Published on Sunday, February 24, 2008

THE BUSINESS BUZZ

Don Worthington

The Defense Security & Technology Accelerator recently celebrated its one-year anniversary with an open house.

For some, the walk through the modest brick building off Ramsey Street was a step into the Buck Rogers era, where warriors communicated by wrist-mounted units.

For the technically savvy, there were a few surprises. Who would have thought that a coating of a special paint could protect your computer servers from drive-by hackers?

While the open house put a public face on the accelerator, it was a recent closed-session meeting in Washington that enhanced the accelerator’s reputation.

The closed session was the Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.

Representatives of the accelerator were among some heady companies known by their acronyms — DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency), and DISA (the Defense Information Systems Agency) and ARFL (the Air Force Research Lab).

DARPAhelped spawn the Internet.

So DARPA, DISA, DSTA and ARFL met with Congress to discuss bandwidth constraints on day-to-day military operations. In simple speak, the best way to send information. Think of bandwidth as a pipeline — you either make the pipe bigger to accommodate more data, compress the data or find a more efficient way to transmit data.

“We were the baby there,” said Scott Perry, the accelerator’s executive director. “This was a chance to show that our program is working.”

Getting invited to such sessions is just one measure of success, Perry said.

Other measures are contracting and investing. Perry said several major contracts for DSTA clients are awaiting final review.

Getting a product into production will also attract attention, said several company spokesmen at the open house. A few notable successes could attract the attention of venture capitalists, providing the needed money to launch the next round of small companies with great ideas.