DHS makes twenty-two small business awards
Winning companies will receive up to $100,000 to refine their ideas; contracts given in WMD detection, ground sensors, mobile biological assays, emergency pre-planning software systems, and simulation training
If you have to ask if you are on the list, you can bet you are not. DHS this week named the twenty-two small companies that have received contracts in the latest round of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Winning firms will receive up to $100,000 in one of five research areas, and will spend the six-month first phase defining the scientific, technical and commercial merit of their proposed idea. Those who prove successful will then be invited to participate in a second phase, which may be as valuable as $750,000. According to DHS’s Jay Cohen, “We are already seeing excellent results from the first set of awards of April 2004, and I am confident that our SBIR program will continue to make great research contributions.”
A partial list of the winning companies, organized by research field, includes:
BULLETS
Designing and Evaluating Chemical or Biological Agent Sensor Networks: Austin, Texas-based Applied Nanotech; Fairborn, Ohio-based Peerless Technologies; Albuquerque, New Mexico-based RhicoCorps; and Goleta, California-based Toyon Research
Mobile Peripheral Device for Biological Analysis: Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Diagnostic Biosensors; College Station, Texas-based Lynntech; Torrance, California-based Physical Optics; and Prescott, Arizona-based Westrack.
Advanced Unattended Ground Sensors Technologies: Santa Clara, California-based Biophan Technologies; Fredericksburg, Virginia-based MCQ; Austin, Texas-based Systems & Process Engineering; Toyon Researh (the only company to win two contracts); and Albuquerque, New Mexico-based TPL.
END BULLETS
Contracts were also awarded in the following fields: 3-D Visualization System to Show First Responders and Assets within Building Structures in Urban Areas for Situational Awareness; and Automated Scenario/Script Builder for Simulation-Based Training Systems.
