Further Discovery: Power in Reciprocity: Ecosystem Builders + America's Seed Fund

Hey, Ellen. One of the, one of the things that I didn't get to, that I thought actually probably the most important thing that I had to say for your, for your session was a question of longevity of the services. Right. Of in. You know, that as an organization or an individual, you may be here, you may not be here. Obviously the SBA is going to be there, but for the regional services, it is quite detrimental. As you know, as I definitely learned, it's a huge impact when there are administrative changes that decide that the services are going to be provided by somebody else or the services are going to be different. That's. It's not an. It's not easy for entrepreneurs. They. They are lost. And it's. Continuity is. It's very important.

Right. And that's another reason why we are doing the continuation that continuity.

Right, right.

But also for, for an ESO as an agency. Right. Have a plan, you know, sort of place the seed on different organizations or agencies or universities or whatever it is, so that if, for whatever reason, you're no longer there.

Right, right.

That somebody else. That entrepreneurs have a, Have a common place that they can go to.

Yeah, right. Yeah. Especially with, even just in the past couple years, some of the turnover we've had with the esos as well, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. And then new people coming in and kind of picking up the pieces and. Yeah, I totally understand that as well.

And it's, it's, it's really hard for entrepreneurs. You know, they build a relationship with, they rebuild a relationship with you. Then there's a. There's a huge change. So they go and like, build a relationship with somebody else. And then there's a huge change again. And I was like, they're like, how does this, you know, how do you make. They need to make sure that they navigate it so that nobody gets offended and they're, you know, they have a work to do that it's not just, it's not easy. So.

Right.

Just curious, that little eye on the corner that says 18, is that 18 people, like floating around?

Yes, I believe so.

See.

So we have a question from LA Williams. I operate a business community development center. I'm interested in assisting startups with funding for their transitions. Thank you. What steps are needed on my part to become more instrumental? La, where are you located? Okay, Chicago. We do have a fast organization there, University of Illinois. Let me see exactly where they're located.

I think it's southern Illinois.

Yeah.

But I'm more than happy to, you know, connect anybody that reaches out and wants to connect with other esos or.

Just get that Champlain is where it is. Enterprise works at University of Illinois. Now, I'm not sure about Illinois geography, so I don't know how far away from Chicago that is, but I knew that you have a statewide reach, so they may be organization for you to contact, to get in contact with, to possibly partner with them for that community business development piece as well. A lot of the esos, fast included, are always looking for more partners to assist them in furthering their reach within the state. And let me put their website in the chat for you. Okay, thank you, Frank. 2.5 hours away from Chicago. I guess it's not horrible. All right. Richard has a question. Can you make it a team, not an individual? So as people leave, the small business still has that contact. And I think that goes to what the conversation was before. A lot of that's going to depend on the organization, Richard, and how they're set up. And particularly I'll relate to FAST and just working with the FAST organizations over the past couple years. You do have some that based on their structure and their partnership, whether it's university, sbdc, you do have some organizations that are very much are team oriented. Then you have some that you work as a team. But a lot of times they have that one lead person for the SBIRSTTR development, which comes under the FAST grant, in addition to kind of people in the team that are with the organization. They work a little bit on fast but aren't dedicated 100% to fast. And I think a lot of what Maria was talking about is where you have that one or two people that are dedicated for FAST and or dedicated toward that development of sbirsttr and then they leave. While there are some individuals that have an understanding of how the process works, that one person is really leading the effort. So when you do have that, again, transition times and you know, SOPs really help to bridge the gap for that transition. But there's always going to be a gap there because there are relationships that are built, whether you have an individual person spearheading or team. And as a small business, and I've seen it simply because I've seen many FAST organizations, especially last two years, a lot of turnover and a lot of organizations in their teams while they've had people come in for teams, you may have that one individual I was leading that's really good at making headway at certain populations and then that person is gone. Well, the new person may have strengths in other populations. So now the population that have really made headwind. They don't have a direct contact where their contact isn't as steady with that population, those that technology compared to who's running it now. So a lot of it does come to not just that gap of individuals, but the strength of the new person coming in as well. Hope that answers the question somewhat. All right, so we have Yolanda. I run a biotech and hard tech incubator that includes labs. We are Nonprofit, funded by 4Cities. Curious how to get funding so we could award member companies with non dilutive funding to cover cost for the space. I'm not sure if that will fall. I'm not as familiar. Excuse me. I'm very well versed in FAST and what FAST does. I'm not so much as versed in growth accelerator and what their funding entails and some of the other programs that we offer. But I would definitely say look@sbir.gov at our programs to really get an incentive of what we fund. Outside of that, I have no way really to direct you or even if you are, if there's a fast organization within one of the four cities or states you work in, maybe partnering with them and based on their budget, they could have budgets or budgets to partner with you to give grants to allow companies with that cover cost of space. A lot of organizations are not just focusing on that sort of phase zero or phase one of, you know, finding a company and helping them write their grant. A lot of organizations, especially my conversations in the past few weeks, are really looking at more of a holistic focus. So they're not just looking at getting them in the door of sbir. They are really doing their best to work to be able to assist with phase one, phase two, and then ultimately phase three. As far as commercialization, it obviously depends on the overall organization that they are. Some are better suited to that than others. But it would definitely, I would say take a look at, at the fast organizations that are near you and reach out to see if maybe that sort of partnership is something that could facilitate what you're proposing. Okay, so I've spoken to Eric from this is from la again, I've spoken to Eric from Champlain sbdc, but they referred me elsewhere. Chicago is not in their jurisdiction yet. Definitely check the fast enterprise works. The fast organizations do states do events and outreach statewide, so it's not just in that local area. So if the SBDC is not something that you know is out of jurisdiction, definitely talk with the FAST there and reach out to them. It may be a very profitable Partnership going forward. Okay, so Deborah asked, and I guess I'll start with you, Amy. Can each organization talk more about their commitment to equity?

Sure. I'm happy to speak on this one. So, you know, couple, couple of things in our core values here at the corridor. Radical inclusivity is one of those. And we are always asking who's not at the table. Anytime we, you know, launch a program, anytime we really do anything within the organization, and we back that up with our metrics and we're tracking that. So, for example, in our Synfluence initiative that I lead and run as a program Director, more than 40% of the companies that we work with in that initiative are meet some of the disadvantage criteria by the sba. So they're women owned companies, they're, they're minority owned companies, they're veteran owned companies. And we, when we're doing our outreach, our storytelling, our marketing, when we're building partnerships and relationships, we're always reaching across the table into those communities and they're reflected on our team as well. And so, you know, kind of at all different levels within the organization, within the community that we're building, there's an intentional effort on making sure that our resources are going to underestimated communities. And so that's a core part of what we do. And it's something I'm extremely passionate about. It's not always easy. Um, you know, they're just like kind of the translation that we do between entrepreneurs and the federal agencies. You know, different groups have different priorities and different levels of interest and different familiarity. And so it's really just kind of meeting people where they are and helping them take that next right step on their journey. And so that's what we do here in the corridor.

How about you, Maria?

So I'm quite proud to say that we, I think in order to reach, to be inclusive and equitable, you have to set up some targets, of course, but you have to measure and measure where, where you stand, where you want to go. But also what's the, the who's out there. And that's probably the hardest measurement. Right. But I'm proud to say that we started recording our metrics and who were we servicing, who were we targeting? Who were 20 years ago, exactly 17, when we, because we were offering fundings of different sources. And you know, it was important to us. Nobody was requiring it from us, but it was important to us to understand if we were being effective at reaching a diverse community. And, you know, we have the metrics. I can't, I can't say that our metrics are great. You can always improve them. And, and I say, I would say that probably understanding who is out there that we should be servicing is the hardest, the hardest quantification because you don't know what you don't know. So we're always looking for new connections to different communities to entrepreneur services consultants that might be targeting specific groups of people and partnering with them and see if we can bring the message to them. It doesn't mean that that it's going to directly translate into an SBIR award, but at least we have that measured. Like now we know that there's an opportunity and that we should be reaching out to the OR that we are targeting. These are messages and our services are being offered.

All right, thank you, Maria. Now I'm a la. Now it depends. Some fasts are located with SBDCs and some are not. In the case of Illinois, it's not. But this next I'm going to talk about is and excellent isn't. I'm sorry, I'm thinking of someone else. But some are, some are. It all depends on the state organization. But I'm gonna get to Kim's question. So Kim states that I run a nonprofit in Kansas City, Missouri that prepares youth with disabilities for employment opportunities. We are partnering in 2023 with an ESO serving black entrepreneurs to launch a disability ESO in the Kansas City region. I would love feedback and support support for this work and we're leading to build the inclusive entrepreneur ship ecosystem. Now I'm going to direct you to the SBDC in Missouri. They are also fast and I'm give you let me put the link for the contact there. While it may not be specifically sbi, sbi ttr depending on what your focus is, it is the SBDC for the state and if it doesn't fit into SBIR ttr, Sherry may be able to wreck to direct you within the SBDC system in Missouri of possible partners for your event next year. Okay. Simon. Matt? Matt, are you here? I don't think he joined us on a breakout. Okay. Unfortunately Simon, Matt is not here. Which organizations can apply for direct funding to develop these products? Simon? First I would say is check out sbir.gov to get a sense of the SBIR organizations and what they're looking for. It can be somewhat daunting but I would definitely look at NIH maybe NSF as well. Those were two lead ones I would you want to look at to see what they are requesting. Especially NIH has all of the they have Various solicitations, opportunities amongst all of the institutes. So it's, it's definitely something to look at from there. But if you go to sbir.gov you're going to find basic tutorials on all of the agencies as well as videos, you know, stating what they're looking for and the generalization of this technology they're looking for. Also, depending on what state you're in, I always say, and again, I'm biased. Contact your FAST if there is. When they have 43 fast organizations in the continental USA United States. And Exo, Alaska is in continental. So 42 in the continental United States. Is it continental since it's up there? I guess. Anyway, 42 within the lower 48. That's what it is. Lower 48, Alaska and then Puerto Rico. So right now we have 44. So if there's one in your home state, definitely contact them for further assistance going forward. Any other questions? There are 28 of you watching. I'm pretty sure you have questions to ask. All right, well, Amy, let me ask you this question. Your organization specifically, you were a Growth accelerator, right? Or you won a Growth Accelerator Award, and now your organization is working on a FAST grant. Could you talk about maybe some of the differences in the focus of your organization based on the two or maybe even how the Growth accelerator helped prepare or is feeding into the work you're doing under FAST?

Sure, Eldon. So not Growth Accelerator, but the SBIR Catalyst for Growth Accelerator too. Don't worry. But yeah, SBIR Catalyst. So in 2021, we were part of the inaugural cohort for SBIR Catalyst. And, you know, really what that award did was allow us to start converging some of these partners, you know, with some resources attached around a very specific focus. And that focus was how do we help increase the number of women participating in the SBIR program here in Florida? You know, average across the country, it's about 13% of awards that go to women owned companies. But we knew that, you know, there are a lot of awardees here in Florida. And what we find with some of these underserved populations is creating mentor networks, creating, you know, examples of and, you know, people who look like you that have done it before and have been successful kind of as mentors and role models for others is really important. And so we spent a year working with five different ESO partners across the state to, you know, bring together those ESOs to make intentional outreach, to look at what organization should we be collaborating with to get more women entrepreneurs in the program. And then we did some direct support as well. So technical assistance, you know, commercialization planning. And we were able to help several women entrepreneurs that were here in Florida secure funding through. Through that effort, which was really exciting. So we had some initial success to build on. And with that sort of core group of ESO partners realized, hey, you know, there really is a strong need here. And there's not an organization in Florida that is convening around this issue. And there hasn't been really, you know, over. Over the history of years. And so we found a niche that, that the corridor could serve. One thing that we learned with working with the esos is, you know, this is really highly specialized knowledge and you have. It takes years to kind of learn the process and develop the tools. And our ESOs just, you know, all ESOs are under resourced, I feel like, so they really, you know, had various levels of knowledge or awareness about the opportunity and where we see the skill scale in the corridor. So we love supporting entrepreneurs, working with them individually, but we also see a lot of scale and being able to build capacity within our esos. And so looking toward fast, we were. We took some of those lessons learned from SBIR Catalyst and really put that into our FAST application. And, you know, it helped us set up our application process. What would our trainings look like, you know, what are really the needs of the ESOs in our community? And so this year, just, you know, two months ago, here we're. We're a brand new FAST awardee. So Florida has a program here for the first time, and we're really excited.

Thank you, Amy. Appreciate that. Any questions you guys have? No questions. Really? There are 23 of you. All right, well, let's get to some of the questions we didn't get to answer in the, in the panel since we have Amy and Maria with us. So our. Okay. No, no, no, no. So looking back over the past three to four years alone, a great deal of effort and innovation has taken place within the government and within entrepreneurial communities to bridge the gap between startup and SBIR TTR programs. Are there any specific things that you can point to being effective in this pursuit?

Can I start by saying kudos to you guys for expanding the FAST program to include how many. Did you say? 44?

44 now? Yes.

Yeah, I think, you know, I think it used to be 15 to 20. It makes a huge difference when you join the monthly ESO organization meetings. And now you see not just fast awardees that are 44, but also all kinds of community. It's not just those of us that are helping on sbir, but also investors and federal program officers and all kinds of people. And I think that has made a huge difference. Difference. It's sb. SBIR is a lot more in everybody's mind or vocabulary. Right. And that has helped a lot.

I agree to that extent. And we lost Amy on wait for to come back. One of the things that I always say and just give a background from my experience, I've been with SBA for three years in this position. Before that I was at USDA with the SBI program. I was there for seven years. And one of the things I always say is that the first primary goal is to preach the gospel of sbir. It is the worst, best kept secret in the federal government when it comes to funding. And the more capacity we have to really spread the word about it, the more people are knowledgeable about it. Now, whether or not they're prepared or at that point to submit, that's a different story. But once people start to hear about it, they start to think and they start to think, is this something that could be beneficial for me? And what I'm thinking of now, whether their technology or what they want to do fits the innovation criteria for a specific agency, that's a bit different. But the more because even when I talk to just regular people and I tell them what I do, the antennas go up, the eyes get wide. When I tell them about SBIR ctr, they are so shocked that the federal government has a program like this that has been around for 40 years and for the technology that has come from it that we use every day, they are literally gobsmacked with that information. And so many people are just interested to say, how can I be a part of this? Does I have this idea? Can I do this? And having the FAST organizations, having the widespread ecosystem that we have now really aids in spreading the word. But not just spreading the word, offering assistance as well. Where we didn't have this sort of widespread support. When I started in SBIR in 2012, it's a totally different world now with regards to the awareness of IT across the country and the support system compared to when I started at usa, I don't even think FAST was really in existence like that then. I think it was during that time when it wasn't funding and then it came back shortly thereafter because I was actually a reviewer, I think in 2014 or 2015, if I remember correctly, somewhere around then. And it's just to see how it is definitely grown and the ecosystem network has grown and how so many from firsthand experience, so many entrepreneurs have benefited from the widespread growth of the ecosystem network to really become aware, aspir and ultimately submit as well. So I guess we lost Amy. I think she did. I thought she had 3:30. Anyway Maria, I'll this last question for you. So what are some specific pieces of advice that would you would offer to the ecosystem builders in the audience who are acting as community ambassadors on behalf of America's seed fund?

You know, I'll circle back to my first comment and that is be prepared. You know, I think in order to provide a good service for your community, for your state, your region, it's continuity is, it's imperative and be prepared in some way have a strategy for who is going to replace you when your not there. There might be times when for you personally or the organization is not going to be the one in charge of SBIR outreach and entrepreneurs cannot, cannot afford that. Your region cannot afford that. So be prepared to also train and collaborate with, with universities, with other federal, without state agencies, regional agencies, with colleges, with investors, with bankers, with whoever you can partner and collaborate with and, and spread the gospel like Elvin says, so that there is, there is somebody always out there that the entrepreneurs recognize as somebody that can go to. And the second one would be, you know, do rely on the rest of the ESOs nationwide to provide. I, I do that all the time. I try to learn what the different organizations have to offer in their region. So if I have somebody that, that comes to us because they have so we, we work in Kentucky, but they, the, the entrepreneurs may have connections or may have a headquarters somewhere else or they may have a headquarter in, in Kentucky, but they have employees in another state. So I make sure that, to connect them because our capabilities as esos might be different and that other region may be offering something of a lot of value to that entrepreneur, to that startup. Ultimately we're all here to serve them right and to make them grow. That's what we're looking for is that they grow as a business.

Right, Right. No, I agree Maria. One of the things that we are seeing especially you know, Covid had changed how we do business a lot. But one of the benefits with COVID and the sort of circumstances that we found ourselves in and how we had to adapt was more and more individuals are very comfortable with virtual meetings, virtual technology. I always say that one of the things about COVID is my mom stopped calling me to figure out how to operate Zoom once she had to figure it out because she had no choice. It wasn't something she did every now and again. So I always use her as a barometer of where we are as a society of more and more people being able to utilize digital technology, whether it's from their phone or the computer. And that has allowed esos really to partner and network not just within the state, but also regionally. And again, excuse me, my experience is very much with the FAST program. Many FAST organizations are partnering with other FAST organizations organizations and other organizations in general ESOs within not just a region, but state. We're talking about just Texas, Arkansas and a lot of those states have collaborated for certain events and whatnot. Same thing as far as Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma. There's so much collaboration going on regionally that that's even increasing the reach of a lot of the esos. And we're not just talking about FAST organizations. The believers, the catalyst. The catalyst is growth. I was going to confuse, I know Growth Accelerator, one of the two Growth Accelerator Catalyst, that was a partnership where you did have different universities, institutions partnered together for that award. So you did have all of those organizations utilizing their resources and doing programming and targeting potential entrepreneurs in that region. So it's really one of those things that has benefited that widespread getting the gospel out, so to speak, but also pooling resources. You know, we're definitely better together than we all splintered apart and having everyone come together and really having those different expertise. Whether it's some organizations are very much more suited for targeting specific agencies compared to others and others just have better resources, maybe targeting specific minority, veteran, rural women populations. You know, coming together really allows all of us to make a larger impact with reaching entrepreneurs when it comes to SBIR ctr. So Larry says we use ZOOM to do consulting with a lot of clients around the state. Covid did people did get people to accept the technology more? Yes, yes it did. Any other questions?

All right.

So Maria, is are there any programs or any sort of spotlights or highlights you like to spotlight from what's going on with your program and what you guys have been doing over the past two years? Well, really, I guess it's like a year and a couple months as far as FAST is concerned.

I have a lot. But you know, one of the things that we did, and I'll go bring it back to FAST with our, with our award was we started focusing more on, you know, on non research trained entrepreneurs and see, you know, how could we capture some of the opportunities that might be available for those tech entrepreneurs, but not necessarily people that have been in Academia. Right. Which was our bread and butter as a state and how could we capture. And we did that through collaboration with Oklahoma who is also. Fast forward to Ianative and whatnot. So we offered, we partnered with them to offer DoD accelerator and also for us to learn about how to approach those programs that resource. We also partner with them on NASA. So that's been great. It's been very enjoyable because we get to learn as you know, our organization gets to learn about DoD and the INS and outs. Every program is pretty complicated and quite unique and the. Our clients have not only access to this new resource and these new or agencies or components but they get to learn and they get to do a lot of their business work and it's an accelerator that holds their hand quite a bit. We are also working internally onto putting in writing some of the mental constructs that we have when we interview companies Newcomers. Right. What are all the questions that we ask a newcomer before we decide, you know, where do they stand in terms of readiness, either the technical readiness or the business readiness for a phase one or for. Or for a phase two. For example, if it's somebody that is not necessarily a newcomer but they have worked with us in the past. So we for the past six or maybe more nine months we've been working on like putting in writing what are all the questions that we ask that and designing what's that mental construct that we do and to see if we can make it we call the SBIR Technical readiness tool and the SBIR Business readiness tool and try to also put numbers. Can we make a metric out of those questions? When we decide that a company could use a certain resource like for example they need some help from when it comes to ip, IP development or protecting and you know that without a little more knowledge on how they're going to protect their intellectual property, you know that first proposal is going to be weak or it's going to be have an easy. It's going to be an easy target. So how do we make the. What other questions that we ask and how do we make that decision internally? So we're hoping to make out of those questions to make a decision making tool that we can have online that can people do that. It's sort of like a self service or a self assessment and they can potentially they can come back and you know, take it for the first time answer all those questions. We get a report but they also get a report if they wish to reach out to us, great. If they not they are, you know, they get to learn that that exists and maybe it will in future iterations of the tool. We can also, for example, we work with some partners in investment. We work with kippa, which is a Kentucky intellectual property alliance, the Kentucky Commercialization ventures. So those are resources that might be available to them. They may decide that, okay, I'm going to go that route or they may decide that they're going to go to the SBDC or they're going to for certain research. So we're hoping that it's a, it's an easy tool for people to assess to learn what it takes to do sbir, to do a phase one sbir, for example.

Okay, thank you, Marina. Elena had a question. What are resources available in California for technology startup with USPTO granted patents? Now we do not have a path. It's going to be a fast Elena, but we do have a local resources tool on the sbir.gov website. That's the link that will bring up everything in California and that goes from growth accelerators to incubators. There are three pages worth of possible resources for you. A lot of it is finding the best one for you. And also you can, based on what you're looking for, whether IT's Growth Accelerator, PTAC, SPDC, you can also filter out by the resource type as well. Any other questions?

Can I ask a question?

Yes, ma'.

Am.

What are the what are the biggest hurdles to reaching out to diverse communities?

The first hurdle going to be just state demographics. Depending on the states and the demographic composition of a state, you know, your diverse population may be very small and tiny compared to others. So that's always going to be a hurdle. And sometimes especially you think of, you know, I say out west, reaching out to native populations, sometimes they just aren't inroads there. To really make a big inroad into those populations, get into maybe the reservations of those Native American organizations really to foster those relationships to. Okay, thank you, Jim. Appreciate it. To really foster that those relationships. So a lot of it I would say is relationship building.

Overall.

Some organizations have built in capacity for reaching out to their targeted populations. Others do not. In my conversation with FAST awardees though, a lot of it comes down to really finding organizations that allow them to tap into that specific population's entrepreneurs and innovators. And I think that has been one of the most difficult things across the board, even with those that, you know, didn't get awarded but have applied even in a lot of their proposals. And what they're trying to do a lot of is really that relationship building with Organizations who tap into those populations. That's why for me, I always stress where applicable. Really let me back up. A lot of it is starting a pipeline, something you and both Amy talked about earlier. And really you start that awareness within the populations and as it matures you will see some fruits of that with those individuals matriculating to those interviews through those universities, institutions. And we lost Amy, I mean Maria. And from there we ultimately get individuals from those target populations, whereas women, rural veterans, minority into SBIR and ctr. But the hardest part of that is that is not something that's quantifiable in one project period or even two project period. That's a long haul sort of endeavor. And I would say that's probably one of the hardest part because we can't show results on that. And so years later, like, hey, we have, you know, made inroads from an ecosystem perspective into these populations in our particular states. And a lot of it too is just is cultivation. And this is across the board you have innovators and entrepreneurs that may have really good technologies, but they don't fit anything. They aren't anything that the federal government is looking for. So a lot of it is even as eso, really helping entrepreneurs, if not come up with solely something solely new, tailor what they're doing or what they're working on to fit the requirements or fit what a particular government agency needs. And as someone, as a former program manager, that's what I say all the time. And I had a little bit of ease being a USDA where there were 12 different topic areas and it's a lot of wiggle room. It was very easy for me to say, hey, if you go with this focus for phase one, you have a better chance of being accepted and reviewed if not funded compared to if you do such a general sort of topic or technology, you focus on this crop or you focus on this problem, then that's something that can get your foot in the door and you can always expand in a phase two. And you may have more that with your granting agencies where you have a lot more latitude to focus in on one thing and expand. Whereas your contracting agencies, especially working with the ESO contract agencies, would almost want to be very detailed and specific as to what they want. And if a technology doesn't fit, it's going to be very difficult to transition the technology to fit what they want. So a lot of it is, like I said, building that pipeline and, and helping those populations really navigate from really phase zero all the way up until that phase three and A lot of times that concurrent funding of esos impacts that process as well. As we talked about before, that turnover of organizations and staffing. Thank you, Jen. Really impacts that as well. So there's no easy answer to this, but at the end of the day, it's really just building those networks because even some of the best organizations have a hard time getting into those minority communities to find those women entrepreneurs, veteran entrepreneurs that really fit the bill for sbir. Sttr. SBIRSTR is so broad, but it's still very specific when you get to it in what agencies are looking for to fund. And that's probably the hardest part of it all. Finding those entrepreneurs that fit instead of just finding those entrepreneurs to begin with. Thank you, la. So I could be long winded sometimes. So we are slowly wrapping down. We have four minutes left. Any closing questions before we end this breakout session? Did I miss Elena's question? Oh, what's a growth accelerator? So a growth accelerator and. Excuse me, I'm gonna have to read this. So a growth accelerator is competition that was launched from the office of sbir. Excuse me, sba. Sbir Office of Innovation. And to simulate innovation and growth innovation entrepreneurship across the country. So what happens is there are these awardees. It's a prize competition. So it's awarded $5.4 million in prizes to support inclusive entrepreneurship and innovative EcoSystem. So in 2021, there were feature 84 winners for the Growth Accelerator and eight winners for the Catalyst. So with the growth accelerator, they propose targeted assistance to STEM and R& D entrepreneurs for underrepresented groups targeting including women, people of color, rural entrepreneurs. So those prizes are specifically for programs or projects that are aimed to target entrepreneurs of underrepresented populations. So they are support a broad range of industries, including clean energy, supply chain, resilience and infrastructure. And so many of them are located within hub zones. And each of the growth accelerators win a prize of $50,000. And the growth accelerators are individual organizations. So you have them in California, Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, really throughout the country. And you can find all of those as well on the local resource assistance tool. Okay. Lies. Sorry. So, yes. Yeah, Jenna's right. If you're so, definitely sign up for the December 15 webinar to learn more about the competition. Says $50,000 for a targeted organization or targeted population. And. Yeah, no, not as dumb. Education Growth Affiliation Catalyst. Yeah, and it's one of those programs that can really assist you with building up your own program when it comes to your esos in there. Because of that, we are talking about just some possible additions and changes to the FAST program because of. As well, because of how successful that sort of. That sort of program or prize competition has been with really targeting those underserved populations. All right, all right. Thank you, Jen. We're all done here. You can head back to the main stage for our next session as JEN instructors. Just click the stage button on your left. No problem. Elena. Thank you, Maria, for your time. We greatly appreciate.

You're welcome. Always a pleasure.