Tyler Hall, Torence Rosen, Anna Brauer and Eric Wilson know computers inside and out. Mark Banister knows how to get liquid medicine released through a patch. Olin Feuerbacher knows marine biology. Mary Wirth knows how to make it possible to detect diseases long before currently available capabilities allow.
But what none of them knew was how to turn their knowledge into a business. That’s where the Arizona Center for Innovation comes in.
  
|
The center, 9040 S. Rita Road, Suite 2250, in the University of Arizona Science and Technology Park, is a high-tech incubator promoting the development of companies through a disciplined program of business development. They took a day last week to celebrate and show off some of their clients.
"I didn’t realize how naïve I was about business," said Ram Nayak, working with the MSDx to have an earlier detection of multiple sclerosis through a blood test and not expensive MRIs. "I have learned so much here from the mentors and staff and I feel very confident going forward."
The center focuses on companies in six technology areas: aerospace, advanced composites and materials, information technology, environmental technology, life sciences and optics/photonics.
It currently has 15 companies in incubation, two of which have started to turn a profit.
"It is very exciting to see them reach that point," said Marie Wesselhoft, director of the Arizona Center for Innovation. "That’s what this process is all about."
Hall, Rosen, Brauer and Wilson were students at the UA’s McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship and they said they couldn’t have brought their company, Student Experts, nearly as far as they have if it weren’t for the Business Incubation program.
"It is a great experience here," Hall said. "We’re set up with an office, phone and Internet here. But the connections we are making are also amazing."
The group hopes to launch their national in-home IT service business by the end of the year.
According to statistics given by Bo Statham, a member of the Arizona Center for Innovation advisory board, 85 percent of new small businesses fail in the first few years. However, nearly 85 percent of incubator companies succeed.
"With a track record like that it is a wonder more public money isn’t given to this to ensure success," Statham said.
Statham likened the work of the center to one important leg of economic development through Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities (TREO).
"The University of Arizona business incubation program should receive public and private funding on a level that is commensurate with the broader economic development program of TREO," he said. "Part of their mission is new business creation and the center focuses on taking innovation to business."
The center will continue its mission into the future and aid the community in becoming a bio and technology powerhouse by providing the skills necessary for success.
Contact reporter Joe Pangburn at jpangburn@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4259.
Comments