Paying millions of dollars to purchase the
proper equipment was simply not an option for NanoSpective
during its start-up phase. Prenitzer had mentioned their
situation to MJ Soileau, vice president of research for UCF,
and he immediately encouraged them to look into the UCF
Technology Incubator. A relationship was established between
NanoSpective and UCF, securing access to the incubator program
and UCF’s Materials Characterization Lab, where NanoSpective
began work for its clients. Taking advantage of the incubator
program was an important and logical step for NanoSpective.
With the laboratory and office space leased, the company could
take advantage of having a respectable and professional
appearance, with an attractive location in close proximity to
UCF researchers and facilities. Prenitzer credits the
incubator with helping to facilitate relationships with the
university and the community in addition to strong networks
and strategic partnerships. “When we started NanoSpective, we
were scientists, not business people,” says Prenitzer,
president and CEO of NanoSpective. “The incubator has helped
us enhance our skills and educate us on the business subjects
outside our realm of expertise or experience.”
Growing New
Companies; Growing Orlando: The UCF Technology Incubator is
playing a big part in Central Florida's High Tech Boom
FirstMonday July 2004
By Tracey Velt
With his Ph.D. grasped firmly in one hand
and a government contract securely in the other, Dan Rini
needed to act fast. “As part of my studies, I wrote some
proposals to the Department of Defense about a laser cooling
technology that I developed,” says Rini, President of Rini
Technologies in Orlando. “The government liked what they saw,
gave me a contract and was sending two representatives down
from the federal government’s missile defense agency to take a
look at my facility.”
The problem: Rini’s facility was “my
backpack and an old car.”
Enter the University of Central Florida’s
Technology Incubator, which provides early-stage technology
companies with the business help they need to get off the
ground.
“Presto, within days I had a shiny new
office building with a conference room and a secretary,” says
Rini. “Without the help of the Incubator, I would have had to
scramble to find office space.”
What is the UCF Tech Incubator?
Offering far more than help leasing
office space, the UCF Technology Incubator gives emerging tech
companies a helping hand with incorporating, hiring
management, gaining access to equipment and laboratories,
procuring seed and expansion capital, and finding mentors and
business guidance from community professionals, such as
attorneys and accountants.
The Incubator is a collaborative economic
development partnership created to establish financially
stable, rapidly growing technology companies in the community
that will in turn create more high-wage jobs and diversify the
local economy. Funded by grants, strategic partnerships with
UCF, Orange County, the City of Orlando and the Florida High
Tech Corridor, the nonprofit Incubator offers much-needed help
to fledgling companies.
“Most of the people we have coming
through the Incubator are scientists and researchers,” says
Carol Ann Dykes, Chief Operating Officer of the Incubator,
based in Orlando’s Research Park. “They’re highly intelligent
but haven’t had any business training. The Incubator gives
them that training.”
Tom O’Neal, Chief Executive Officer of
the Incubator, spotted the need in 1999. “I was overseeing
sponsored research at UCF’s Center for Research and Education
in Optics and Lasers (CREOL). I found myself helping several
faculty members start companies and realized they needed a
place to do business — to learn about business. An Incubator
could help UCF, the community and small businesses.”
After obtaining a small amount of seed
funding, O’Neal leveraged it several times over to get
matching funds. Then, in October 1999, he was finally able to
open the doors to his own office building.
Today, the Incubator occupies more than
62,000 square feet in four different buildings in Central
Florida Research Park, with additional offices in downtown
Orlando and in the Sanford Technology Business Incubator
Center. Since it was founded, the Incubator has supported 70
client companies and eight graduating companies, who together
have created more than 400 new jobs, and generated more than
$140 million in revenue for the local economy.
As further proof that the Incubator is a
force to be reckoned with, the National Business Incubator
Association (NBIA) recently named it the 2004 Technology
Incubator of the Year.
“The team at the UCF Technology Incubator
has demonstrated exceptional leadership in creating an
entrepreneurial culture and high-tech industry base in Central
Florida,” says NBIA President and CEO Dinah Adkins. “They’ve
built strong partnerships in the community that provide an
incredible network of business development resources for their
client companies that are second to none.”
Non-Tech Companies Need Not Apply
To be eligible to participate in the
Incubator program, applicants must have a technology-oriented
company that plans to remain in Central Florida. But, it all
starts with an application. Anyone interested in the Tech
Incubator program can download an application off the Web site
(www.Incubator.ucf.edu). From there, applicants meet with
Incubator management to get more information.
“We work mainly with tech companies, such
as optics, photonics, computer-related companies, computer
science and simulation,” says O’Neal. “We require all
applicants to go through our seven-week Incubator Excellence
in Entrepreneurship course. This helps
us flush out the idea to make sure it’s a
viable business opportunity. We can tell if the product or
service has a market in Central Florida and if it is saleable
and potentially profitable.”
The Incubator doesn’t accept everyone,
and so the seven-week course is self-filtering. “We want
viable companies that can create lots of jobs in the Central
Florida ommunity,” adds O’Neal. “Our goal is to help tech
companies that can give back to the community that is so vital
to our existence.”
A Perfect Match
After the company that Brenda Prentizer
was working with started laying off people in her department,
she and three others decided they had a service they could
market on their own, so they went to the Incubator.
“We had four skilled scientists with
strong connections to UCF [all were UCF graduate alumni] who
were ready to offer a much-needed service, but we had no
business background,” says Prentizer, one of four principals
and President/CEO of NanoSpective, a company that specializes
in materials characterization. “The seven week course helped
us hone our business skills and get our company off the
ground.”
NanoSpective offers materials
characterization to companies that do research and development
to see if their ideas are working. The company offers a unique
skill set in that it looks at materials on the atomic scale.
“We can help a company that is in manufacturing by
incorporating failure analysis,” explains Prentizer. “We can
also help with intellectual property, patent infringement
cases and patent assertion.”
The entrepreneurial course helped
NanoSpective incorporate and took it through the steps needed
to make the company marketable. The company was connected with
an attorney and guided by the Central Florida Innovation
Corp.
The Incubator also hooked Prenitzer and
her partners up with an accountant. “We rented office space,
learned how to market our services and were able to establish
ourselves in the community,” she says gratefully.
Bringing People Together
Not only does the Incubator help former
UCF students, but it also helps any qualifying tech company.
Consider the case of Dr. Leonid B. Glebov. Glebov is a Russian
scientist who came to Central Florida when the cold war ended.
He ran the Russian Institute of Optics and developed a way to
split beams of light into different wavelengths.
“It’s been a great, fun project,” says
Dykes. “Last year, we were able to help him hire a chief
financial officer and some management. We also helped with
some grant proposals that got him millions of dollars to get
started.”
The story doesn’t end there. Another
scientist named Dr. Jean-Luc Nogues came to the Incubator
wanting to start a new optics company. He and Dr. Glebov met
and quickly realized the great potential of working together,
so they ended up partnering, starting a new company called
OptiGrate, and using the Incubator to help get incorporated.
Dr. Glebov is the Chief Technology Officer and Dr. Nogues is
President and CEO.
OptiGrate, formerly Light Processing and
Technologies, develops and fabricates robust high-efficiency
volume diffractive gratings for optical beam control in
high-power laser systems, optical communications and
processing. Dr. Glebov, who co-authored the first publication
on the discovery of the photo-thermo-refractive phenomenon in
a doped silicate glass, first developed this technology about
25 years ago.
A Community Win-Win
The UCF Tech Incubator is in the unique
position to help the community. “We’ve integrated the
Incubator into the bigger picture in order to become an
integral part of the community,” says O’Neal. “The Incubator
is a tool for the entire region.”
Through partnerships with Orange County,
the City of Orlando and the Florida High Tech Corridor, the
Incubator raises the visibility of the importance of
supporting the technology sector of the local economy.
According to Dykes, “Everyone recognizes
that Orlando benefits from the tourism, retail and service
sectors of our economy, but they may not realize the
challenges and rewards of a strong technology sector.”
The Incubator brings tech business to
Central Florida. Their close working relationship with the
Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission offers its
principals the opportunity to interact with companies
considering relocating or expanding to Orlando. Sometimes
these companies want to start with a small operation, and the
Incubator may be a perfect avenue for that.
In addition, the Incubator works with the
UCF Technology Transfer program to assist in the actual
formation of new companies to commercialize innovations coming
out of the university’s research. “About 20 percent of our
companies today are faculty-led or are licensees of UCF
technology,” explains Dykes. O’Neal believes it’s all about
the partnerships. “We couldn’t provide any type of service
without volunteers coming in to mentor,” he says. “We have
attorneys and accountants, business trainers and marketing
companies supporting the innovative people who come to the
Incubator. These professionals donate time, and eventually go
on to develop paying relationships with these companies.”
Proof of Success
To date, the Incubator has graduated
eight companies. That means the companies have achieved a
level of corporate and financial growth and are ready to be on
their own in the community. In fact, one of the companies was
recently acquired by a large multinational corporation.
One of these success stories is Rini
Technologies, which currently employs 14 full-time and five
part-time staff. “Although we’ve been profitable since the
beginning, our revenues have tripled three of the past four
years,” says Rini. “This year, we’ll have revenues of more
than $2 million.”
That type of success is why the Incubator
is so important. Not only did Rini find the tools he needed to
get his company off the ground, but also his company is now a
force in Central Florida, hiring employees and bringing
tech-related revenue to the area.
“It’s one big circle,” says O’Neal. “We
help these companies get started, and then they generate
income for Central Florida, give local people jobs and help
lure other high-tech companies to the area.”
And, that, adds Dykes, is the ideal
community partnership.
Nanotechnology
is still in its infancy in Central Florida
A ranking of
nanotechnology activity puts Florida in the bottom 5th in
U.S., but Orlando is making some progress
Lynn Thomasson |
Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted September 11, 2006
VaxDesign Corp. wants to copy your immune
system. The company, which is trying to engineer artificial
tissue that replicates the body's immune response, hopes its
technology could someday replace the use of animals in testing
vaccines and cosmetics.
To mimic the tiny complexities of the body's immune system,
such as its ultra-thin membranes, the company has turned to
nanotechnology.
It's just one of a handful of Central Florida companies mining
nanotechnology for the next scientific breakthroughs. These
companies are studying matter at the level of a nanometer -- a
billionth of a meter across, or the span of eight to 10 atoms.
A typical sheet of paper, by comparison, is about 100,000
nanometers thick.
Materials that behave one way on a normal scale often act
completely different on a nanoscale. Take the aluminum in a
soda can, for example: isolate a few particles at the
nanolevel, and they can spontaneously explode. And zinc oxide,
normally an opaque, white ingredient common in sunscreens and
skin lotions, becomes clear.
Nanotechnology doesn't have much of a profile in Central
Florida, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. While still
in its infancy, it is expected to become a big deal in the
coming years.
"It's going to impact virtually every one of our business
areas and products," said Sharon Smith, Lockheed Martin
Corp.'s corporatewide director of technology.
Mix of disciplines
At Lockheed's Missiles and Fire Control unit in Orlando,
scientists are researching nanotechnology for a range of
products -- from making thinner, more efficient coatings for
the optical lenses in its night-vision and infrared systems to
lighter, stronger fighter-jet wings and smaller, more
sensitive sensors.
Unlike other hot science sectors in the business world, such
as biotechnology, which focus on a particular branch of
science, nanotechnology is about scale and usually involves a
mix of scientific disciplines. So any big developments in
nanotechnology are likely to affect a wide swath of
industries, from electronics to textiles to medicine.
Compared with some other regions of the United States,
tourism-dominated Central Florida doesn't have a lot of
nanotechnology research and development. It does display some
high-tech prowess in areas such as defense, electro-optics and
training simulation. And with last month's announcement that
the Burnham Institute for Medical Research would open a
satellite laboratory here -- thanks to $310 million in state
and local incentives -- Orlando now has the makings of a
medical and biotechnology cluster in the Lake Nona area.
Off to a slow start
A handful of local companies, from industry giants to young
start-ups, are using nanotechnology in working on everything
from satellite antennae to VaxDesign's artificial immune
system.
"We want to look at things like lung disease and immune
responses -- how people can come up with more effective
therapies," said William Warren, the company's chief executive
officer.
VaxDesign, originally from Oklahoma, has been in Central
Florida for two years. "Some states got ahead of the game
before Florida did -- California, New York, Pennsylvania,"
Warren said. Still, "the state offered us a pretty good
incentive package to come."
By most academic standards, UCF is a relative newcomer to
nanotechnology. The school's Nanoscience Technology Center
opened just a year and a half ago with a half-million dollars
in state, federal and private funds.
Progress is being made, however; the center attracted 300
percent more in research funds this year.
"I think they're doing a pretty good job trying to get people
to come down and build a program," said Warren, whose company
is next door to UCF in Central Florida Research Park.
But the center faces several hurdles. It doesn't have its own
building on campus yet and must rent space next door in
Central Florida Research Park. That diverts dollars that could
be used to buy laboratory equipment or hire more staff, said
M.J. Soileau, UCF's vice president of research.
"If we had any sense, we'd just go fishing," said Soileau, who
is credited with building UCF's optics program into a
nationally recognized program. "But we work hard, rent some
space, and we're going to compete anyway."
UCF is one of the few universities in the nation that offers
undergraduate courses in nanoscience. As nanotechnology grows,
companies may start clamoring for graduates with skills and
knowledge in this small area of science.
Government estimates indicate that
200,000 people worldwide are working in nanotechnology now,
but the National Science Foundation expects the number to
increase a hundredfold over the next 15 years.
'Room at the bottom'
The federal government, through its multi-agency National
Nanotechnology Initiative, has pumped $5.4 billion into
research during the past five years.
The initiative estimates it will spend $1.3 billion in fiscal
2006, which ends Sept. 30, and President Bush has proposed a
fiscal 2007 budget totaling more than $1.2 billion.
But Florida isn't positioned to ride any wave of
nanotechnology growth.
The state ranks in the bottom fifth among U.S. states in
nanotechnology activity and technology-development strength,
according to a 2004 report by Lux Research, a nanotechnology
research and advisory firm.
"I would say the vast majority of those start-ups [in
Florida], compared to what you would find in California, are
in the very early stages -- similar to what you'd find with a
professor with an idea," said Matthew Nordan, president of Lux
Research.
One such company is NanoSpective Inc., a 3-year-old business
whose four founders all graduated from UCF.
"We know where we need to go to find the support we need, and
we've found it here," said Vice President Jennifer McKinley,
speaking from the start-up's quarters in Central Florida
Research Park.
University and company researchers, from Lockheed Martin to
NanoSpective, are calling nanotechnology the next big thing.
Many of the next big breakthroughs in better electronics are
expected to come from advancements in this field.
" 'There's plenty of room at the bottom,' and there really
is," said Leslie Kramer, chief technologist at Lockheed Martin
in Orlando, quoting a 1959 speech by physicist Richard Feynman
credited with inspiring scientists to begin thinking about
nanotechnology.
"We need as many people as can get out of our universities to
fill the jobs that are coming," he said.
"It's just the start of opening the floodgates."
Senior scientist Russell Higbee (standing) watches Brian
Schanen perform a sampling procedure at VaxDesign. The company
is using nanotechnology to engineer tissue that replicates the
human immune response.
