Volume 9, Number 1 • January/February 2001

NASA Incubators Allow Business to Grow

Since NASA’s founding in 1958, the agency’s programs have sponsored and produced advanced research and technology involving a broad range of technical disciplines and industries.

Commercial and secondary use of this knowledge and innovation continues to generate great dividends and growth for U.S. enterprises and quality of life. The harvesting of NASA’s technological resources originated with the Space Act of 1958 creating NASA, which mandated wide dissemination of the agency’s research and development results. Today, NASA’s commitment to sharing the results of NASA-funded research and technology is served by a network of technology transfer and commercialization organizations sponsored by and affiliated with NASA. This network, the NASA Commercial Technology Network, includes nine NASA-sponsored incubators, charged with accelerating the formulation, growth and success of small, technology-based companies, via the use of NASA research and development.

VisionPlanner streamlines the pre-planning stage of projects and upfront analysis. It was developed under the umbrella incubator program of The Enterprise Network, which operates the Ames Technology Commercialization Center, one of the first NASA incubators. Artwork provided by VisionPlanner, Inc.

NASA has made a major effort to provide technology commercialization opportunities to the private sector, but there are constraints on the amount of ongoing assistance NASA can provide to entrepreneurs once they obtain the rights to a NASA technology. The result is that a large percentage of entrepreneurs fail because they are not able to get the long-term technical and business-related advice and mentoring they need to be successful. Business incubation has become an important means for addressing this problem. According to the Impact of Incubator Investments Study in 1997, 87 percent of incubator graduates are still in business five years after completing the program.

NASA’s incubators work with young businesses, helping them to survive and grow during the initial start-up period. Incubators provide hands-on management assistance, access to financing and exposure to critical business and technical services. The main goal of an incubation program is to produce successful graduates, whose businesses are financially viable and freestanding when they leave the incubator, generally in two to three years.

"The idea is to more directly impact commercialization by adding not just the licensing feature but also some instruction for small companies in product development. It was really marrying the field of business incubation with the technology commercialization objectives that NASA had," said Julie Holland, director of California State University, Pomona, NASA Commercialization Center.

The first NASA incubators–the Ames Technology Commercialization Center, affiliated with NASA Ames Research Center, and the University of Houston/NASA Technology Commercialization Incubator, affiliated with NASA Johnson Space Center–were founded in the early 1990s. According to Kevin Barquinero, a former NASA employee who served as the grant manager for the incubators’ cooperative agreements, "The basis for choosing Ames and Johnson is they were the centers that were the most diametrically opposite. Ames is the most university-like, while Johnson is mission-oriented."

NASA partnered with the IC2 Institute, operator of the Austin (Texas) Technology Incubator, one of the country’s most successful incubators. Experiences gained by IC2 from operating the Austin Technology Incubator were considered vital to the NASA Incubators.

Barquinero also stated that IC2’s expertise involved partnering with the local community, including doctors, lawyers, bankers, marketing experts and accountants, to make NASA’s incubators successful.

The nine NASA incubators, each affiliated with a NASA field center, function as separate entities, sharing ideas and best practices via conference calls, but with no formal network. In September 2000, eight of the nine incubators met at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to craft a strategic plan. Calling themselves NASA Inc., the group worked to establish metrics to define their overall performance in terms of new companies, new licenses, new products and new investments. "We want to support each other in how we do things when they’re effective," Holland said. "But we’re also looking for ways that the group as a whole make a larger impact in terms of technology commercialization. We want to provide a national network for NASA."

The nine NASA incubators are located across the country. Eight incubators are affiliated with a single field center. The ninth is affiliated with two centers. The incubators are:

• Ames Technology Commercialization Center (ATCC), San Jose, California. A physical and virtual incubator, ATCC uses a lab-to-market approach which takes the technological output of NASA Ames Research Center’s laboratories and pairs that technology with appropriate markets to create and foster new industry and jobs.
  
  http://ctoserver.arc.nasa.gov/incubator.html
  
  
• Business Technology Development Center (BizTech), Huntsville, Alabama. BizTech serves the Huntsville-Madison County community by creating new jobs, achieving technology transfer from the government labs to the commercial marketplace, and enhancing economic development in the area. BizTech’s founding sponsors are NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA), the city of Huntsville, and Calhoun Community College. The facility is located on 40,000 square feet donated by Calhoun.
  
  http://europa.uah.edu/biztech/index.html
  
  
• NASA Baltimore Incubator at the Emerging Technology Center (ETC), Baltimore, Maryland. NASA Baltimore Incubator provides commercialization and technology transfer assistance to Maryland universities, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and federal laboratories seeking to create high technology ventures in the state of Maryland.
  
  http://www.etcbaltimore.com
  
  
• Florida/NASA Business Incubation Center (FNBIC), Titusville, Florida. The FNBIC is housed on the Titusville, Florida, campus of Brevard Community College. It is managed through a joint partnership between the Technological Research and Development Authority, Brevard Community College and NASA Kennedy Space Center.
  
  http://technology.ksc.nasa.gov/FNBIC
  
  
• Hampton Roads Technology Incubator (HRTI), Hampton, Virginia. HRTI was chartered to promote economic development of the city of Hampton Roads through the commercialization of new technologies developed at NASA Langley Research Center, local universities and other regional government and industrial research and development laboratories.
  
  http://www.hr-incubator.org
  
  
• Lewis Incubator for Technology (LIFT), Cleveland, Ohio. LIFT is a business incubator program designed to nurture new and emerging technology-based businesses. LIFT, managed by Enterprise Development, Inc., is a cooperative effort of NASA Glenn Research Center, the Ohio Department of Development, the Great Lakes Industrial Technology Center and Enterprise Development, Inc.
  
  http://www.liftinc.org
  
  
• Mississippi Enterprise for Technology, Inc (MsET), Stennis Space Center, Mississippi. MsET, located at NASA Stennis Space Center, is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to creating high-skill, high-wage jobs in Mississippi. MsET helps industry utilize the scientific and technical expertise, facilities and other resources of NASA and the U.S. Navy and their prime contractors, as well as federal laboratories, the Mississippi Department of Economic and Community Development and Mississippi colleges and universities. MsET operates a full-service, NASA-sponsored incubator program and partners with the Mississippi Space Commerce Initiative to develop remote sensing companies in an industry cluster at NASA Stennis Space Center.
  
  http://www.mset.org
  
  
• NASA Commercialization Center (NCC), Pomona, California. Located at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, NCC is jointly funded by the University and NASA. It is dedicated to helping small busi-nesses access and commercialize technologies developed by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA Dryden Flight Research Center.
  
  http://www.nasaincubator.csupomona.edu/home.html
  
  
• University of Houston/NASA Technology Commercialization Incubator, Houston, Texas. Located at the University of Houston, UH-NASA is jointly funded by the University and NASA. Its mission is to bring together technologies developed by NASA with the resources needed for additional development with the entrepreneurial interests to make technology transfer a commercial reality.
  
  http://www.research.uh.edu/otm/techmanage.html

Business incubation is a dynamic process of business enterprise development. The NASA business incubators support NASA’s commercial mission by providing small businesses with access to new technology and the knowledge to use the technology to make their business goals a reality.

For more information, contact The Enterprise Network (TEN) and Ames Technology Commercialization Center (ATCC), Dr. A. William Musgrave, Jr., President & Chief Operating Officer (408/557-6820) bill@ten-net.org, Jeanette Hazelwood, Corporate Communications (408/557-6879) jeanette@ten-net.org, Gopal Patwardhan, Director of Venture Development, (408/557-6716) gopal@ten-net.org. Please mention you read about it in Innovation.