The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Innovation & Entrepreneurs announced an exciting funding opportunity this week.
The i6 Challenge is a new $12 million innovation competition administered by EDA in partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF). EDA will award up to $1 million to each of six winning teams with the most innovative ideas to drive technology commercialization and entrepreneurship in their regions.
The NIH and NSF will award a total of up to $6 million in supplemental funding to their SBIR grantees that are associated or partnered with the winning teams. The federal partnership encourages entrepreneurs, investors, universities, foundations and non-profits to participate in the i6 Challenge. The deadline for applications is July 15, 2010.
For more information, please go to www.eda.gov/i6.
Commerce Secretary Gary Locke posted additional comments about the i6Challenge on the White House Blog at http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/05/03/commerce-launches-new-challenge-bring-your-ideas-market-faster.
I would recommend that rather than just concentrating on Regional Innovation Clustering Strategy, we should also initiate a National Innovation Cyberclustering strategy in energy, water, food, and transportation technology. This will rapidly establish new industries in local regions and accelerate the marketing of the products and services.
Cybercluster can bring the best talents from all over the world.