How small business can speed technology development.

• Author: Burnside, Chandra
• Position: GOVERNMENT POLICY NOTES

Small Businesses are recognized frequently for their important role in economic growth. In April, for example, President Bush noted that "[small businesses] have played a vital role in helping our economy add more than 5.1 million new jobs since August 2003 and have helped reduce America's unemployment rate to 4.7 percent."

In addition, small businesses help U.S. military services by introducing them to innovative new technologies, often at lower costs than those charged by larger corporations. The services encourage such efforts through Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programs and similar vehicles, which seek to stimulate technological innovation and increase competition, productivity and economic growth.

One participant in the Navy SBIR program is Sage Technologies Ltd., of Willow Grove, Pa. Sage was founded by Navy engineers after the nearby Naval Air Warfare Center (NAWC) Warminster was closed in the early nineties. The company now designs and develops the avionics suite for upgrades to Navy helicopters, and specializes in products that can be used in the field.

Sage, for example, has generated several infrared (IR) imaging products used by Army, Navy and Marine combat forces to see through darkness, smoke and other obscurants. The company now is marketing those devices to the first-responder community.

Sage also is developing an entirely new set of night-vision equipment based on the short wave IR spectrum. These devices will provide night vision for operators of moving vehicles. In addition, the company is working to produce a new family of surveillance products that could change the way surveillance and night operations are conducted.

Because of their limited resources, small businesses--more than larger corporations--must temper the desire to push technology with the realism to build what the market will buy...