The Economic Development Administration (EDA) https://www.eda.gov a Bureau within the Department of Commerce housing the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIE) http://www.eda.ogv/oie/sprint, recently announced their FY 2020 Scaling Pandemic Resilience Through Innovation and Technology (SPRINT) Challenge.
This $25 million national competition is designed to support the development, creation, or expansion of programs that accelerate technology-based economic development in pursuit of vibrant, innovation and economic growth, with the goal to respond to the challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic. OIE is working to utilize the role that America’s innovators can play in unlocking the technology needed to address the nation’s needs.
Applicant organizations should clearly define their strategy to use grant funds to support one or more of the following activities to help address the needs in our environment necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic.
One focus area Biotechnology, Health Security, and Supply Chain Innovation seeks to promote innovative technologies that will respond to the pandemic. Projects should aim to convert ideas, research, or prototypes into viable products and service that can be brought to market in a rapid manner in response to urgent community health and safety needs created by the pandemic.
Outputs and Outcomes in this focus area may include:
- Providing access to mentors that can provide advisory services to link technology and researchers to external networks
- Connecting scientific, research, and governmental assets with entrepreneurs and technologists on how to bring products to market quickly, especially related to bioscience development and /or medical devices, diagnostics, and ancillary supplies
- Providing technical assistance for repurposing existing small to medium manufacturing facilities and equipment to expedite production of essential coronavirus related shortages
- Assisting with market evaluation, business planning, business opportunities, and IP protection
- Explaining how to integrate scientific review with market potential to accelerate the best ideas from lab to market
Other focus areas include increasing regional, national, and government connectivity to support commercialization and entrepreneurship, developing new and unique investment capital models to address the financial needs of entrepreneurs, and developing and scaling entrepreneurship support models to address virtual and remote work environment during the pandemic.
Go to https://eda.gov/files/oie/sprint/FY20-Scaling-Pandemic-Resilience-through-Innovation-and-Technology for further details on the SPRINT Notice of Funding Opportunity.