Ms Ning Li Testimony (SBIR and STTR Reauthorization)

Transcript

thank you Mr stalker our next witness is Miss n Lee she is the chief resource officer and acting chief operations officer at PD International and appli think tank and solutions provided provider located in Baltimore Maryland Miss Lee is testifying on behalf of the United States Women's Chamber of Commerce the US Women's Chambers of Commerce was founded in 2001 to increase economic growth opportunities for women welcome thank you madam chairwoman a ranking member members of the committee I am here today as a member of the US Women's Chambers of Commerce representing our 500,000 members over 3ars of our members are small business owners many of whom are active contributors to high-tech Innovations including research and development for both the federal and Commercial sectors my firm PD in is innovative te technology firm and hubs on small business The Firm was founded in 2001 for the purpose of inventing technologies that are the first to effectively solve existing technical problems that are of significant social and economic impact since the year 2004 PD Inc has devoted major resources into the R&D activities of voting technology our research has focused on a holistic design of New Breed voting machine that would address problems existing current voting Technologies in order to accommodate all stakeholders such as election officials voters and the federal government in their needs of having a easy to use easy to manage accurate Fair transparent and verifiable election process one of the major sub components of our design is an essential innovation in addressing security problems which have been a major contributor to social controversial and the public scrutiny in the past years at the beginning of 2008 we identified that the sbir opportunity at the National Science Foundation could be of benefit to our specific Innovation the CER application process is complex in its requirements of documentation one of which is a letter from an existing potential customer or support uh an existing or potential s uh customer to support the invention of such technology however our customers would generally be County and M municipal election officials who as public sector Personnel cannot endorse a p a product or technology marketed by a particular commercial entity we did not have enough time to allay any endorsement related concerns therefore we decided not to file our application at that point in the latter half of 2008 we proved that the Prototype built of our product is economically viable and there hasn't been such a device in the commercial space at this point we were Beyond pH one in the R&D process but we still need money to build it phase two of the CER award would solve our funding needs however we're not eligible to apply because we haven't gone through phase one if we apply for phase one it is not only dishonest it also would waste precious human and monetary resources to repeat procedures that have already been done we recommend that small Enterprises which are able to secure independent validation of their technology should be allowed to bypass phase one and apply directly for phase two assistance we support legislation that does not permit business to evade phase one of the cber program but does allow an an exception to be granted for companies that can demonstrate to agency CER proposal event ators that the company has fully completed phase one work for example CER program participants that have already demonstrated proof of concept utilizing their own Financial Resources in addition to have acquired a validation through peer review conducted by recogn recognizable subject matter experts should be allowed to out uh opt out of phase one and go directly to phase two this would save the innovators time and enable them to adhere to their schedule of innovation um meanwhile it also um helps saving taxpayers money other recommendations acquisition of the services of patent at attorney should be recognized by all federal agencies as eligible expenditure under both phase one and phase two efforts should be put into place to protect small business rights to intellectual property regulation should bind the large industrial partners of CER program recip to protect small innovators interest in intellectual property during the process of Applied research collaboration a standard NDA agreement should be drafted by SBA which large Prime Personnel would be required to sign before requesting small businesses uh disclose their intellectual property information and the code of conduct should be established to regulate large Prime personnel's Behavior SBA should work with B's recipients and perhaps with the US patent and trade office to assist businesses with the filing of patent applications we strongly support the Venture Capital Provisions detailed in the legislation under consideration which permits C awardees to receive Venture Capital Venture Capital Partnership vital to linking small businesses Innovation and research to Capital and Market opportunities um we must take make sure there are sa safeguards within the legislation the regulation and the practical application of the rules to protect small business for from exploitation by larger businesses and venture capitalist we support maintaining majority ownership and board representation by the small firm thank you again for the opportunity to provide input here today we applaud the work of this committee to energize research and Innovation within the small business community and the assist with the transfer of this Innovation to federal government and Commercial sectors thank you