Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

President Cabrera’s First Week

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Since taking the helm as Tech’s 12th president, Ángel Cabrera has been a man on a mission.  His first day was filled with opportunities, both planned and unplanned, to meet members of the campus community and get to know Georgia Tech in a new way — not as a graduate or a parent, but as president.  In the days that followed, his efforts continued apace.  In addition to giving his first Institute Address, President Cabrera attended several campus events, including the football home opener, the opening of Tech’s newest mental health facility, and the ceremony honoring four young men who blazed a history-making trail at the Institute.

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Research, sponsored activity awards top $1 billion at Georgia Tech

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Research, economic development and other sponsored activities at Georgia Tech passed a significant milestone during the fiscal year that concluded on June 30, recording more than a billion dollars in new grants, contracts and other awards.  The record amount comes from federal government agencies, companies, private organizations, the state of Georgia and other sources.

The growth in new awards for sponsored activity allows Georgia Tech to take on complex and significant challenges involving multiple disciplines and collaborating organizations that bring together teams of researchers with a broad range of specialized expertise, noted Chaouki Abdallah, Georgia Tech’s executive vice present for research.

“Tackling society’s most pressing challenges requires multidisciplinary teams of scientists, engineers, business experts, policymakers and humanists, crosses multiple areas of specialization and often necessitates involvement from more than one research organization,” Abdallah said.  “This level of funding allows us to participate in and lead more complex, more important and more impactful research projects.  We are grateful to our research collaborators and to the state of Georgia for the confidence they have placed in us by providing these resources.”

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Georgia Tech’s economic impact on Atlanta clocks in at $3.3B in 2018

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The Georgia Institute of Technology’s impact on Atlanta’s economy grew 8.5% between 2017 and 2018, according to a new analysis released August 20.

All told, the Institute was responsible for more than $3.35 billion in direct and multiplied spending in fiscal year 2018.  That’s the highest of any University System of Georgia school, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia.

Overall, the 26 public colleges and universities in Georgia created nearly $17.7 billion in economic activity for their communities.

“The annual state economic impact report highlights just how vital University System of Georgia institutions are to communities throughout the state through the multiplier effect,” said Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson.  “When you add in the impact of graduates in the community, the value is priceless.  In addition, Georgia Tech is honored to contribute through research collaborations, innovation neighborhoods and partnerships throughout the state, as well as through programs to strengthen Georgia’s STEM workforce.”

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Georgia Tech aerospace engineering graduate James McConville sworn in as Army’s top officer

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Gen. James C. McConville, 36th Vice Chief of Staff of the Army (U.S. Army photo by Monica King/Released)

A Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech is the new chief of staff of the U.S. Army.

Gen. James C. McConville took over as the Army’s top officer August 9.  He replaces Gen. Mark A. Milley, who was confirmed in July as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

McConville earned a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Georgia Tech in 1990.  A decorated helicopter pilot, McConville is the first aviator to serve as the Army’s chief.

“Armed with a master’s in engineering to go with decades of flying and maintaining helicopters, he brings a unique understanding of how to operate and support complex weapons and equipment,” said Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy.  “In this respect, no senior officer is better prepared to lead the Army as we undertake what will be a massive and, yes, risky and costly transformation towards more advanced weapons and war-fighting approaches.”

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Georgia Tech: A driver of economic development

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A crowd of entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and political leaders gathered at The Biltmore Wednesday afternoon for an economic development forum, looking at the role Technology Square has played in the state’s economic growth and what it will take to continue expanding.

Geoff Duncan, lieutenant governor of Georgia, welcomed guests to “Georgia Tech: A Driver of Economic Development.”

“Being an entrepreneur is unscripted. It’s just in you,” Duncan said.  “As lieutenant governor I want to look for ways to harness and cultivate that potential here in Georgia.”

He acknowledged the role of education and thanked Georgia Tech’s leaders for striving to make Georgia the technology capital of the East Coast.

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Georgia Tech Research Institute develops and teaches tactics to defend transport aircraft

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Air Force Capt. Courtney Vidt had already spent more than a week in a classroom studying the nuances of aircraft physics, radar theory, and the numerous dangers posed to military transport aircraft like hers.

Now, the C-17 pilot was presented with a new challenge: Craft a mission plan for a mock exercise that would achieve the mission objective and get herself and her crew back home safely.

“We fly in a lot of areas where threats can reach out and touch us, and this course helps us be aware of what tools and tactics we have to prevent them from doing that,” Vidt said, “whether it’s flying around it, flying over it, flying under it, or other methods — so they can’t touch us.”

Vidt was one of about a dozen pilots and aircrew from multiple branches of the U.S. military who in March 2019 descended on Rosecrans Air National Guard Base, located about 60 miles north of Kansas City.  They came for an advanced training course designed for the mobility air force — service members who fly the large military aircraft that carry people and supplies.

The course was taught at the Advanced Airlift Tactics Training Center (AATTC), which provides the highest level of training in defensive maneuvers, countermeasures, and tactics for mobility forces with the ultimate goal of keeping them safe while flying through potentially hostile skies.

But it’s not just military instructors in uniforms teaching those courses.  Working alongside them is a team of experts from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), which for decades has partnered with mobility forces to develop technology to counter the threats that confront the military’s transport aircraft.

The GTRI team plays a pivotal role at the training center, helping students understand the science behind threats such as heat-seeking and radar-guided missiles as well as providing foundational knowledge of onboard aircraft systems and the measures used to defeat the threats.

“The goal of these courses is to save lives in the combat environment,” said Bobby Oates, a senior research scientist and GTRI’s site lead for the program at Rosecrans.  “GTRI’s role here is to provide subject matter expertise.  We’re all prior military aviators, and all of us have been on some sort of C-130 platform.  That gives us a unique understanding of the needs of the mobility air force.”

Continue reading at:  GTRI Newsroom

GTRI wins $245M Air Force contract for engineering, advanced technology support

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The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) has received a $245.5 million, five-year contract from the U.S. Air Force to support national defense and mature advanced technology.

The award, announced July 9, is renewable for an additional five years for a total potential investment of $491 million.

“This award affirms GTRI’s growing value to our nation’s defense,” said Lora Weiss, interim senior vice president and director of GTRI.  “As the U.S. faces increasingly more sophisticated technological threats from innovative and unconventional adversaries, this contract will expand GTRI’s ability to quickly apply its breadth of emerging and advanced technologies and leverage the creativity and expertise of a major university to solve critical national problems.”

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Georgia Tech and Morehouse announce collaborative effort

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The Georgia Institute of Technology and Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) today announced the launch of a new initiative that will support MSM’s commercialization efforts to create health technology (HealthTech) startups.

The effort brings the Institute’s globally recognized technology incubator — the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) — to the MSM campus, ranked the No. 1 medical school in the nation in fulfilling its social mission and the top ranking historically black college or university for producing patents (2009-2019).

“We’re excited to forge this effort between our two schools that will help translate ideas that may start in the lab to real-world solutions for minority and rural populations in healthcare,” said James W. Lillard, Ph.D., MSM’s associate dean for research and director of the Office of Translational Technologies.  “This initiative leverages the research rigor and innovations developing at Morehouse School of Medicine with Georgia Tech’s proven ATDC model of helping technology entrepreneurs create viable, scalable companies.”

The collaboration with MSM, the eighth for ATDC through its ATDC @program, continues the incubator’s mission of working with technology startups across Georgia.  The catalyst for this initiative was an i6 Challenge grant the U.S. Department of Commerce awarded to Georgia Tech in 2015.

That $500,000 grant, secured by Tech’s Innovation Ecosystems group, supported wide-ranging innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives across the state.  In Atlanta, it called for the Institute to collaborate with Georgia State and Clark Atlanta universities, Morehouse College, the Morehouse School of Medicine, and Spelman College to develop entrepreneurship programs that supported their unique visions.

The ATDC @ MSM will provide the medical school with a full suite of services and educational programming to support entrepreneurship in the HealthTech arena among faculty, staff, and students on the MSM campus.  The core goal is to help entrepreneurs gain insight into successful HealthTech commercialization, through the program, which includes curriculum, connections, and coaching.

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Karen Fite to lead Enterprise Innovation Institute as Interim Vice President

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The Georgia Institute of Technology has named Karen Fite interim vice president of its economic development unit, the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2).

Fite, who is EI²’s associate vice president, will lead the 12-program organization while Georgia Tech conducts a national search for a permanent vice president to succeed Chris Downing, who retired in June after 31 years of service.

EI2 is the nation’s largest and most comprehensive university-based program of business and industry assistance, technology commercialization, and economic development.

Fite, who also is director of EI2’s Business & Industry Services group of programs, has more than 26 years of economic development experience at Tech.

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Georgia Tech names Director for Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)

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The Georgia Institute of Technology has named James J. Hudgens to be the new director of the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), Georgia Tech’s applied research division.  Currently director of the Threat Intelligence Center (TIC) at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Hudgens will become a Georgia Tech senior vice president and GTRI’s director effective September 2, 2019.

Hudgens holds a Ph.D. in ceramic engineering from Iowa State University.  He has led research and development programs in national security, cybersecurity, quantum information science, and photonic microsystems.  He also led programs in data analytics, synthetic aperture radar, and airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) systems before becoming director of the $265 million-per-year TIC, which has a staff of 550 professionals working in six states and 136 different laboratories. 

A senior technology executive with 23 years of experience in national security research, Hudgens has also held positions at optical networking firm Mahi Networks, defense contractor Raytheon Electronic Systems, and semiconductor company Texas Instruments.  In 2013, he won the Department of Energy Secretary’s Honor Award for Achievement for leading the Copperhead counter-IED program.

“Jim Hudgens has extensive experience building and leading federally sponsored programs that are at the center of GTRI’s core research areas,” said Chaouki Abdallah, Georgia Tech’s Executive Vice President for Research.  “His experience developing and managing programs at Sandia National Laboratories and major private-sector defense contractors will support GTRI’s continued growth in service to our nation’s defense agencies and other important state and federal sponsors.”

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

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