WIPP announces 2008 Elizabeth Dole Young Entrepreneur Scholarship

Women Impacting Public Policy is pleased to announce the release of the application for the 2008 Elizabeth Dole Young Entrepreneur Scholoarship: this year’s application deadline is June 30th. The Scholarship, established in 2006 honoring Senator Dole as the WIPP Congressional Award Winner, is completing its first program year watching young women business owners grow and thrive in their community. It has been an exciting and educational process and we are eager to begin the process for the coming program year.

The scholarship is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to gain knowledge, skills and guidance from successful women business owners – as well as have a chance to receive a cash award to help grow their business!

The Elizabeth Dole Young Entrepreneur Scholarship is a bi-partisan effort, established to recognize high potential young women business owners who are leaders in their community, with resources and guidance to excel their businesses and personal success.

Here are the qualifications to take advantage of this opportunity:

• At least 51% woman-owned
• Entrepreneur between the ages of 21-35
• U.S. Citizen
• Business 5 years old or less
• Revenue of $500, 000 or less for service industries OR $1milion or less for manufacturing industries
• The business has capacity to assume more debt
• Owner has a satisfactory personal credit history

Interested in supporting the Elizabeth Dole Young Entrepreneur Scholarship?

WIPP also invites you to join us as a sponsor of this important effort. Sponsorship opportunities are available for as low as $50.00 and all sponsors will be recognized along with the program and at the 2008 WIPP Annual Conference in Washington, DC. Sponsorship of the Elizabeth Dole Young Entrepreneur Scholarship sends a powerful message of women business owners helping women business owners.

If you or know someone who might be interested, click here for more details

Calling All Ant Fighters: Texas Needs You!

"If you open a computer, you would find a cluster of ants on the motherboard and all over. You'd get 3,000 or 4,000 ants inside, and they create arcs. They'll wipe out any computer."

Hoards of aggressive ants are damaging computers and other electronic equipment in Texas. The “crazy rasberry ant” has been named after Tom Rasberry, owner of Budget Pest Control in Pearland, Texas. Exterminators have found it nearly impossible to kill the ants. Yes, you can kill some of them, at least the first wave, maybe. However, there are so many more ants coming behind them, that the insecticide becomes ineffective. Even NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston is threatened by these tiny creatures.

For more details go to: http://urbanentomology.tamu.edu/ants/exotic_tx.cfm

Are the DHS Small Business Figures Accurate?

In 2007, the Homeland Security Department was one of the few federal agencies to state that they met each of the government's small business contracting goals.

House lawmakers now have suggested those figures may have been boosted by creative double counting, in which small firms that fall into more than one socio-economic category are counted more than once for each contract they were awarded.

"DHS has met each of its federal contracting goals for small, minority, and disadvantaged businesses, but crediting a single procurement action to more than one contracting goal may create a misperception of the participation of small, minority and disadvantaged businesses." according to a report issued by the majority staff of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Click here to read full article

SBA increases size limits for small firm contracts

Dallas Business Journal

Kent Hoover Washington Bureau Chief

The U.S. Small Business Administration plans to increase the size limits on federal research contracts made to small companies through the Small Business Innovative Research program.

Eleven federal agencies with outside research budgets of $100 million or more are required to award at least 2.5 percent of this R&D spending to small businesses through the SBIR program, which was created in 1982.

The awards are granted in phases, with up to $100,000 available to test the technical merit or feasibility of an idea or technology, and $750,000 available for additional research and development and evaluation of the technology's commercial potential.

Click here to read the full article.

New Sessions for Government Contractors

TargetGov and the Center for Business and Technology Development are sponsoring two sessions
for government contractors.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Introduction to Government Contracting: Entering the Market

This workshop is designed for the novice and will provide an overview of how and what the government buys, registrations, certifications, purchase vehicles, the capability statement, marketing processes, and more.

time: 8:30am-12:00 noon

Advanced Government Contracting: Winning the Contract

The advanced session is designed for those already in the procurement arena and will include discussion of the federal purchase process, evaluating the various bid offers, analyzing opportunities for the best match, the prooposal and response process, strategies for securing the contract, contract management, and more.

time: 1:00-4:30pm

Preregistration is required. Cost: $129 each session, $229 for both sessions

Location:
The Center for Business and Technology Development
The Thomas Dorsey Building
9250 Bendix Road, North
Columbia, MD 21045

For more information and to register:
www.hceda.org/CBTD/busevents.aspx
Phone: 410-313-6550

Business Week’s Most Innovative Companies

The latest issue of Business Week contains its rankings of the world’s 25 most innovative companies. The list, developed in cooperation with the Boston Consulting Group, is based on surveys of more than 2500 leading corporate executives. Not surprisingly, Apple tops the list for the third straight year. Most respondents lauded Apple for its introduction of the iPhone which has, in only ten months, pushed Apple to #3 in the global smartphone market. Other innovative firms include (in rank order): Google, Toyota, General Electric, and Microsoft.

“The 25 Most Innovative Companies: Smart Ideas for Tough Times,” appears in the April 28, 2008 issue of Business Week.

© 2008 The Public Forum Institute and the National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship www.publicforuminstitute.org/nde.

New National Innovation Foundation Proposed

A new report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Brookings Institution suggests that a new National Innovation Foundation could do a better job of structuring key Federal agencies to support innovation. The study recommends that a newly created National Innovation Foundation serve as the Federal government’s primary support mechanism and point of contact for issues related to innovation. The report proposes three possible structures for a new NIF: housed within the Commerce Department; a publicly-sponsored corporation similar to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; and, as an independent federal agency like the National Science Foundation. Regardless of the final structure, the NIF would seek to:

Catalyze industry-university research partnerships through national sector research grants.
Expand regional innovation-promotion through state-level grants to fund activities like technology commercialization and entrepreneurial support.
Encourage technology adoption by assisting small and mid-sized firms in implementing best-practice processes and organizational forms that they do not currently use.
Support regional industry clusters with grants for cluster development.
Emphasize performance and accountability by measuring and researching innovation, productivity, and the value-added to firms from NIF assistance.
Champion innovation by promoting innovation policy within the federal government and serving as an expert resource on innovation to other agencies.

It is anticipated that legislation will soon be introduced in the Senate. This promises to kick-off a new round of discussion about how big a role the Federal government could or should play in unleashing America’s innovation capacity.

Download the April 2008 report from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, Boosting Productivity, Innovation and Growth through a National Innovation Foundation, by Robert Atkinson and Howard Wial.

© 2008 The Public Forum Institute and the National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship www.publicforuminstitute.org/nde.