On August 23rd, the FED staff joined Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and several SBIR companies at the NDIA Beyond Phase II conference to present on technology transition activities. The DARPA SBIR Program Manager, Connie Jacobs, talked briefly about DARPA, DARPA’s SBIR Program, and their SBIR Technology transition pilot (led by the FED). Ms. Mary Ann Beyster, President of the FED, talked briefly about the transition services, mentoring model using experienced executives, and lessons learned from the pilot.
Three SBIR companies shared their perspective on technology transition approaches, issues, and needs. Mr. Mark Heiferling, CEO of Bluetronix, has developed swarm autonomous routing algorithms for military and civilian applications for mobile adhoc networks (MANETs). Dr. Praveen Chawla, CEO of EDAptive Computing, has developed innovative software tools that offer efficiencies in managing complex System-of-System (SoS) development, upgrade, and maintenance projects. Mr. Ace Sarich , Founder and VP of Voxtec, has developed a ruggedized handheld/wearable voice translation devices called Phraselator and Squid.