Entrepreneurship

Featured stories:

Overview of ICASIT’s Work in Entrepreneurship
ICASIT Closely Linked to GMU’s Entrepreneurship Projects
ICASIT’s Role in $2 Million Grant to Help Virginia IT Companies
Examples of ICASIT Activities with Local Companies
ICASIT’s Knowledge Management Projects

Entrepreneurship and ICASIT —
Working with Dozens of Local Companies

Overview

ICASIT has active relationships with business consortia, university researchers, and individual corporations and organizations. Consortia have included such organizations as Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology (CIT), the Enterprise center at George Mason University (GMU), and the Century Club of GMU. ICASIT/university linkages include activities with Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, the University of North Carolina’s Carolina Population Center, and Virginia’s Internet Technology Innovation Center (Internet TIC). ICASIT’s collaborative efforts with industry have involved a variety of activities with Exxon-Mobil, American Management Systems, VSE, Computer Sciences Corporation, Mitre and SAIC, as well as over a half dozen Internet startup companies. ICASIT’s Knowledge Management Roundtable, funded with a generous grant from CIT, now involves over 140 firms in the region.

ICASIT Closely Linked to GMU’s Entrepreneurship Projects

ICASIT actively partnered with GMU’s Entrepreneurship Initiative and the Entrepreneurship Center, led by Dr. Roger Stough, which assisted in locating and helping Internet-based startup firms (examples below). As a member of the Century Club of GMU, ICASIT participated in a range of the Century Club’s activities, including helping startup firms represented at the popular quarterly Grubstake Breakfasts.

ICASIT’s Role in $2 Million Grant to Help Virginia IT Companies

vit_logoICASIT partnered with research centers at three other Virginia Universities to win a five year $2 million grant aimed at helping Internet-based companies in Virginia. The CIT-funded Internet Technology Innovation Center , a partnership of research groups at the University of Virginia, Christopher Newport University, Virginia Tech, and George Mason University, seeks to advance the Internet enterprise in Virginia. Internet TIC sponsored the First Virginia Internet Technology Week to present the latest Internet technology developments and policies, provide a range of professional development seminars, and describe the next-generation web network, Internet2.Professor Steve Ruth, ICASIT director and associate director of Internet TIC, presented two professional development seminars, Knowledge Management and Teaming in Cyberspace, at the Virginia Internet Technology Week. The Second Internet Technology Week took place in Williamsburg with nearly forty different presentations from experts on Electronic Commerce and related fields.

Examples of ICASIT Activities with Local Companies

Mobil Oil’s Director of Global Security (GS) contacted ICASIT concerning possible assistance for several technology projects. As a result, ICASIT worked with Mobil GS to redesign their intranet, develop a global list of Internet-based newspapers in selected countries, and create a Lotus Notes database to keep better track of geographically dispersed employees. One of these products, also available at the ICASIT web site, contains links to more than 100 internet-based newspapers around the world. Mobil intends to continue similar work with ICASIT and other appropriate Internet TIC centers.

Expert Decision Systems (EXDS) has developed decision support and knowledge-based software support for crisis management, and has a lab in the engineering school at GMU in Virginia. EXDS’ NxtGenesis provides for knowledge management and use of decision frames with dynamic organizational structuring of resources (people, data, models, etc.) for rapid deployment and adaptation to crisis situations. ICASIT provided support to a project that delivered a web-based pesticide information package to the Department of Agriculture.

Planned Community Networks (PCN), an emerging Internet startup corporation, intended to serve the growing needs of broad-bandwidth communities by offering new home owners a wide array of voice/data/video services. PCN worked with both ICASIT and the Internet Multimedia Center at GMU. ICASIT has assisted in the development of a PCN web presence and helped PCN obtain venture capital.

Artisannet, another Internet startup, provided art buying services from individual artists as well as museums and galleries. ICASIT is assisted Artisannet by providing technical assistance with the Artisannet web site and helping locate venture capital. In a letter to ICASIT director, Artisannet CEO Henry Azclar wrote:

“Your assistance and advice were invaluable in positioning artisanNet.com within the technology community of Northern Virginia. Your help in evaluating our web site as well as providing us important resources saved us considerable precious funds early in our start-up phase. For profit consultants could have charged $100,000 for similar work.”
–Henry Aszklar, Jr.
CEO
artisanNet.com, Inc.

Unanet Technologies, developer of the Unanet Product Suite, seeks to help IT and consulting organizations improve margins of their own product and service lines through the use of web-based software products. ICASIT assisted Unanet Technologies in improving their web site, and introducing them to Internet TIC partners who can help them examine possibilities for additional venture capital.

Audiopoint is developing a web-based product that would enable cell phone users to browse the Internet for audio links. Individually tailored voice commands would allow updates on stocks, weather, travel, news, or other data of importance to the subscriber. Audiopoint’s CEO approached ICASIT for help with the business plan and  also requested technical help from Internet TIC.

ICASIT’s Knowledge Management Business Round Tables—140 Companies Involved

ICASIT had significant presence in the regional Knowledge Management community based upon a robust university-based Knowledge Management (KM) web site, continuing graduate level courses, and ongoing activities with private corporations. With financial and administrative support from The Commonwealth of Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology, ICASIT initiated a series of Knowledge Management Roundtables to broaden the application and advance the effectiveness of KM practice in regional organizations. Fourteen Roundtables have been convened since September of 1999.