Six high-tech incubators were awarded $25,000 grants each yesterday from the Maryland Technology Development Corp. (TEDCO) during a ceremony in Columbia.
The grants, which have been matched at least dollar-for-dollar by outside sources, are to help the incubators develop programs to better prepare fledgling companies.
"The state has a half-dozen nonprofit and university-related business incubators, but there's been no formal support for the incubators," said Phillip A. Singerman, executive director of the quasi-public technology development corporation. "We felt it was important to provide additional services to help the incubators do their job."
The grants came after TEDCO commissioned focus groups to allow Maryland incubator managers to discuss their biggest challenges. A TEDCO-financed study also sought to identify the best attributes of successful incubators. These included how to mentor fledgling companies, how to select them and what financial options to offer to them.
As a result of the study, TEDCO invited incubator managers in the state to compete for grants to apply an attribute identified in the study.
NeoTech, the incubator sponsored by the Howard County Economic Development Authority, will use its grant to develop a program to give accelerated business training to its entrepreneurs. It will also use part of the funds to furnish a new conference room that the young companies can use.
"A lot of the people we encounter are ill-prepared to get into business and ill-prepared to get into the incubator program," said Michael J. Haines, who manages the Howard incubator.
The fast-track program will focus on developing the most important aspects of running a company - marketing, management and leadership.
"They know the technical, but they don't know the business," he said "We need to make sure they understand they need to have a chief executive officer or a director of marketing."
Other recipients of $25,000 grants were the Technical Innovation Center at Hagerstown Community College; the Technology Center at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; the Maryland Technology Development Center in Montgomery County; the Emerging Technology Center at the Greater Baltimore Technology Development Center, and the Technology Advancement Program at the University of Maryland, College Park.
