Mtech Ventures, a University of Maryland technology company incubator program, won a $50,000 U.S. Small Business Administration Growth Accelerator Fund competition award to support innovation in federal Opportunity Zones in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area.
Through the grant, Mtech Ventures is partnering with the Association of University Research Parks (AURP) and the Center for Accelerating Innovation to organize community-needs roundtables, identify promising innovations, develop entrepreneurs and build awareness of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) or Small Business Tech Transfer (STTR) program in low-income census tracts called federal Opportunity Zones (OZ). Maryland has 149 Opportunity Zones, while the District of Columbia has 25. Federal tax incentives for new investments are available in these zones.