Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

GSA launches pilot for small business research program

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The General Services Administration (GSA) has announced that it would be moving forward with a new pilot program to manage and grant awards under the third phase of the Small Business Innovation Research program, which encourages small businesses to explore research and development with federal partners.

Phases one and two of the program focus on the actual research and development, while the third phase is designed to help small businesses pursue the commercialization of the products they developed in the first two phases.

“Helping small businesses commercialize new solutions developed with assistance from the SBIR program increases the return on investment from federal research and development funding and supports private sector job growth,” said Small Business Administration Administrator Linda McMahon in a news release.

“The SBA looks forward to working with GSA to encourage the entrepreneurship and innovation associated with the SBIR program and continuing SBA’s efforts to impact the growth of our nation’s small businesses.”

Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/acquisition/2018/07/30/gsa-launches-pilot-for-small-business-research-program/

Ports Authority, Georgia Tech, and Center for Innovation sign MOU to tap into advanced logistics planning

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The Georgia Ports Authority, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Georgia Center of Innovation for Logistics signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on July 31 at the Port of Savannah that creates a new relationship aimed at supporting the state’s logistics industry in economic development, research, and education.

“For years, Georgia Tech has been honored to work together with the Ports Authority, Governor Nathan Deal’s office, and business and government throughout the state in logistics, transportation, manufacturing, and education to strengthen our State economy and create jobs,” said Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson. “We are pleased to further solidify this partnership to benefit Georgia’s transportation and logistics industry.”

The Georgia Ports Authority, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and the Georgia Center of Innovation for Logistics signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Tuesday (July 31) at the Port of Savannah that creates a new relationship aimed at supporting the state’s logistics industry in economic development, research and education. Pictured are from left, Griff Lynch, executive director, Georgia Ports Authority; U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Georgia; G.P. “Bud” Peterson, Georgia Tech president; Jimmy Allgood, Georgia Ports Authority chairman; and Matt Markham, director of the Center of Innovation for Logistics.

The goal of the MOU is to bring advanced research, evolving global logistics trends, and analysis from the world to Savannah. By tapping into the hands-on expertise at GPA and the Center of Innovation for Logistics — as well as the high-tech analysis and research at Georgia Tech’s Supply Chain and Logistics Institute — cargo owners and third-party logistics providers will gain superior insight into everything from when and where to build infrastructure to improved efficiency in cargo routing.

“Georgia Tech’s Supply Chain & Logistics Institute has established logistics improvement partnerships in global trade hubs such as Rotterdam, Singapore, Shenzhen, and Panama,” said GPA Board Chairman Jimmy Allgood.   “I am delighted to announce that for their first such agreement with a port authority in the Western Hemisphere, they have chosen an organization that is in their own state of Georgia.”

Georgia Tech’s Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering has been ranked No. 1 in the country for the past 28 years, and Georgia Tech is recognized as one of the leading research universities in the world.

Matt Markham, director of the Georgia Center of Innovation for Logistics, said the collaborative effort further strengthens the state’s position as an economic development leader.

“Most companies that choose Georgia as their home depend on its world-class logistics for their success,” Markham said. “Our new relationship builds on our center’s goal of providing company-specific analyses and facilitating connections between logistics providers and potential clients.”

The multi-modal network is designed to combine ocean, truck, rail, and air transportation to create optimal conditions for an easier and faster network. GPA Executive Director Griff Lynch said the initiative will allow the Georgia Ports Authority to continue growing its service area across the U.S. Southeast and beyond.

“We are excited to enter into this agreement between our organizations,” Lynch said. “The MOU leverages the Institute’s predictive analytics and supply chain optimization, the Center of Innovation for Logistics’ network of connections, and the GPA’s experience in the field as an industry leader.”

ABOUT THE GEORIA PORTS AUTHORITY:

Since 1945, Georgia’s ports have served as magnets for international trade and investment, enriching the state’s economy to benefit all Georgians. The Georgia Ports Authority is dedicated to providing customers with the most efficient, productive port facilities in the nation, and to creating jobs and business opportunities to benefit more than 9.7 million Georgians. The GPA is committed to maintaining its competitive edge through development of leading-edge technology, marketing and operations to move cargo faster. And, the Authority is working hard to identify what must be done today to sustain growth, performance and security for tomorrow.

ABOUT THE GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY:

The Georgia Institute of Technology, also known as Georgia Tech, is one of the nation’s leading research universities — a university that embraces change while continually creating the next. The next generation of leaders. The next breakthrough startup company. The next life-saving medical treatment. Georgia Tech provides a focused, technologically based education to more than 25,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Georgia Tech has many nationally recognized programs, all top-ranked by peers and publications alike, and is ranked in the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News and World Report. It offers degrees through the Colleges of Computing, Design, Engineering, Sciences, the Scheller College of Business, and the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech has more than 100 centers focused on interdisciplinary research that consistently contribute vital research and innovation to American government, industry, and business.

ABOUT THE CENTER OF INNOVATION FOR LOGISTICS:

The Center of Innovation for Logistics facilitates innovative logistics solutions that leverage Georgia’s superior business climate and enhance cargo-owing companies’ competitiveness. Exclusive to Georgia, the Center collaborates with companies that currently ship to or from Georgia, as well as those looking to locate in Georgia to deploy the world’s best multi-modal logistics for supply chain success. With targeted efforts to engage its unique position in state government with partnerships in the logistics industry, the Center provides impactful forums for companies to network, address industry issues, and share knowledge.

Source: http://www.news.gatech.edu/2018/07/31/gpa-georgia-tech-center-innovation-sign-mou 

DoD’s R&D fund sponsors free online training

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The Department of Defense’s SBIR/STTR Program Office has put together an on-line training program catalogue for small businesses for the year.

Small businesses — who are pursuing projects with potential for commercialization and which match-up with specific U.S. Government research and development (R&D) needs — should look into the SBIR/STTR program.

Upcoming SBIR/STTR webinar topics are listed below, along with dates and training registration links.  All are offered free of charge.

  1. How to Use the DOD SBIR/STTR Submission Site / Important Proposal Considerations / Using SITIS – May 24, 2018 – http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4302495/Registration-Site
  2. Managing Intellectual Property – Important Business Considerations for Commercialization – June 5, 2018 – http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4302495/Registration-Site
  3. Understanding the Evaluation Process / What to Do with a Debrief – June 26, 2018 – http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4302495/Registration-Site 
  4. Working with Prime Contractors – July 17, 2018 – http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4302495/Registration-Site 
  5. The DOD Acquisition Process / Contracting – August 1, 2018 – http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4302495/Registration-Site
  6. Commercialization Assistance Programs and Beyond Phase II Considerations – September 4, 2018 – http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4302495/Registration-Site
  7. Manufacturing / Working with MIBP – September 18, 2018 – http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4302495/Registration-Site
  8. Testing and Evaluation – October 9, 2018 – http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/4302495/Registration-Site 
  9. Phase III Process – How to Identify Non-SBIR – October 30, 2018 – http://bit.ly/PIIIprocess 

For more information about the SBIR/STTR programs, visit https://www.sbir.gov/about/about-sttr.

Company and officers to pay $1.9 million to settle False Claims Act SBIR allegations

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Maryland-based MassTech, Inc., its former Chief Executive Officer, Arnold Lee, and its former Chief Financial Officer, Richard Lee, have agreed to pay the United States $1.9 million to resolve allegations that MassTech falsely certified it was a small business concern in order to obtain Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards.

The settlement agreement was announced on May 3, 2018.

 

The SBIR program is a set-aside program for small businesses.  The purpose of the SBIR program is to strengthen the role of small business concerns in federally funded research and development and to increase private sector commercialization.  To receive SBIR funds, each awardee of an SBIR Phase I or II award must qualify as a small business at the time of the award as well as throughout the duration of the award.  To be eligible, the small business and its affiliates collectively must have fewer than 500 employees.  According to the settlement agreement, the government alleged that MassTech, Arnold Lee, and Richard Lee falsely represented to the National Science Foundation (NSF), to NASA, and to the Dept. of Health & Human Services (HHS) that MassTech was an eligible small business concern at the time of the SBIR application as well as throughout the lifecycle of the award.  As a result, NSF, NASA, and HHS approved and funded SBIR awards to MassTech that MassTech otherwise would not have received.  MassTech, Arnold Lee, and Richard Lee denied the United States’ allegations.

NSF’s Office of Inspector General, the NASA Office of Inspector General, and the HHS Office of Inspector General worked in the investigation.  The settlement agreement was announced by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/masstech-richard-lee-and-arnold-lee-pay-us-19-million-settle-false-claims-act-allegations

Industry struggles with ever-changing acquisition rules

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Recent studies show that the percentage of overall research and development spending sponsored by the government has dropped sharply over the last 50 years.

Whereas government funding accounted for 67 percent of R&D in 1964, it accounted for 23 percent in 2015, a 44 percent reduction. For the government, this is not a salutary development. Increasingly, “state of the art” is being defined by the commercial marketplace, without government participation and often without its access to the resulting technological advances.

One need only recall the intense media furor over the government’s inability, for months, to obtain access to the shooters’ encrypted cell phone data following the December 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attack to appreciate the consequences when the developers of advanced commercial technology eschew the federal marketplace.

The government has attempted for years to reverse this trend. In fact, the Federal Acquisition and Streamlining Act of 1994, popularly known as “FASA,” had, as one of its primary purposes, the attraction of commercial entities into the federal marketplace. The trend, however, continues.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=641658

Note: This post was originally published in the October 2017 issue of the National Defense Industrial Association’s National Defense magazine.

6 companies score $258 million in supercomputing contracts

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The Energy Department is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in researching powerful but energy-efficient computers.

The department is awarding $258 million in research contracts to six companies developing supercomputing technology. Over the next three years, those companies are expected to build out the hardware, software and applications for an exascale computing system 50 times faster than today’s most powerful computers, according to the Energy Department. The department is aiming to have one exascale system by 2021.

IBM, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Advanced Micro Devices, Cray Inc. and NVIDIA were awarded research contracts and are expected to invest hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money, bringing the total cost of the project to about $430 million.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2017/06/6-companies-score-258m-supercomputing-contracts/138769

Problems abound with DoD’s proposed rule on independent R&D

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On November 4, 2016, the Department of Defense (DoD) proposed a new rule applicable to major defense contractors who expect to use future independent research and development (IRAD) to perform DoD contracts.

The proposed rule requires DoD agencies to assign an evaluation cost penalty to the proposed price of any contractor expecting to receive reimbursement from the United States Government for any future IRAD expenses through its indirect cost rates.

Comments on the proposed rule were due on February 2, 2017.  For the reasons described in this entry, we think this rule is illogical and misguided, and we hope the DoD will retract the rule or substantially revise it as a result of the comments it receives.

The proposed rule is antithetical to policy considerations favoring IRAD as a valid and valuable component of a contractor’s indirect costs, purposes strongly endorsed by Congress recently in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2017 (2017 NDAA) enacted on December 23, 2016.  The proposed rule also would add more complexity to a proposal evaluation process already freighted with rules intended to further social policy goals – sometimes at the expense of rational, price-based proposal evaluation.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/569628/Government+Contracts+Procurement+PPP/Problems+Abound+With+DODs+Proposed+IRAD+Rule

DoD reassures major contractors it’s not returning to old IR&D practices, but significant questions still remain

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AT&LOn January 4, 2017, the Department of Defense’s top acquisition official issued a memorandum further clarifying the implementation of a November 2016 final rule concerning the reimbursement of major contractors’ Independent Research & Development (“IR&D”) costs.  In a move likely intended to reassure major defense contractors, Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics, Frank Kendall, stressed that the recent final rule “merely codifies a long standing practice” used by contractors.  Mr. Kendall also emphasized that DoD does not require major contractors to obtain formal or “de facto” approval of IR&D projects before incurring such costs.

But while DoD’s efforts to comfort industry are commendable, some key questions remain, including most prominently: whether and how DoD auditors will utilize the results of pre-IR&D “technical interchange” meetings to question the allowability of IR&D costs.

The memorandum is just the latest in a series of communications from DoD on the allowability of IR&D costs. As previously discussed here, DoD issued a white paper in August 2015 signaling that a significant overhaul of the IR&D regulations may be on the horizon.  The white paper established a goal of requiring that contractors engage with “appropriate technical operational staff” prior to incurring IR&D costs.  Moreover, and perhaps most alarming for contractors, the white paper indicated that the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) and the Defense Contract Auditing Agency (DCAA) would use information shared during the required “technical interchange” meetings to make allowability determinations for IR&D costs.  The views expressed in the white paper harkened back to the Technical Evaluation Group and Tri-Service Negotiation Group approval process of the 1980s – when these groups assessed the quality, reasonableness, and potential military relationship of each IR&D project before the project costs could be considered allowable.  This process was abandoned in the late 1990s in favor of increased autonomy for contractors in choosing IR&D projects.

Keep reading this article at: https://www.insidegovernmentcontracts.com/2017/01/dod-reassures-major-contractors-not-returning-old-ird-practices-significant-questions-still-remain/

Haven’t sold to the Government before? DARPA might buy your tech

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darpaIn the past, companies that had never sold to the government found it difficult to prove their qualifications to federal buyers.

Today, several agencies are trying to eliminate experience requirements, part of a deliberate effort to acquire cutting-edge technology from commercial companies that have, until now, avoided the federal marketplace.

The Pentagon’s research and development agency is one prominent example: the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Microsystems Technology Office is introducing a “simpler contracting approach” for companies that haven’t sold to DARPA and haven’t won large Pentagon contracts, according to a recent announcement.

That initiative is supposed to help the agency connect with companies specializing in machine learning, sensors, hardware security and other technology that draws both commercial and government buyers, according to DARPA.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2016/10/havent-sold-government-darpa-still-might-buy-your-tech/132203

Innovation thrives in Tech Square

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When Georgia Tech opened Technology Square in 2003, one of the guiding principles was to foster a better connection with the business community. Fast forward to today and evidence of those successful connections can be found in the more than one dozen corporate innovation centers clustered in the area.

While these centers represent a diverse range of industries, they all have the common goal of tapping into the area’s culture of collaboration thanks to the vibrant network of students, faculty, researchers and startup entrepreneurs.

Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson hosted a roundtable discussion Tuesday morning, September 20, 2016, with a handful of corporate executives from companies that opened innovation centers in Tech Square.

Leaders from Georgia Tech, Anthem, Panasonic and UCB gathered in Georgia Tech's Tech Square to discuss the advantages of establishing innovation centers on university campuses. Their conversation examined the ways higher education can work with established companies, startups, and government to spur innovation, develop new technologies, and foster development.
Leaders from Georgia Tech, Anthem, Panasonic and UCB gathered in Georgia Tech’s Tech Square to discuss the advantages of establishing innovation centers on university campuses. Their conversation examined the ways higher education can work with established companies, startups, and government to spur innovation, develop new technologies, and foster development. (Click photo to play video.)

“This is a very exciting time for the innovation ecosystem that exists here in Atlanta, and in particular in Tech Square,” Peterson said during the event held in Tech Square. “The strategy is to try to provide an opportunity for large corporations to create an innovation space and access the talent and the technologies that exist here at Georgia Tech.”

The panelists included Tom Gebhardt, chief operating officer of Panasonic Automotive Systems Company of America, whose innovation center opened in 2012, making the company an early adaptor. The program has grown tenfold over the past four years, he said.

Gebhardt explained the benefits of working outside a traditional corporate environment.

“The ideas that are generated in this center versus what we’d get in our corporate environment are unmatched,” he said. “The mix, the demographic, the diversity, it’s not possible.”

UCB, the global biopharmaceutical company, is one of the newest innovation centers, having just opened the UCB Solution Accelerator this week. Its goal is to drive collaboration between the company and Georgia Tech to develop solutions to help those living with severe diseases.

Jeff Wren, head of UCB’s Neurology Patient Value Unit, explained how the centers demonstrate that problems cannot be solved just by the research and development units typically found at a company’s corporate headquarters.

“We have to go beyond our own walls,” Wren said. “We need to see transformation, but no single entity can create that transformation on their own. So if we want to see this transformation take place we have to be networked, and that is one of the reasons we are here.”

The centers do more than just help the companies. They engage with startups, providing them with access to markets and fostering relationships through mentorships, said Blake Patton, a technology entrepreneur and investor who is a managing partner with Tech Square Ventures, a seed and early-stage venture capital fund located in Tech Square.

The innovation centers are investors for the startups by becoming customers and partners, and providing platforms to help them to succeed, said Patton, a past general manager of Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center, a statewide startup technology business incubator.

ATDC’s current general manager, Jennifer Bonnett, moderated the discussion, which included questions from reporters who attended in person and those who watched the event through a live web stream.

One reporter asked for examples of products or solutions that came out of the innovation centers.

The first innovation created by the Anthem center allowed for what officials call a dynamic video, said Tom Miller, the chief information officer for the Fortune 50 health benefits company.

The company previously used a generic video to welcome new members who signed up for health care. Now a personalized video is dynamically generated that brings together attributes of a new client’s family, their situation and their health plan. The video is generated as soon as the client registers. While this information is currently incorporated in a welcome video, it will have additional uses as well, Miller said.

Miller said the innovation center has bred a new hope across the whole company, especially as the health care industry undergoes a major transformation.

“As a large company, you wonder if you’re going to be a part of it or if it’s going to happen to you,” he said. “For the first time in years, if you have a great idea you have somewhere to take it.”

More companies may soon have the same experience.

Peterson said the Institute is seeing more growth around Tech Square and is constantly talking with companies about different ways to engage in the area.

“We’re very excited about what’s going on and we’re very excited to see how it continues to grow and evolve,” Peterson said. “Five years from now it will look different than it does today, but I hope it retains this vibrancy, this energy and this innovative sprit.”

Source: http://www.news.gatech.edu/2016/09/21/innovation-thrives-tech-square

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