Entrepreneurs from all over the nation are in Sparks to attend “Re-Energizing America” -- a convention that brings together innovative small businesses and federal agencies with money to invest. Between them, the agencies have more than two billion dollars in grants and contracts to fund ventures related to everything from national defense to green technology. Doctor Fritz Grupe is with the Small Business Development Center in Reno, which is holding the convention. He says the program is highly successful in creating new technologies.
Many of the entrepreneurs who are starting out really don’t have much money behind them so this is in fact the largest amount of startup money for those kinds of companies available anyplace.
Corporations such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin and agencies such as NASA and the Department of Defence are sponsoring the convention. It runs through Thursday.