Category Archives: Articles

Program Brings Space Research Down to Earth

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Naomi Engelman

Naomi Engelman, SATOP Project Engineer

During his years in the hotel and hospitality business, Nate Mandalia of Alamogordo struggled with a problem experienced by many people who have to dress professionally for work: how to keep the hem of his pants from bunching up on his shoe or dragging on the ground.  Mandalia came up with a solution – an invention he calls the “hemlock.”

With assistance and advice from the Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program (SATOP), Mandalia applied for a patent for his shoe accessory and completed prototypes.  His next step is to proceed from prototype design to mass manufacturing.

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Grad Students to Launch LANL Projects

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Monica Abeita

Monica Abeita, Regional Development Corp. for Northern NM Connect

Los Alamos National Laboratory’s MBA Summer Internship Program recently picked four graduate students to be summer interns and help the lab’s scientists and engineers find commercial uses for new technology and to assist real-life companies with business challenges.

The 2010 class consists of four people studying for their masters degree in business administration: Justin Dewey of the University of New Mexico, John Harris of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ian Soti-Landis of Keck Graduate Institute and Jacqueline Shen of Cornell University, who is returning to the program for a second year.

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Patents Aim to Protect an Innovator’s Ideas

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Deborah Peacock

Deborah Peacock of Peacock Myers P.C.

Among business assets that fall into the category of intellectual property are the ideas and concepts that lead to the invention of new designs, devices and methods of doing something. If the idea is likely to lead to a commercially marketable product, an inventor should consider protecting it with a patent.

Inventors and innovators can take some steps to decide if patent protection is warranted, but specific legal advice from a qualified attorney or legal expert is essential when applying for a patent.

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Nineteen Startup Tech Companies to Pitch Ideas to Investors

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Michelle Mang

Michelle Mang, Promotions & Advertising Analyst, TVC

Nineteen startup companies will pitch their business plans before investors May 19-20, 2010 at the 17th annual Technology Ventures Equity Capital Symposium hosted by Technology Ventures Corporation (TVC). The annual Albuquerque forum gives investors a chance to invest in companies that are commercializing advanced technologies developed in national laboratories, universities and other research institutions.

“Even in this challenging economy, TVC was able to select 19 great presenters from more states with a broader diversity of technologies than ever before,” said Sherman McCorkle, president and chief executive officer of TVC. The nonprofit, charitable foundation funded by Lockheed Martin Corporation and the Department of Energy bridges the public and private sectors to find commercial uses for technological discoveries made at publicly funded research centers, including Argonne National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, Savannah River National Laboratory and Y-12 National Security Complex

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Open Coffee Club: Where Old School Networking Meets Cyber Socializing

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Monica Abeita

Monica Abeita, Regional Development Corp. for NNM Connect

In early 2007, a London entrepreneur who wanted to meet like-minded people used the Internet to invite others to a real-world meeting. He called it Open Coffee to emphasize its informal nature, and he created a social media website where participants could continue their conversations after the in-person get-together.

His meetings became weekly events, and more than 80 Open Coffee Clubs have sprung up around the world. All are based on the original model: to encourage entrepreneurs, developers and investors to organize real-world informal meetings to chat, network and grow.

New Mexico has three established Open Coffee Clubs — one each in Albuquerque, Los Alamos and Santa Fe. As each new group begins, it joins the international homepage of Open Coffee at http://opencoffee.ning.com/.

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Certification Can Help Small Businesses Win Lucrative Contracts

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By William Hett Dobricky, Procurement Advisor, PTAC at Dona Ana Community College

The federal government, state governments and local municipalities offer various categories of business certifications to make it easier for small businesses to win government contracts. The many types of certifications include 8(a), the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise, HUBZone Small Business, Small Business, Small Disadvantaged Business, Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business, Veteran Owned Small Business and Woman Owned Small Business.           

Why Get Certified

Simply put, business certification offers the small-business owner new marketing opportunities with corporate and government buyers. Business certification programs exist to provide businesses owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals the managerial, technical and procurement assistance they need to compete for government contracts.

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Knowing Marketplace Needs Crucial to Writing Business Plan

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Betsy Gillette

Betsy Gillette, Director of Market Research & Planning, TVC

Technology Ventures Corporation helps entrepreneurs and inventors develop the business plans and access the funding they’ll need to succeed with a technology-based product. TVC’s Equity Capital Symposium, held annually in May, provides a forum for matching business ideas with investors and has facilitated more than $1 billion in funding for its client companies, most of whom are scientists and engineers new to the world of market research and marketing. While most of these entrepreneurs understand the technology they hope to apply to commercial uses, many don’t understand how to secure target markets and appraise market needs — which they must do to secure venture capital funding. Continue reading →

Lending More Than a Hand: New Mexico’s Alternative Lenders

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Paul Goblet, Investment Advisor, NMSBIC

The New Mexico Small Business Investment Corp. was formed in 2001 to provide capital to the state’s small businesses. The original charter was narrowly defined and the organization had relatively little money to lend, but legislative amendments over the years allowed NMSBIC to formalize cooperative agreements with financial professionals and alternative lenders.

The organization wasn’t formed to compete with traditional banks that best understand local markets and clients and remain the best source of capital. It exists to help those businesses that lack access to traditional banking sources or have been turned down by commercial lenders. These include businesses with logical and creditworthy loan requests that were deemed too small or too risky or not well suited for the bank’s lending categories. The borrower’s collateral might have been weak or unacceptable or their credit scores might have been too low.

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Protective Impulses Should Apply to Original Works, Trade Secrets

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Deborah Peacock

Deborah Peacock of Peacock Myers P.C.

Copyrights and trade secrets can protect two types of intangible assets that can be the basis of business success.

Copyrights apply to original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works. They can protect blueprints, computer software, jewelry, television ads and performances.

Trade secrets are any bits of information or ideas that, if leaked, could be used by another company to undercut the originator’s competitive advantage. A customer list or computer code could be a trade secret, and the precise formula for the Coca Cola soft drink has been a trade secret for decades. An example of partial failure of trade secret protection is when another company reverse-engineers computer software, uses the concepts discovered and writes source code from scratch embodying the concepts. Continue reading →

Virtual Job Fair Seeks Candidates for High Tech, Green Tech Industries

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Ingrid Baker, Director of Recruitment Resources for TVC

Technology Ventures Corp. and New Mexico WIRED are planning a job fair March 15 to March 19, but it won’t cost job seekers a penny in gas to get there. Appropriately for two organizations that focus on high tech and green tech industries, TVC and New Mexico WIRED are hosting this job fair in cyberspace.

Participating companies host “virtual booths” at the job fair web site, and they accept résumés during the event. Company recruiters will respond directly to each applicant and offer an assessment of the applicant’s skills in relation to the desired job.

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