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additional Congressionally mandated commercialization initiatives 

 now in place and/or being implemented by the funding Agencies, we 

 expect additional commercialization success. 



We have been particularly impressed with the DOE initiatives to 

 support commercialization by providing business plan mentoring 

 for their successful Phase II contractors. This project, managed 

 by the DOE contractor, Dav/nbreaker , provides intensive training 

 in the development of a business plan targeted to commercial 

 partners or venture investors. It culminates in a two-day seminar 

 with presentations by the mentored companies to large commercial 

 potential partners and institutional investors. Our experience 

 has been that technology entrepreneurs typically have not 

 developed the skills to communicate the excitement of their 

 product in commercial terms. They tend to explain the elegance of 

 the technology; not the excitement of the commercial 

 opportunities and the potential return on investment. The DOE 

 program successfully teaches them this skill. We also support the 

 other initiatives of the funding agencies in the 



commercialization effort, and are pleased that almost all of them 

 have included a commercialization factor in the proposal 

 evaluation criteria. 



The Office of Advocacy is very supportive of the SBIR program. We 

 share the pride that NSF and this Committee have in the formation 

 of this concept and in bringing it to fruition with Congressional 



