Seminar Highlights: This eight-hour course is designed to provide entrepreneur-authors with specific in-class exercises and interactive feedback from an expert instructor to help them to plan and then complete each section of a Phase II SBIR/STTR proposal. All agencies are covered in this workshop. The program will concentrate on two critical portions: the work plan and the commercialization plan. Although all interested parties are welcome, the workshop is designed specifically for those companies that have been awarded at least one Phase I effort on the SBIR Program and are confident they will be invited to submit a Phase II proposal (each agency is different!).
Proposal outlines from various agencies will be examined and each major proposal section will be discussed, with methods, techniques and in-class exercises that specifically address the content for each of these proposal sections. The majority of the course will focus on two major areas key to winning: the work plan (and how one integrates knowledge of the state of the art with the work plan) and the commercialization plan (we are assuming that the principal investigator and the team are strong). Specific steps to attract commercialization partners will be examined. Tools, techniques, methods and examples of administrative, financial and project management aids and samples of materials that ease doing business with the government will also be provided. In addition, staffing strategies will be explored since a Phase II effort typically requires new and additional skills.
At the end of this workshop, the participants will have the essential elements of their Phase II proposals outlined and have the benefit of 'struggling with the key winning elements' and receive feedback and advice from multiple-SBIR Phase II awardees, and experienced entrepreneurial coaches and instructors.
Speaker: Sharon C. Ballard, President/CEO, EnableVentures, Inc.
Cosponsor: Arkansas EPSCoR, Arkansas Science & Technology Authority, National Science Foundation
