“We Should Sell This!” - Navigating Innovation & SBIRs

Your team strikes gold (again!) with a brilliant innovation, and the familiar chorus begins: "This is amazing, we should sell it!" Sound familiar? For teams navigating the demanding government services and intelligence community, transforming these bright ideas into viable products can be a thrilling but complex journey.

Join AFCEA Central Maryland in September for "Navigating Innovation & SBIRs," a practical and engaging session designed to help you cut through the noise. You'll discover:

• From Cool Idea to Real Asset: How to determine if your innovation has true market value and strategically protect your intellectual property.
• Counting the Costs (Realistically!): Methods to assess the full investment required to scale your idea into a market-ready product, considering lifecycle costs.
• Productization Pathways & Smart Pivots: Key strategies for turning concepts into sellable products, and exploring alternatives like IP licensing or "Platform as a Service" when full productization isn't the best route.
• SBIRs Unpacked: A clear-eyed view of the SBIR/STTR program – its role in R&D funding versus common misconceptions, and how to integrate it effectively into your commercialization strategy.
• The Government Customer Check: Critical insights into whether the government can, and is likely to, procure your new product.

Move from "what if?" to "what's next?" This AFCEA After Hours event will provide actionable insights to confidently guide your innovations from concept to market success in the government space.

Emily Reed, Business Development Manager
Parsons Corporation

Emily Reed is a distinguished business development professional with a rich background in product development, project management, and Federal capture and proposals. As the owner of Athena Consulting, Inc., she brings over 15 years of experience crafting winning strategies for product innovation and opportunity management across the federal and commercial sectors. Her career includes roles and Parsons and KBR, where she managed projects collectively worth over $7B. Specific to products, Emily’s experience followed the full product lifecycle, from ideation to marketing and launch. This included establishing Parsons’ Product Review Policy and Procedure, evaluating product concepts as part of the Product Review Board, and leading market research and pricing efforts in support of product teams.