The Cornell Center for Material Research (CCMR) in Ithaca, has announced the winners for the Fall 2012 JumpStart program.
CCMR Manager for the Industrial Partnerships Program, John Sinnott, says the program is like a mini research grant and it aims to help develop and improve the products of small businesses around the state.
“The main focus is to help New York State small businesses solve particular technical challenges at low cost,” he says.
Innovative Dynamics Inc. in Ithaca, Mesha LLC. in Williamsville, and SensGard LLC. in Pittsford, Rochester are the recipients of the Fall 2012 semester awards. The projects for these companies will span the fields of aerospace, wind energy, and hearing protection respectively.
The businesses are paired with university faculty and labs which will assist them in short, four month projects. Each selected business is asked to put forward some funding for the project, but their contribution is matched by the JumpStart program at a rate of one-to-two.
Spending for these projects is capped at $15,000 in order to ensure low cost solutions are reached.
“These are really low cost, they go for about one semester, they’re well focused and they’re designed to solve a particular challenge, and introduce them to resources at universities like Cornell,” Sinnott says.
The program is funded by the Empire State Development’s Division of Science, Technology and Innovation (NYSTAR), and each semester the programs run, three businesses participate.
“We’ve completed 51 of these projects to date, right a across New York State,” Sinnott says.
CCMR is about to open applications for the Spring 2013 semester awards. Applications open on Friday September 28, and can be found on the industry website at www.ccmr.cornell.edu.
