Mtech Press Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 14, 2002

The Engineering Research Center's Programs Outpace its Name: the ERC is now the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (MTECH)

COLLEGE PARK, MD—Helping to create 786 jobs isn't enough for the ERC. Facilitating 423 research projects with 280 different companies in Maryland, worth $113 million, isn't enough either. Saving Maryland manufacturers $30 million in one year, spurring 20 new companies in its undergraduate entrepreneurship program—none of these are enough.

The ERC is building upon its four core successful programs—TAP, MIPS, UMMAP and Hinman CEOs—by launching three important new initiatives, designed to propel technology entrepreneurship and bolster the biotechnology sector in Maryland.

Along with this expanded focus, the ERC has taken on a contemporary identity and the elevated stature of institute within the University of Maryland community. The ERC, formally, is now the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (MTECH).

MTECH's first new initiative is the Technology Enterprise Accelerator Program, which offers a comprehensive set of venture consulting services for university entrepreneurs, including assistance with business and market planning, executive recruiting and obtaining financing. MTECH is committed to creating an environment where university-developed intellectual property can easily be transformed into successful technology-based companies.

The newly formed Technology Ventures Club is designed to be a high-level forum for graduate students in technical disciplines to explore opportunities for creating companies around the technologies they are developing. The TVC includes workshops on key topics related to starting a business, access to mentors from the private sector, a speaker series featuring venture capitalists and successful entrepreneurs, and networking mixers.

The Biotechnology Program is a combination of services designed to support growth in Maryland's biotechnology community. The Bioprocess Scale-Up Facility (BSF), which has already served biotech giants such as Human Genome Sciences, NIH and MedImmune, recently upgraded its main fermentor to 250 liters, enabling the facility to scale-up even larger biological products and processes. The BSF is also developing a program to train employees of biotech companies in the latest production techniques. Fermentation, cell culture and purification will be featured in the new workforce training initiative.

Productivity Enhancement, another offering of the Biotechnology Program, takes the system of Lean Manufacturing, which has helped companies such as Procter and Gamble, Microsoft and Levi Strauss, and applies this system's principles to biotechnology production. Productivity Enhancement takes a team-based, systematic approach to identifying and eliminating wasteful, or non-value adding, activities within an organization and establishes a working methodology for continuous improvement.

All of MTECH's programs are dedicated to two central goals: propelling Maryland's economy and strengthening the university. By supporting industry/university collaborative R&D, company incubation, expert solutions and new venture formation, the institute plans to do just that.

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