University Receives Federal Grant to Help Startup Businesses

The University of Arkansas is partnering with Winrock International and NorthWest Arkansas Community College to help create jobs by developing high-tech startup companies in Arkansas. The group received a $2.15 million grant to identify and support new businesses that will meet the information technology and mobile application innovation needs of regional companies involved in transportation and logistics, food processing and retail business.

The program – Launching the ARK: Acceleration, Resources, Knowledge – is one of 20 chosen to receive a grant through the federal Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge.

“The university will work with Winrock International to identify, recruit and select entrepreneurs with innovative ideas for new information technology applications, particularly those that can be used with mobile technology,” said Jeff Amerine, technology licensing officer in the Office of Research and Economic Development at the University of Arkansas. “We are looking for people with new ideas that can help our established businesses use innovative technology to continue to grow.”

Fifteen startups will be selected to go through an intensive 3-4 month “boot camp” to learn how to bring their ideas to the marketplace. From that group, two ‘stars’ will be chosen and referred to the regional retail, food processing and supply chain companies for pilot deployments and private financial investors for pre-seed funding.

The first boot camp should be in session during the spring of 2012. Federal funding will be enough to operate the program for two years, but the goal is to make ARK, and the boot camps, a self-sustaining operation.

NWACC’s role in the partnership will primarily be to develop new and expanded programs in information technology to provide students with the skills they’ll need for jobs in these new companies, as well as in the established businesses.