Category: News

ManTech Partners With Georgia Institute of Technology’s ATDC to Drive Innovative Cyber Security and Emerging Technologies for Government

ManTech to support development of cyber technology entrepreneurs and startups

Joe Cubba is ManTech’s executive vice president and chief growth officer.

HERNDON, VA and ATLANTA (Sept. 28, 2023) — ManTech today announced a partnership with the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Advanced Technology Development Center to support the growth and acceleration of startups built on cybersecurity-related technologies and emerging innovations.

The announcement marks ATDC’s first such agreement with a federal systems integrator. Leveraging ManTech’s deep government experience, the partnership will help entrepreneurs in ATDC’s Cyber and Emerging Technologies Program develop innovative, disruptive solutions that target and resolve federal agencies’ most pressing and difficult challenges.

ManTech provides advanced, mission-focused technology solutions and services for every branch of the federal government including the Department of Defense, intelligence community, and federal civilian agencies.

“ManTech is proud to work with ATDC in an industry-leading initiative that will accelerate government access to highly differentiated cyber and emerging tech solutions with the potential to stop even the most insidious cyberattacks on contact,” said Joe Cubba, ManTech executive vice president and chief growth officer. “Together, we are turning today’s next-gen innovators into the technology thought leaders and giants of the future.”

ATDC, the state of Georgia’s technology incubator, works with entrepreneurs to build, scale, and launch successful technology companies. Since its founding in 1980, ATDC has provided coaching, curriculum, community, connections, and access to capital and customers. Among the many benefits for young technology ventures, this partnership builds on ATDC’s platform with training and mentoring on how startups can grow their business with funding by the government’s Small Business Innovation Research program.

“Small companies need a proven systems integrator like ManTech to drive government introductions, integrate and deploy their technology, and show how it can make a real difference in supporting the mission,” said Corbett Gilliam, ATDC’s manager of corporate development. “ManTech and ATDC are bringing today and tomorrow’s Edisons and Teslas deep inside the very operations that keep this nation safe.”

As part of the partnership, ATDC has hired Blair Tighe to lead the vertical. In that role, Tighe, a U.S. Army veteran with a combined background of private sector cyber strategy and emerging technologies, will manage the pipeline, evaluate technologies, and coach companies.

He will leverage ATDC’s Connect program and expertise to secure opportunities for pilot projects, investments, and customers. He also will work with ManTech to mentor companies and host classes and educational programming built around the specific needs of the cyber and emerging tech sector.

The cyber focus comes as ATDC is seeing increased startup activity from entrepreneurs and founders in the cybersecurity space. The portfolio already has 12 companies in its incubator program.

About ManTech
ManTech provides mission-focused technology solutions and services for U.S. defense, intelligence, and federal civilian agencies. In business more than 54 years, we excel in full-spectrum cyber operations, data collection and analytics, enterprise IT, agile DevOps systems engineering, and software application development solutions that support national and homeland security. Additional information about ManTech can be found at mantech.com.

About Georgia Tech
The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is one of the top public research universities in the U.S., developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The Institute offers business, computing, design, engineering, liberal arts, and sciences degrees. Its more than 45,000 undergraduate and graduate students, representing 50 states and more than 148 countries, study at the main campus in Atlanta, at campuses in France and China, and through distance and online learning. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech is an engine of economic development for Georgia, the Southeast, and the nation, conducting more than $1.0 billion in research annually for government, industry, and society.

About the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC)
The Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), a program of the Georgia Institute of Technology, is the state of Georgia’s technology startup incubator. Founded in 1980 by the Georgia General Assembly, which funds it each year, ATDC’s mission is to work with entrepreneurs in Georgia to help them learn, launch, scale, and succeed in the creation of viable, disruptive technology companies. Since its founding, ATDC, a program of Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute, has grown to become the longest running and one of the most successful university-affiliated incubators in the United States, with its graduate startup companies raising $3 billion in investment financing and generating more than $12 billion in revenue in the state of Georgia. To learn more, visit atdc.org.

Georgia Tech EDA University Center Funds Redevelopment and Housing Studies for Two Georgia Towns

Analyses to help community leaders create long-term
residential home development growth strategies
The Depot building.
The AB&A Historic Train Depot in Fitzgerald, Georgia, is one of the community’s key attractions. The Depot is home to the Blue & Gray Museum, the Genealogy Research Center, and Collins Railroad Collection.

FITZGERALD, Ga. — In many ways, this South Georgia town boasts the best of small rural communities. Just 23 miles east of Interstate 75, Fitzgerald has a busy downtown thoroughfare with shops, antique stores, and eateries. It has a modern airport with a 5,000-foot runway, an active mainline railroad, and industrial parks. It’s also home to a museum with a nod to its 1895 beginnings as a community and haven for veterans who fought on both sides of the Civil War.

Fitzgerald also has a successful history of industrial recruitment that has provided the community with a significant manufacturing base. Recent capital investments in wood products, food and beverage processing, plastics, and manufacturing have increased employment, personal income growth, and the community’s GDP.

With its local economy steadily improving, this community of 9,000 is also looking to boost its new home development construction activity. Now, city leaders and officials from surrounding Ben Hill County are working with the Center for Economic Development Research (CEDR) and EDA University Center at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute to produce a study to figure out a viable strategy.

The study is funded in part through an Economic Development Research Program (EDRP) grant, which is administered by the EDA University Center. These grants are targeted toward economically distressed communities that can’t afford the cost of this type of comprehensive economic development research. EDA University Center grants offset some expenses that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive to rural communities.

CEDR is conducting the six-month research and analysis project in Fitzgerald, which entails looking at housing that’s for sale, determining what the rental rates are, and developing housing development strategy recommendations for the entire city, said Betsy McGriff, a CEDR associate project manager and lead researcher on the study. It will also include ways to maximize cost effective development strategies, such as new home construction in historic neighborhoods to help revitalize them.

“Our objective is to get a much better understanding of the factors that are deterring new home development,” said Jason Dunn, executive director of the Fitzgerald and Ben Hill County Development Authority. “We want to create more homeownership and have the data needed to influence new residential development in Ben Hill County.

Jason Dunn portrait
Jason Dunn is executive director of the Fitzgerald and Ben Hill County Development Authority.

The need for the Fitzgerald study comes as the community has seen increased demand for more housing with options in both single family, owner-occupied homes, as well as rentals. But the city’s existing inventory isn’t enough to meet the demand, nor is it energy efficient, comprised of buildings that are at least 100 years old.

“We believe the study will give us the market data needed to pursue a public-private partnership to meet the community needs and lead to residential development that will provide housing solutions in one of Georgia’s most rural areas,” Dunn said.

CEDR is also doing a nine-month study for the City of Jefferson Downtown Development Authority, located in North Georgia’s Jackson County, about 22 miles northwest of Athens. That multifaceted project, which is also partly funded by an EDRP grant, includes a housing market analysis to create a strategy to get more residential housing units built closer to its downtown.

It also includes a retail market analysis to determine what goods and services are needed in the area. It also includes visioning sessions to advise the Downtown Development Authority and help its leaders prioritize strategies and future steps needed for maximum community impact.

The Missing Middle

The two projects reflect the growing housing challenge that scores of communities face across the country said Alan Durham, a CEDR researcher and director of the Basic Economic Development Course.

“Across the U.S., right now we’re short about 4 million housing units. And a lot of those missing units are entry level affordable housing, and workforce housing for police, fire fighters, nurses, and teachers. That’s what’s called the missing middle,” said Durham, who has been researching the national trends and leads the Jefferson project research.

As costs rise, developers are trending toward building very high-end homes. While the high-end housing market is doing well, not enough at the other end — entry-level housing — is being built, squeezing out a market segment communities need to attract.

“Millennials and Gen Z, they can’t even get their foot in the door in the housing market anymore,” Durham said. “The ideal range on housing expenditures is 25% to 30% of gross income. In reality, many are spending over 50% of their wages on housing, leaving them cash-poor to deal with basic necessities and unforeseen expenses.”

Part of the research CEDR will do includes data analyses of both communities. The research will break both communities into their respective income tiers to see how many people make a set amount of money per year, Durham said.

Based on the different income tiers, the CEDR analyses in Fitzgerald and Jefferson will guide the types of housing price points leaders in both communities should pursue.

Detailed Analysis

In addition to the income tiers and bands major employers in each community pay, the CEDR studies will analyze employee commuting patterns, where residents shop for staple goods and services, and other factors that shape where people decide to live.

“These are very rural markets so our work to pull meaningful and actionable data will be different than in a metro area where it’s a little clearer or there’s just more data to be had,” McGriff said. “Our focus and approach will be a lot more granular to assess the demands of a rural market and pull out really meaningful data.”

Armed with that data, both communities will be positioned to develop strategies for targeted engagement with the right mix of investors and developers, McGriff said.

“They’re going to have to sell their communities to investors using the data we produce and the recommendations that we develop together for development strategies,” McGriff said. “These EDA University Center grants are really an investment tool for economic development, and they can leverage that money to attract investments to their communities, which could lead to more jobs and increased tax base, which just then cycles into helping these communities thrive.”

About the Georgia Tech EDA University Center
The Georgia Tech EDA University Center is a program funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) through its EDA University Center program. Led by the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Enterprise Innovation Institute, the Georgia Tech EDA University Center supports outreach activities that seek to promote job creation, development of high-skilled regional talent pools, business expansion in innovation clusters, and create and nurture regional economic ecosystems in the state of Georgia and other states within the EDA Atlanta region (Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee). The Center’s primary focus areas are innovation-led ecosystem support for universities and communities and strategic economic development support for distressed communities. To learn more, please visit grow.gatech.edu/eda-university-center.

About the Center for Economic Development Research
The Center for Economic Development Research (CEDR) is a collaborative team of economists, city planners, and economic development practitioners. Our talented economic development professionals have the research and implementation experience needed to help economic developers, community leaders, and industries alike understand the opportunities and challenges in fostering local economic development. CEDR is a unit of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, Georgia Tech’s chief business outreach and economic development organization. To learn more, please visit cedr.gatech.edu.

Grenzebach: Putting Safety First

Customer Profile

Grenzebach is a privately owned, family-run company based in Germany, with 1,600 employees worldwide and 100 employees at its Newnan, Georgia, facility. Primarily a material handling manufacturer, Grenzebach produces large conveying systems for the glass industry and for James Hardie, makers of exterior siding products. The company also produces solar glass and manufactures electric automated guided vehicles for use in moving materials from place to place inside distribution facilities.

Situation

Prior to 2012, Grenzebach’s Newnan plant was experiencing too many recordable injuries, said Ken Pinkerton, head of facilities, quality, safety, and environmental at the Newnan location. From 2009 through 2013, the company averaged five recordable injuries per year, and one year the company had 10. Despite a long-time commitment to creating a safe and healthy workplace, leaders realized they needed to do something to bring those numbers down.

The place to start was with Georgia Tech’s Safety, Health, and Environmental Services (SHES) program, a part of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, and the state’s on-site consultant for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The on-site consultation program provides small business owners with no-cost advisory services to address hazards and improve workplace safety and health without fear of citations or penalties. Pinkerton has a long relationship with Georgia Tech, including receiving his Industrial, Health, and Safety Certification through Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE).

Solution

In 2012, Grenzebach began working with SHES to pursue OSHA’s Safety and Health Achievement Recognition Program (SHARP) certification. SHARP recognizes small businesses that operate exemplary safety and health programs. To qualify for SHARP, Grenzebach — and all businesses — must:

  • Request comprehensive consultation visits in safety and health that include a hazard identification survey;
  • Involve employees in the consultation process;
  • Correct all hazards identified by the consultant;
  • Implement and maintain health and safety programs as specified by OSHA;
  • Maintain days away, restricted, or transferred (DART) rates and total recordable case (TRC) rates below the national industry average;
  • Agree to notify the state consultant prior to making changes to working conditions in a facility.

Achieving SHARP status confers a number of benefits on a business. SHARP certified companies provide protection to workers through the development and implementation of best safety and health practices; create a culture that values health and safety; build a reputation for safety within their industry; save money; and are granted an exemption from OSHA programmed inspections for up to two years and subsequent renewal for up to three years.

“The real benefits to SHARP,” said Paul Schlumper, director of the SHES program, “are the improvements that a company makes in its safety and health management system to help provide a better work environment for employees. Another really big benefit is the prestige. A company can advertise the fact that they’re serious about safety and health. I think that means something to their customers and their employees.”

Results

SHARP has been so successful for the company that Grenzebach has renewed its certification each year since 2012.

“What the SHARP certification allowed us to do is open our eyes to some of the different hazards that we took for granted every day,” Pinkerton said. And noticing those hazards has led to drastic decreases in recordable incidents for the facility.

“Since 2014, the number of recordable incidents has dropped 85%, and we are now significantly below the industry average,” Pinkerton said. “We’ve had a few milestones where we have gone a year without a recordable injury, 365 days. In fact, we recently met that goal again. But we had never gone a complete calendar year without one, until 2020.”

To achieve those stellar results, Grenzebach listened to the suggestions of the SHES team, including a safety committee that meets monthly, and implemented processes that include a focus on cleanliness. “If you don’t have a clean environment, you’re not going to have a safe environment,” Pinkerton said.

SHES helped Grenzebach empower workers to correct any hazards that they see. “If you see that broken pallet on the floor, instead of walking over it, our employees now pick it up and put it in the designated place. It removes that hazard from existence,” Pinkerton said.

Achieving SHARP certification does not mean that SHES is no longer involved. In fact, that is often just the beginning of a collaboration with a company.

“The relationship we’ve built with Georgia Tech and SHES over this process has been very beneficial,” Pinkerton said. “If I have any type of question that has to do with OSHA, or has to do with safety in general, they are able to help me. They will go above and beyond. If I have an employee concerned about the air quality or noise level in the plant, they’ll do an air quality check or a noise level check anytime I call and ask them to do it. And they provide those free of charge.”

That relationship delivers a level of security that dealing with OSHA may not bring.

“If I see changes coming in OSHA, I can contact the SHES group to get information,” Pinkerton said. “They’re my liaison to OSHA. I don’t have to contact OSHA to get an answer to a question. I can contact Georgia Tech and get that same answer, and not feel the anxiety that a person may feel contacting OSHA.”

The commitment to safety has worked its way through the entire organization, Pinkerton said.

“The people on the floor see that we legitimately care about their safety,” he said. “It’s not how fast can you make a product and get it out the door. The main thing is safety. How safely can you make that product? The atmosphere has completely changed when it comes to safety. That’s what you want. You’re trying to build a safety culture in your facility, and not have employees do something because I tell them to do it. Do it because it’s the right thing to do.”

Testimonial

“The SHES group is as loyal to me as I am to them. When it comes to the safety of people in the workforce, they take their jobs very seriously. I tell people all the time about SHARP and that they should become SHARP certified. The main thing that I would say about Georgia Tech and their consultation program is that they care. They don’t come in just trying to find something wrong. They come in and try to find ways for us to improve.” – Ken Pinkerton, head of facilities, quality, safety, and environmental at Grenzebach in Newnan, Georgia

Georgia MBDA Business Center Client Scores “Major” Win

A Big Night for Client Next Play 360° and Scoot Henderson

Group photo
Scoot Henderson (center), a Georgia MBDA Business Center client, celebrates with family and friends following his joining the NBA in the 2023 draft.

The Georgia MBDA Business Center congratulates Scoot Henderson and his parents, Crystal and Chris Henderson, co-founders of portfolio client Next Play 360°, for Scoot’s selection in June by the Portland Trail Blazers as the No. 3 overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft. Scoot, formerly the youngest player in the NBA G-League, spent the past two years playing for the G-League team Ignite. 

Next Play 360° is dedicated to developing the whole person through a robust program that focuses on four core pillars: athletics, academics, leadership, and community. Through this program,  Next Play 360° helps student athletes like Scoot become as competitive in the classroom as on the court and change what they think is possible for their futures.

“We could not be more thrilled for Scoot, Crystal, and Christ Henderson,” said  Jennifer Pasley, the Georgia MBDA Business Center’s project director.

The Center has been working with Next Play 360° to secure SBA financing to purchase a multi-sports complex in Marietta, Georgia.

“Through our work with Next Play 360°, we have been fortunate to have a front-row seat to Scoot’s incredible NBA journey, and we wish him the best of luck in this exciting new endeavor.”

Creating Communities that Draw People and Business Under the New Workplace Model

56th Annual Basic Economic Development Course 2023
theme focuses on Placemaking and Economic Recovery

ATLANTA — As communities move past the effects of COVID-19 and the economic turmoil stemming from the pandemic, economic development professionals are fully engaged in recovery.

The 56th Annual Georgia Tech Basic Economic Development Course (BEDC) will arm these professionals with the tools and strategies needed to maximize opportunity and potential for local communities in a four-day course from August 28-31. (Register: http://tiny.cc/BEDC2023)

The 2023 BEDC keynote speakers include Eric Kronberg, founder of Kronberg Urbanists Architects, and Elizabeth Ward Williams, the firm’s director of urban design.

The new realities of today’s workforce in a post-pandemic economy means communities must reimagine themselves in ways that make them more attractive to people as places to live and for businesses to operate.

Presented by Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute in collaboration with the International Economic Development Council and the Georgia Economic Developers Association, this comprehensive course will explore the use of placemaking as an economic development tool to help professionals create quality places where people want to live and businesses believe they will thrive.

The 2023 theme is Placemaking and Economic Recovery: Creating Communities Where People Want to Live and Businesses Want to Be. Keynote speakers include Eric Kronberg, founder of Kronberg Urbanists Architects, and Elizabeth Ward Williams, that firm’s director of urban design.

“We know the pandemic has changed the way we operate in a lot of ways with telecommuting and remote working being a fixed reality for business and job seekers,” said Alan Durham, BEDC course director. With work-from-home or hybrid commuting schedules the norm, communities need to rethink how they create strategies and make them more appealing to potential residents and business investments, he said.

“Our course is designed to teach attendees how to maximize opportunities in this new reality. People aren’t moving to a given community simply to be closer to work if there’s no central office or even a requirement to go into one,” Durham said. “So, it’s imperative that officials looking to boost their communities’ economic development opportunities shift their thinking.”

Part of that shift means focusing on strategies that create an attractive quality of life both for residents and business, plan for economic recovery and resilience, smart incentive packages, and other tools. Communities must also find creative ways to address the shortage of workforce and entry-level housing options.

BEDC course speakers will address several topics over the four days that will help attendees capitalize on their communities’ unique assets and how they can effectively use and maximize placemaking as an economic development tool.

Among the course topics:

    • Workforce Housing Strategies
    • Business Retention and Expansion
    • Real Estate Development and Reuse
    • Business Credit Analysis
    • Workforce Development
    • Strategic Planning
    • Economic Impact and Incentives
    • Managing Economic Development Organizations
    • Ethics in Economic Development
    • Small Business and Entrepreneur Development
    • Marketing and Attraction
    • Disaster Recovery and Resilience
    • Media Strategy

This four-day conference gives attendees opportunities to network with industry peers and experts, deeply explore the fundamentals and emerging concepts of comprehensive economic development and prepare them to immediately implement tools and skills gained during the course.

Since its inception in 1967, the Georgia Tech BEDC has prepared more than 3,300 economic developers from all over the world for the IEDC Certified Economic Developer (CEcD) Examination. The certification is considered an essential component of a career in economic development. BEDC at Georgia Tech is accredited by the IEDC and qualifies as a professional development training requirement needed to sit for the exam.

About the Enterprise Innovation Institute
The Enterprise Innovation Institute, the Georgia Institute of Technology’s economic development unit, serves all of Georgia through a variety of services and programs that build and scale startups, grow business enterprises and energize ecosystem builders. As the nation’s largest and most comprehensive university-based economic development organization, the Institute’s expertise and reach are global; its innovation, entrepreneurship, and ecosystem development programs serve governments, universities, nonprofits, and other organizations worldwide. In 2022, Enterprise Innovation Institute programs worked with 15,785 clients to create or save 13,891 jobs and secure $2.4 billion in capital investments. As a group, the Enterprise Innovation Institute helped generate an economic impact return of $422.55 for every dollar received from state appropriations in 2022. Learn more at innovate.gatech.edu.

About the Center for Economic Development Research (CEDR)
The Center for Economic Development Research (CEDR) is a unit of the Enterprise Innovation Institute at Georgia Tech with a mission to help communities and economic developers grow and thrive. CEDR, which manages the Basic Economic Development Course, uses in-depth of research, planning, and implementation experience along with resources across the broader Georgia Tech community to provide cutting edge solutions for the innovation economy. To learn more about CEDR and the services offered, please visit cedr.gatech.edu.

Smart Community Corps Launches Fifth Cohort

MACON, Ga. ­— From making improvements to Georgia’s farming and food systems to supporting artists’ programs to monitoring water quality in the state’s rivers, students in the fifth cohort of the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation’s (Partnership) Summer Internship program, formerly Smart Community Corps, are working on public innovation projects that address some of the most important civic challenges facing our state — and are branching out to solve challenges in other states, as well.

Cody Cocchi, the Partnership’s student engagement manager, back left; and Debra Lam, Partnership director, front left, with some of the Summer Interns in Macon

The Summer Internship is a program under the Student Engagement pillar of the Partnership, which is a statewide public-private collaboration to promote innovations that drive inclusion and growth to build economic mobility for a more resilient and equitable future. The internship program, sponsored by Gulfstream and additional funding partners, is designed to foster the next generation of innovators by providing civic-minded college students, both undergraduate and graduate, from across the nation with hands-on experience working on real-life problems supporting innovation work to create livable and equitable communities.

Macon-Bibb County Mayor Lester Miller welcomed the students and others to Macon City Hall in early May for the kickoff of the fifth cohort.

Students in the previous four internship cohorts were all from Georgia colleges and universities and worked on projects in Georgia only. This year’s cohort of 62 summer interns includes students from as far away as Oregon and Illinois and projects in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C., as well as in Georgia. The 35 host sites for 2023, represent city and county governments, higher education, nonprofit agencies, civic and minority-serving organizations, incubators, and startups.

State Rep. Dale Washburn (District 144) congratulated the students for their commitment to these important civic causes. He urged them to “follow something that’s honest and honorable and is of service to other people when choosing what you want to do with your life.”

The internships are a great place to start that journey.

“The 2023 Summer Internship cohort is the largest, most competitive, most geographically diverse cohort the Partnership has had,” said Cody Cocchi, the Partnership’s student engagement manager. “This cohort will have the most significant impact across the state of any of our previous cohorts. This class represents a diverse group of higher ed students from 25 universities, 8 states, and 14 countries.”

Manikandan Lapasi Parthasarathy, an intern who completed his first year in the master’s program for computer science at Georgia Tech, is working with Henry County to build a tool that can help local leadership make data-informed decisions on where to place freight infrastructure to improve life for residents in the region. For example, he is looking at “What kind of improvements can they make in which areas of the county? How will it affect the county as a whole? Which areas would be the best places to explore such improvements,” he said.

This project appealed to Lapasi Parthasarathy because “on the professional front, I’m good at building tools that translate ideas into actual instruments that we can use. I thought this would be a really good way for me to explore that further,” he said. “On the personal front, I like being useful to people.”

That’s a hallmark of these public innovation or civic technologies projects, they are useful to a broad swath of people, from the interns to the project site representatives to the people who live in the communities where the projects are based.

Wesleyan College in Macon, the first college in the U.S. chartered to grant degrees to women, has a long history of including the underrepresented. Two Wesleyan students are participating in the Summer Internship program for the first time this year.

“They’ve been connected with different organizations that are providing opportunities for our students around social enterprise,” said Wesleyan President Meaghan Blight. “It’s the best of both worlds — an opportunity for them to make a living over the summer that helps pay for their education while also giving them an opportunity to have workforce experience on something that’s driving their passion on the social enterprise piece, connecting with communities, and sustainability. Those are things that employers are looking for.”

Jordyn Hardy, a Wesleyan biology major, will spend the summer in the Okeefenokee Swamp. It’s an internship that plays right into her career goals. “I want to become a wildlife biologist,” she said. “I want to conserve endangered and threatened species.”

Wesleyan undergrad Savannah Pollock is working on a double major in biology and religious studies. She hails from Folkston, Georgia, the home of the Okefenokee, and is excited to spend the summer in the swamp, as well. “I really wanted to get involved in my community, especially in the black community in my hometown,” she said. “One of the big components of our hometown is the swamp. Being a part of that and trying to engage the community to be involved in it was something I was really interested in this summer.”

Victoria Ponce, a Georgia State University political science student, is returning for a second year with the Summer Internship. Last summer she worked at Neighborhood Nexus, an Atlanta-based nonprofit organization that provides data, tools, and expertise to help create more equitable and livable communities for all. This summer she’s interning in Washington, D.C., with MetroLab Network, an ecosystem of researchers and local government leaders who work collaboratively to equip cities with science.

“After working with Neighborhood Nexus last year, I realized that I have a passion for data and working with policy,” Ponce said. “Political science has a huge spot for data. I decided to go to law school and also to get a masters in working with policy. I think having this experience, getting mentors, and actually getting your hands on this type of work, gives you a better idea of the day to day.”

These paid internships continue through the summer, with a wrap up program in August, when students will present the findings from their work.

Georgia MBDA Business Center Client Named State’s 2023 Small Business Person of the Year

Georgia Tech’s Georgia Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) Business Center client Ken Taunton was recently honored by the U.S. Small Business Administration as Georgia’s 2023 Small Business Person of the Year. Taunton is the president and CEO of executive search and professional staffing firm The Royster Group.

The 50 state winners were honored in Washington, D.C., during Small Business Week. From left: Karl Vaillancourt, Precision Construction Services, California; Juanny Romero, Mothership Coffee Roasters, Nevada; Vice President Kamala Harris; Ken Taunton, The Royster Group, Georgia; Erik Wright and Jared Malapit, Precision Construction Services (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

Taunton got his start recruiting with a Fortune 100 pharmaceutical company in sales and human resources as the southeast recruiting manager. After ten years, he went to work at an international executive search firm recruiting C-suite and high-paying positions in the healthcare sector, where “he never saw people of color or women” as part of the pipeline search pool, he said. When he started his own recruiting and professional staffing firm, he set out to change that. “My goal was executive recruiting, concentrating on diversity. Every engagement that we worked on, there would be a diverse slate of candidates,” he said.

The Royster Group is a certified minority-owned business founded in 2001. Since then, its focus on diversity has garnered business success. The company has expanded from a one-person shop to 80 employees. In 2008, Royster’s revenue was $2 million; today, it is more than $20 million.

The Royster Group’s growth caught the attention of the SBA, which singled Taunton out for the award from among nine nominations in Georgia.

“What made Ken stand out was the phenomenal growth his business had,” said Terri Dennison, district director of the SBA Georgia District Office, “not only growth in the number of employees but also growth in sales and profits. It’s an example of how SBA and other business development resources can make a difference in a small business’s long-term success.”

Taunton, too, credits SBA and other resources for his success. In 2008, he was part of SBA’s inaugural emerging leaders’ program for business executives, e200. That program helped him navigate the Great Recession and pivot to securing federal contracts. He’s also a graduate of the SBA 8(a), a program that helps small, disadvantaged businesses secure federal contracts.

He decided in 2006 to expand his business, which had focused on corporate recruiting, into recruiting for the federal government in an effort to diversify. That’s when the Georgia MBDA Business Center got involved. “The Center helped me with my business plan, business development, and my strategy on how to get into the government sector, and with proposals, because the government space is a whole different animal,” Taunton said. “The Georgia MBDA Business Center was instrumental in helping me get into that space.”

The Royster Group has maintained its relationship with the Georgia MBDA Business Center since 2002. The Center is part of his proposal team, he said, reviewing them before submissions to ensure all the “Is are dotted, and the Ts are crossed.”

“Ken is a great choice to represent Georgia as Small Business Person of the Year,” said Donna Ennis, operator representative of the Georgia MBDA Business Center. She has worked with Taunton for more than a decade to help scale his company. “We’ve done a lot of strategic growth work with him and his team. We’ve recommended training, programs, and resources. We’ve become a trusted advisor as he grows his business, and I couldn’t be more thrilled for him.”

The Royster Group currently does a lot of work with the Defense Health Agency (DHA) and Department of Defense, staffing hospitals on military bases across the country. “That’s what got us through COVID,” Taunton said. “We had these long-term contracts that were mission essential, meaning that regardless of what happens in the world, they’re always going to need the healthcare providers and contractors we employ. The Georgia MBDA Business Center has been instrumental in ensuring that we continue to be ready and able to do business in the government sector.”

EI2 Global Hosts South African Delegation at Georgia Tech

UNISA group photo
EI2 Global hosted a delegation of faculty and administrators from the University of South Africa from April 24 to May 2, 2023 as part of an economic development ecosystem building initiative. (PHOTO: Péralte Paul)

EI2 Global recently hosted a delegation of about 10 faculty and administrators from the University of South Africa (UNISA). The purpose of the visit was to observe Georgia Tech’s and Atlanta’s innovation ecosystem and learn about entrepreneurship and innovation programs.

The visit is part of an ongoing collaboration with the Georgia Institute of Technology to foster an innovation-focused, university-based economic development ecosystem is South Africa.

That collaboration — launched in April of 2019 — calls for Tech’s assistance and guidance in the creation of an innovation ecosystem to support student entrepreneurship, curricular and extra-curricular programs, and faculty and student venture creation, as well as programs that small business development opportunities and industry engagement in South Africa.

During their nine-day visit, the delegates learned about the components of successful economic development ecosystems and learned about different programs, including the Center for MedTech Excellence, the Advanced Technology Development Center — both sister programs to the Enterprise Innovation Institute’s EI2 Global — and the economic development team in Georgia Tech’s Institute Relations. They also met with representatives of the Georgia Department of Economic Development about its Center of Innovation model, and The University Financing Foundation on its infrastructure development strategy.

While South Africa has the continent’s third-largest economy as ranked by gross domestic product, the country’s unemployment rate is 30 percent — the highest in Africa and one of the highest in the world.

A program of Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute, EI2 Global is charged with fostering economic opportunity around the world through inclusive, sustainable, impactful collaborations with universities, innovators, governments, and nonprofit organizations.

The EI2 Global team offers a comprehensive set of tools to support entrepreneurship and innovation initiatives as important ways to promote local economic growth in communities.

Enterprise Innovation Institute’s Donna Ennis Presents at the Federal Laboratories Consortium National Conference

Federal labs, including facilities such as the Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee, MIT Lincoln Lab in Massachusetts, and the Agricultural Resource Service, have technology transfer as part of their missions. This means that, like the work of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, leaders in federal labs don’t want to do research for the sake of research. They are working to improve people’s lives, and they need businesses and organizations to help transfer their research technology into the real world to further that mission.

Donna Ennis speaks at the Federal Laboratories National Conference in Cleveland, Ohio

Enter Donna Ennis, the Enterprise Innovation Institute’s director of diversity engagement and program development, co-director of the Georgia Artificial Intelligence Manufacturing Corridor (Georgia AIM), and operator representative for the Georgia Minority Business Development Agency Business Center. It’s a lot of hats for one person to wear, and she wore them all as she spoke at the national Federal Laboratories Consortium (FLC) conference — a sort of national trade association meeting — in Cleveland, Ohio, in March.

She was asked to present on one of her areas of expertise — connecting people and businesses with the right resources.

“I discussed Georgia AIM and tech transfer,” she said. Georgia AIM, a new initiative — funded by a $65 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) — supports a statewide effort to combine artificial intelligence and manufacturing innovations with transformational workforce and outreach programs.

“Federal labs are looking for ways to collaborate with minority-owned businesses. I talked about helping us identify the labs that focus on AI technology and advanced manufacturing, so that we could work more closely with those labs for Georgia AIM, and perhaps identify businesses that could do tech transfer. Labs are really interested in technology transfer. They’re doing all this research, and they want to be able to transfer that technology out of the federal labs. We’re in conversations about it, including with some of the people I met at the session.”

Ennis sees attendance at conferences like FLC as vital to her work.

“Because I’m in a new role, I’m focused on getting national exposure for Georgia AIM and making the strategic relationships that are necessary,” she said. “Federal labs could be a huge component with regard to identifying technology that could then be transferred into Georgia companies.”

The CAT That Roars

Chatham Area Transit (CAT) is collaborating with Georgia Tech and other partners to deliver on-demand last-mile/first-mile transit in Savannah

In the commercial logistics and distribution industry, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed companies to upgrade last-mile capabilities – the ability to get products from the grocery store or distribution center to people’s homes. What has often been left out of last-mile planning is getting people themselves connected. Fixed bus or train routes often leave people blocks or even miles away from transit, miles that have to be traveled on foot to get to doctor’s appointments, the grocery store, work, schools, and more.

At a press conference in Savannah project partners stand in front of a Chatham Area Transit Authority micro-transit van. From left, Debra Lam, executive director, Partnership for Inclusive Innovation; Andrew Young, field representative, Office of Sen. Raphael Warnock; Roxanne Ledesma, supervisory grants manager, USDOT; Ben Levine, special advisor, USDOT; Savannah Mayor Van Johnson; CAT CEO Faye DiMassimo; CAT Board Chair Diedrick Cody; Robert Hampshire, deputy assistant for research and technology and chief science officer, USDOT; Nicholas Savas, regional outreach coordinator, Office of Sen. Jon Ossoff; and Georgia House Rep. and former Savannah Mayor Edna Jackson.

Now, thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s (BIL) Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) grant program, Savannah will launch a pilot project to develop first mile/last mile on-demand transit. The app will seamlessly connect people to Chatham Area Transit Authority (CAT) fixed bus routes to get people where they need to go more efficiently and economically.

The $1.2 million grant was announced by the U.S. Department of Transportation in March. A total of 59 projects in 33 states were funded to the tune of $94 million to develop projects that improve transportation efficiency and safety using advanced smart community technologies and systems.

“The future of transit looks different,” said CAT CEO Faye DiMassimo. “Savannah is a great market for this project. It’s not so big that we can’t right the ship, but it’s not so small as to be not applicable or scaleable in other markets. And it’s a market with lots of different employment areas, tourism, a historic district, and warehousing/distribution.”

The Partnership for Inclusive Innovation (Partnership), which is supported by Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute, is putting together an advisory board comprised of local leaders and national transit experts, who will help ensure the work follows best practices from around the country while also addressing the specific needs of Savannah’s transit riders.

“Having corporate, civic, and nonprofit leaders involved to see how this project will impact their employees, students, and clients, will help ensure its success,” said Debra Lam, executive director of the Partnership. “National subject matter experts will be brought on for their expertise and also to share the project outside Savannah.”

The app, which will connect riders on demand from A to B and even to C or D, will operate similarly to Uber or Lyft. Riders will input their location and destination. The app will seamlessly connect users from curbside pickup by micro-transit to fixed bus or boat routes and will include paratransit if needed. It will synchronize bus and on-demand feeds to have buses and riders at the right place at the right time. Riders will be able to see when their curbside pickup will arrive and will pay a single fare for the entire trip.

Pascal Van Hentenryck, Georgia Tech’s associate chair for innovation and entrepreneurship and the A. Russell Chandler III chair and professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and his team developed the software, which was also used on MARTA Reach, a pilot project to add on-demand micro-transit to connect to bus and train routes in Atlanta.

“We have been working on this new type of transit system for more than 10 years,” said Van Hentenryck. “These are transit systems that are combining fixed routes and on-demand shuttles to provide door-to-door affordable services. We have developed all the technology for planning and operating such on-demand multimodal systems: What should be the fixed bus route? What should be the frequency between them? How many shuttles do you need? How do you dispatch them such that you serve people as quickly as possible?”

During Phase I, funds will be used to design the system, develop partnerships, and create ways to bring the community together so that riders will have a voice in how on-demand transit is built out. The pilot will connect three areas across the county. One pilot community includes the Tiny House Project, a neighborhood of permanent, affordable tiny houses that is home to 22 formerly unhoused veterans. The neighborhood, which will soon grow by 50 more houses, will continue to focus on veterans, and will also be open to other homeless people.

The Phase I project will run for 15 months. Following that, award winners can apply for a Phase II grant to implement improvements to Phase I and expand projects. For Savannah, the Phase II goal is to have on-demand micro-transit available across the region, seamlessly delivering visitors, students, and residents to jobs, historic sites, school, and wherever they need to go.

“We’re excited to implement this research,” Lam said. “It’s been done in other cities and every time it’s gotten better. Phase I will develop a blueprint that is electric, multimodal, and addresses last mile/first mile. It’s data driven to increase efficiency. It will empower communities through public transit. It will enable people to get to the doctor, to work, to school, wherever they need to go.”

More about the project can be found in this video, “Chatham Area Transit Announces SMART Grant to Improve Transportation Efficiency,” put together by the city of Savannah.