LeeRoy Bronner - US grants

0090437
DeLoach

This award is to Morgan State University to support the activity described below for 24 months. The proposal was submitted in response to the Partnerships for Innovation Program Solicitation (NSF 0082).

Partners
The partners for this award include Morgan State University; Maryland Technology Development Corporation; Baltimore Development Corporation's Emerging Technology Center; Chesapeake Bay Regional Technical Center of Excellence; Prince George's County Economic Development Corporation.

Proposed Activities
The activities include technology transfer; business incubation; education and workforce development; strengthening local economies in targeted economically distressed communities; utilization of science and technology of federal laboratories in Maryland.

Proposed Innovation
The innovation goals are creation of economic wealth through technology transfer of research and development in the universities and federal laboratories in Maryland to create new companies and new jobs; creation of infrastructure to enable innovation; strong emphasis on education and training.

Potential Economic Impact
The activities will provide general economic well being in both rural (Maryland Eastern Shore) and urban (Baltimore and Prince George County) areas to reach under-represented groups.

Potential Societal Impact
The potential benefits to society include involvement of under-represented groups in the innovation enterprise in both rural and urban areas by creating new companies and new jobs for the disadvantaged and provision of the needed training to enable innovation and empower people to create economic well being; higher paying jobs in the region.

0332528
DeLoatch

This award is to Morgan State University to support the activity described below for 36 months. The proposal was submitted in response to the Partnerships for Innovation Program Solicitation (NSF-03521).

Partners
The partners include Morgan State University (Lead Institution), Emerging Technology Center, Maryland Technology Development Corporation, Prince George's County Economic Development Corporation, Chesapeake Bay Region Technical Center of Excellence, Geo-Centers Incorporated, University of Baltimore Center for Technology Commercialization, University of Maryland, Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development. Meridian Management Group, New Market Growth Fund, Toucan Capital Corporation.

The primary objective of this partnership is to apply the techniques honed by Maryland's industry-university technology transfer infrastructure to the challenge of transferring knowledge created by the State's federal laboratories into innovations that create new wealth and build strong local economies. The primary social impact of this effort is to broaden the participation of underrepresented institutions and groups in the nation's economy. The Maryland Technology Partnership for Innovation consists of a consortium (led by Morgan State University) that focuses on small companies in three economically distressed regions of the State of Maryland: the City of Baltimore (distressed urban area), Prince George's County (inner suburb with high minority population), and the Eastern Shore (depressed rural region). More than 20 companies will be provided with intensive, customized technical and managerial assistance to implement commercialization strategies that create new products from federal technologies, attract private capital, and create jobs in economically distressed communities.

Potential Economic Impact
Maryland has more federal R&D laboratories than any other state (more than $6 billion annually in intramural research), yet Maryland has many economically distressed regions. The activities of this award focus on providing the infrastructure to commercialize new technologies from the federal R&D in these laboratories to improve the economic well being of three model regions hat are economically distressed: city, suburban, and rural. University involvement provides technical and business/management expertise to make the new companies competitive. The economic development activities of the private sector and state/regional governments provide a more favorable business climate as well as technical and managerial expertise. New jobs in regions with high population of underrepresented groups will result. The management plan is sufficient to give the infrastructure a very high probability of being sustained after the award has terminated.

The intellectual merit of the activity lies in developing a model for commercialization of technology developed in federal laboratories via partnership with universities, small businesses, venture capital funds, incubators, and regional and state government agencies. Economically distressed communities do not fully benefit from the activities of the national research enterprise. States typically do not deploy their technology development programs in economically distressed communities. Thus this is a fairly novel approach.

The broader impacts of the activity concentrate on involving underrepresented groups in the innovation enterprise. This grant is led by Morgan State University (a Historically Black University) and involves an urban and a suburban region with high percentages of underrepresented minorities, as well as a rural region that is economically distressed and underrepresented in the technology innovation enterprise.

The objective of this proposal is to investigate the feasibility and potential for implementation of information design technology as a means to improve management and dissemination of scientific information amassed through research conducted within and among NSF Engineering Research Centers, thereby increasing collaboration activity and results. Preliminary exploration is focused on standardized scientific poster design, offering potential for streamlining of information and improved sharing capabilities. The PI plans in using "information design" technology to organize complex and large amounts of scientific information. The intellectual merit of this proposal is in the conceptualization, design, and implementation of systematic methods for the creation, classification, and sharing of scientific information resulting from ERC activities over a 10-year life span. The broader impact of this research is manifested through industrial-strength software development technology, which is not normally taught to graduate students in software engineering classes at HBCUs. This research will make it possible for HBCU students to learn the basics of good software developmentpractices and information design. This research will provide input for revision of the curriculum in the "Advanced Software Engineering" course where concepts of industrial-strength software development will be taught. Also, this project will partner with the Baltimore City School system to provide a practicum for senior high school students. These students will partner with college students on projects to understand software engineering and information design technology.