Paper Session II-D - NASA/ Florida Minority Institution Entrepreneurial Partnership

The NASA/Florida Minority Institution Entrepreneurial Partnership (FMIEP) is a consortium consisting of four Florida Minority Institutions and NASA/Kennedy Space Center (KSC): Bethune-Cookman College (B-CC) of Daytona Beach, the lead consortium member, Edward Waters College (EWC) in Jacksonville, Florida International University in Miami (FIU), and Florida Memorial College (FMC) in Miami. The State of FloridaÕs Technological Research and Development Authority (TRDA) plays a support role to B-CC in program administration and coordination. The program utilizes resources from these particular institutions encouraging faculty and students to collaborate with existing technology transfer programs that promote entrepreneurship through NASA assistance. Historically, minority groups have been poorly represented in high-tech entrepreneurship, due to a lack of exposure to an environment that promotes these activities. In effect, this program enables the students and faculty members to be exposed to real life experiences, such as, establishing and operating technology based businesses. The students become educated in market research, technical problem solving, Electronic Commerce, Small Business Innovative Research Program solicitations, and also become familiar with NASA technologies available for commercialization, as well as how to introduce a high-tech product or service to the market