Annual SBIR Conference to Focus on Technology Transition

March 21, 2003, Washington D.C. ---- The Department of Defense, in cooperation with SBA and nine other federal agencies, will host the National SBIR Spring Conference 2003 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, VA on April 22 -- 24. The conference will provide a forum for businesses -- large and small -- and universities to learn how to participate in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, which will fund over $1 Billion in early-stage research and development (R&D) at small businesses this year.

The conference theme -- Destination: Success -- spotlights the triumph of the twenty-year-old SBIR program as the Nation's most successful program in moving cutting-edge technology into the marketplace and as the largest source of early-stage technology financing. SBIR provides a unique opportunity for start-ups to develop technology products that are marketable in both private sector and military markets.

The conference will also have a session devoted to SBIRs sister program, Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR). STTR funds cooperative R&D projects between small companies and researchers at universities and other research institutions.

Brian Joseph, President of Touchstone Research Laboratory, Ltd., West Virginia, will be one of the featured speakers at the conference. According to Joseph, after years of providing "R&D for others, leading to products with annual sales of close to one billion dollars, Touchstone made a strategic change to develop its own products primarily through the SBIR process. Today, 85% of Touchstones business is the development and sale of its own products." In his speech Joseph will relate how Touchstone has successfully utilized the SBIR process to develop and commercialize a series of technologies during its 5-year history with SBIR.

For more information about the National SBIR Spring Conference 2003, visit www.dodsbir.net/springconf03. For more information on DoDs SBIR and STTR programs, visit www.acq.osd.mil/sadbu/sbir.

###