SBIR Hall
of Fame & Tibbetts Awardees Honored at White House Ceremony
SBA
Administrator Contreras-Sweet named SBIR Person of the Year; Illumina and
Atlantia Offshore Limited and 45 organizations recognized for outstanding
achievement
WASHINGTON –
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) today
inducted Illumina and Atlantia Offshore Limited into the 2017 SBIR Hall of Fame
and presented the prestigious Tibbetts Award to 37 deserving small businesses,
five individuals, and three supporting organizations during a White House
ceremony. Awardees were recognized for their critical roles in research
and development and for successfully driving innovation and creating new jobs
through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business
Technology Transfer (STTR) programs.
During the ceremony, SBA Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet also
received the 2016 SBIR Person of the Year award for her work, passion,
dedication, and promotion of the SBIR/STTR programs.
In making the
announcement, Contreras-Sweet said: “SBA is proud to lead the SBIR/STTR
program – America’s Seed Fund, as I call it – to ensure small businesses engage
in research and development to continue to propel our nation’s high-tech
innovation forward, from nanotechnology to aerospace to therapies for
life-threatening illnesses. I’m proud to accept this distinguished award
on behalf of the entire SBIR team.”
Special
recognition is being conferred on Illumina and Atlantia Offshore Limited.
Illumina received SBIR funding as a startup in 2009. It now has a market
cap of over $18 billion and is the leader in DNA sequencing equipment. SBIR
funding played an early catalytic role in the firm, allowing Illumina to pursue
higher-risk research which contributed greatly to its main product lines.
Atlantia Offshore Limited is an exemplary example of how SBIR spurs innovation
and economic success. The firm turned a half-million dollar SBIR investment
into revenues that quickly exceeded $500 million. Atlantia was acquired in
2001.
Contreras-Sweet added: “Today we
celebrate and honor the important technological advances pioneered by these
small high-tech firms – from breakthroughs in additive manufacturing to genomic
research to novel cancer therapeutics. These innovators are creating jobs
and building new industries while helping to address many of the nation’s most
pressing challenges.”
The Tibbetts Award
honors the SBIR/STTR program participants and supporters that have
created a significant economic or social impact through the use of
SBIR/STTR funding and are considered the best of the best from the thousands of
firms that currently participate in the program. The award is named in
honor of the late Roland Tibbetts, who was instrumental in developing the
SBIR/STTR programs through a career-long dedication to small business
entrepreneurship, applied research and technological breakthroughs.
The SBIR/STTR
programs represent the nation's largest source of early stage research and
development funding for small businesses. The programs are administered by the
SBA in collaboration with 11 federal agencies, who collectively supported more
than $2.5 billion in federal research and development funding. Additional
information about the programs, the upcoming SBIR/STTR national conference and
the SBIR Road Tour can be found at www.sbir.gov.
The 2016
Tibbetts and SBIR Hall of Fame Award Winners:
SBIR Hall of
Fame
Atlantia Offshore
Limited (Houston, Texas)
Illumina (San Diego, Calif.)
Small
Businesses
23andMe (Mountain
View, Calif.)
Agile Mind, Inc.
(Grapevine, Texas)
Attagene, Inc.
(Morrisville, N.C.)
Biopsy Sciences,
LLC (Clearwater, Fla.)
CSSI (Composite
Support & Solutions Inc.) (San Pedro, Calif.)
Diagnostics for
the Real World (Sunnyvale, Calif.)
EnChroma
(Berkeley, Calif.)
Exelus, Inc
(Fairfield, N.J.)
FirstString
Research (Mount Pleasant, S.C.)
Ginkgo Bioworks
(Boston, Mass.)
GVD Corporation
(Cambridge, Mass.)
KeraMed, Inc.
(Orange, Calif.)
Lucid (Oakland,
Calif.)
Lynntech, Inc.
(College Station, Texas)
Made In Space,
Inc. (Moffett Field, Calif.)
Makai Ocean
Engineering, Inc. (Kailua, Hawaii)
Mikro Systems,
Inc. (Charlottesville, Va.)
MMA Design LLC
(Boulder, CO)
Niowave, Inc.
(Lansing, Mich.)
OMAX Corporation
(Kent, Wash.)
Operative
Experience, Inc (North East, Md.)
OptiPro Systems,
LLC (Ontario, N.Y.)
Parabon NanoLabs,
Inc. (Reston, Va.)
Pathfinder
Systems, Inc. (Lakewood, Colo.)
Physical Sciences,
Inc. (Andover, Mass.)
PittMoss, LLC
(Ambridge, Pa.)
Privo Technologies
(Peabody, Mass.)
QuesTek
Innovations, LLC (Evanston, Ill.)
Referentia
Systems, Inc. (Honolulu, Hawaii)
SFP Works, LLC
(dba Flash Bainite) (Washington Twp, Mich.)
Sokikom (San Jose,
Calif.)
Stratatech
Corporation (Madison, Wis.)
Tangible Haptics
(Tanvas) (Chicago, Ill.)
Third Wave Systems
(Minneapolis, Minn.)
TRI Research
Institute Austin, Inc. (Austin, Texas)
Triton Systems,
Inc. (Chelmsford, Mass.)
Vindico
NanoBioTechnology, Inc. (Lexington, Ky.)
Individuals
David L. Sikora
(Alexandria, Va.)
David Linz
(Milwaukee, Wis.)
Lore-Anne
Ponirakis (Arlington, Va.)
Robert Brooke
(Herndon, Va.)
William A. Gern,
PhD (Laramie, Wyo.)
Support Organizations
Larta Institute
(Los Angeles, Calif.)
Fannin Innovation
Studio (Houston, Texas)
SBIR-STTR
Assistance Center (SSAC) (Sandy, Utah)
About the
Small Business Administration (SBA)
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) was
created in 1953 and since January 13, 2012, has served as a Cabinet-level
agency of the federal government to aid, counsel, assist and protect the
interests of small business concerns, to preserve free competitive enterprise
and to maintain and strengthen the overall economy of our nation. The SBA
helps Americans start, build and grow businesses. Through an extensive
network of field offices and partnerships with public and private
organizations, the SBA delivers its services to people throughout the United
States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam. www.sba.gov
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