Maryland Technology Partnership for Innovation

Morgan State University, Baltimore MD

Investigators

Abstract

0332528 DeLoatch This award is to Morgan State University to support the activity described below for 36 months. The proposal was submitted in response to the Partnerships for Innovation Program Solicitation (NSF-03521). Partners The partners include Morgan State University (Lead Institution), Emerging Technology Center, Maryland Technology Development Corporation, Prince George's County Economic Development Corporation, Chesapeake Bay Region Technical Center of Excellence, Geo-Centers Incorporated, University of Baltimore Center for Technology Commercialization, University of Maryland, Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development. Meridian Management Group, New Market Growth Fund, Toucan Capital Corporation. The primary objective of this partnership is to apply the techniques honed by Maryland's industry-university technology transfer infrastructure to the challenge of transferring knowledge created by the State's federal laboratories into innovations that create new wealth and build strong local economies. The primary social impact of this effort is to broaden the participation of underrepresented institutions and groups in the nation's economy. The Maryland Technology Partnership for Innovation consists of a consortium (led by Morgan State University) that focuses on small companies in three economically distressed regions of the State of Maryland: the City of Baltimore (distressed urban area), Prince George's County (inner suburb with high minority population), and the Eastern Shore (depressed rural region). More than 20 companies will be provided with intensive, customized technical and managerial assistance to implement commercialization strategies that create new products from federal technologies, attract private capital, and create jobs in economically distressed communities. Potential Economic Impact Maryland has more federal R&D laboratories than any other state (more than $6 billion annually in intramural research), yet Maryland has many economically distressed regions. The activities of this award focus on providing the infrastructure to commercialize new technologies from the federal R&D in these laboratories to improve the economic well being of three model regions hat are economically distressed: city, suburban, and rural. University involvement provides technical and business/management expertise to make the new companies competitive. The economic development activities of the private sector and state/regional governments provide a more favorable business climate as well as technical and managerial expertise. New jobs in regions with high population of underrepresented groups will result. The management plan is sufficient to give the infrastructure a very high probability of being sustained after the award has terminated. The intellectual merit of the activity lies in developing a model for commercialization of technology developed in federal laboratories via partnership with universities, small businesses, venture capital funds, incubators, and regional and state government agencies. Economically distressed communities do not fully benefit from the activities of the national research enterprise. States typically do not deploy their technology development programs in economically distressed communities. Thus this is a fairly novel approach. The broader impacts of the activity concentrate on involving underrepresented groups in the innovation enterprise. This grant is led by Morgan State University (a Historically Black University) and involves an urban and a suburban region with high percentages of underrepresented minorities, as well as a rural region that is economically distressed and underrepresented in the technology innovation enterprise.