistance at the Small Business Development Center, said the federal government is emphasizing commercialization more than it has in the past.
"I think they were finding that a lot of people were going after phase one and phase two and getting the cash and forgetting about phase three," he said. "The government is making them focus now more on the commercialization process. That kind of weeds out those that are just in there for the short term."
Texas is one of the biggest recipients of SBIR grants and small business technology transfer grants, which are focused on companies partnering with research universities.
In 2004, the most recent data available, Texas received $89.6 million in total SBIR funding, ranking sixth behind California, Massachusetts, Maryland, Virginia and New York.
-> Full text of the article | 