image: Pictured left to right, Greg White, Executive Director of the UTSA Institute for Cyber Security Center for Information Assurance and Security, Eugene Spafford, Executive Director of Purdue University’s Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS) and Ravi Sandhu, Executive Director of the UTSA Institute for Cyber Security. Spafford, a world-renowned expert in the field of cyber security was on hand for the launch of the UTSA Institute for Cyber Security’s new technology incubator at their Nov. 18 ICS Founder’s Day event. view more
Credit: Mark McClendon
The University of Texas at San Antonio Institute for Cyber Security (ICS) launched its new Internet security incubator, designed to develop and assist in commercializing promising technologies that address major cyber security and privacy issues. As part of the launch, ICS selected two San Antonio start-ups, DenimIP and SafeMashups as the first companies entering the incubator.
In 2007, DenimIP was recognized by The San Antonio Business Journal as one of the "Best Places to Work" and in 2006, the journal recognized DenimIP as the "Fastest Growing Company in San Antonio."
"This is the culmination of years of hard work between UTSA, security companies in San Antonio, and the Department of Defense institutions that reside in our community," said John Dickson, Principal at Denim Group, a San Antonio-based consultancy that builds and secures software applications for Fortune 500 clients. "The ICS incubator will help identify promising security technologies that exist at or are close to UTSA and will accelerate getting the best of these technologies to market."
The Institute for Cyber Security is led by Ravi Sandhu, Executive Director and nationally renowned scholar. The ICS incubator, one component in the Institute for Cyber Security, is led by Ravi Ganesan, a seasoned technology executive and entrepreneur.
The ICS incubator is structured to work with both innovations developed at UTSA, as well as to work with entrepreneurs who could benefit from the expertise and resources of researchers at UTSA.
To become a part of the program, participants must agree to significant collaboration with ICS (or other UTSA) staff. In exchange, the ICS incubator will provide resources such as:
- Access to entrepreneurial researchers with a proven ability to innovate, and bring products to market
- Access to seed capital
- Access to experience in the life cycle of start ups; from 'ideas' to 'exits', and everything in between
- Support with Intellectual Property protection (patents, software, etc.)
- Infrastructure (office and administrative) support
ICS will offer selected companies vital resources such as access to the ICS labs and its extensive body of research and the expertise of ICS advisors and university staff to support everything from product development to marketing to strategic guidance to office and administrative support. By leveraging the ICS incubator to expedite its commercialization efforts, incubator companies will fast track their product development efforts and expedite time to capital, market, and profitability.
"Public and private investment in sponsored cyber security research results in the creation of technology, inventions, and ideas," said Robert W. Gracy, UTSA Vice President for Research. "By offering local entrepreneurs access to university resources and providing a forum for researchers to transform their research into marketable business ventures, we enable students, faculty, and entrepreneurs to commercialize their ideas, produce successful, financially viable and freestanding businesses and create additional jobs in the community."
The Institute for Cyber Security has a mission of world-class research, with commercialization. Founded in June 2007 and funded as part of the State of Texas' Emerging Technology Fund, the institute is staffed by leading researchers and senior software architects who are immersed in emerging Internet security issues. ICS consists of three units: ICS Labs, a nationally reputed center for academic research, ICS Incubator which has been established with a mission to make San Antonio a fertile breeding ground for security companies, and the ICS Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security (CIAS), which leverages San Antonio's IAS skills as part of the solution to the nation's homeland security needs.
DenimIP and SafeMashups - San Antonio's Next Wave of Technology Innovators
DenimIP is a new venture created as a spin-off from Denim Group LLP, an IT consultancy specializing in custom software development, systems integration, and application security. The Denim Group serves a national and international client base of commercial and public sector organizations in industries including financial services, banking, insurance, healthcare and defense. DenimIP was created to commercialize leading edge technology developed at the Denim Group to provide non-intrusive real time detection of attacks on certain classes of web applications.
SafeMashups is a fledgling company founded to provide the level of security needed for enterprises to strategically leverage mashups for business purposes. With patent-pending technology that will enable companies to more strategically use mashups without placing their IT systems at risk, SafeMashups is strongly positioned to stake out a piece of the growing Web 2.0 applications market, predicted by Forrester Research to reach $4.6 billion globally by 2013.
The University of Texas at San Antonio is one of the fastest growing higher education institutions in Texas and the second largest of nine academic universities and six health institutions in the UT System. As a multicultural institution of access and excellence, UTSA aims to be a premier public research university providing access to educational excellence and preparing citizen leaders for the global environment.
UTSA serves more than 28,400 students in 64 bachelor's, 46 master's and 21 doctoral degree programs in the colleges of Architecture, Business, Education and Human Development, Engineering, Honors, Liberal and Fine Arts, Public Policy, Sciences and Graduate School. Founded in 1969, UTSA is an intellectual and creative resource center and a socioeconomic development catalyst for Texas and beyond.