University of Maryland

Business Model Challenge

 

Sponsors and Partner Organizations

• Platinum Sponsors
• Partner Organizations

Sponsors

Fish & Richardson P.C. is a global law firm providing strategic counseling and litigation services to innovative clients who seek to protect and maximize the value of their intellectual property (IP). With more than 375 attorneys and technology specialists practicing IP strategy and counseling, IP litigation, and business litigation, Fish is known for its superior technical expertise. Fish has been named top patent litigation firm in the country for seven straight years, a premier IP firm for America’s biggest companies, and an elite top tier law practice.  For more information, visit www.fr.com or follow @fishrichardson on Twitter.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs about 123,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. As a global security, aerospace, and information technology company, the majority of Lockheed Martin's business is with the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. federal government agencies. In fact, Lockheed Martin is the largest provider of IT services, systems integration, and training to the U.S. Government. The remaining portion of Lockheed Martin's business is comprised of international government and some commercial sales of our products, services and platforms.

Lockheed Martin's operating units are organized into broad business areas.

• Aeronautics, with approximately $14.3 billion in 2011 sales, includes tactical aircraft, airlift, and aeronautical research and development lines of business.
• Electronic Systems, with approximately $14.6 billion in 2011 sales, includes missiles and fire control, naval systems, platform integration, simulation and training and energy programs lines of business.
• Information Systems & Global Solutions (IS&GS), with approximately $9.3 billion in 2011 sales, includes C4I, federal services, government and commercial IT solutions.
• Space Systems, with approximately $8.1 billion in 2011 sales, includes space launch, commercial satellites, government satellites, and strategic missiles lines of business. 

 

Nixon Peabody is one of the largest law firms in the United States with more than 800 attorneys collaborating across 21 major practice areas in 17 office locations, including Washington, D.C. , New York, Boston, Chicago, London, Paris, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Silicon Valley. Nixon Peabody has deep experience representing research institutions and universities, and the life sciences and technology-based startup companies that emerge from these institutions. Extensive experience on both the investor and company sides of financing deals enables us to make introductions that are beneficial to both companies in search of funding and venture capital firms looking for exceptional companies in which to invest. Our attorneys negotiate, structure, and close venture capital funding deals and all types of strategic alliances and joint ventures. We help our clients know what to expect throughout the financing process and how to avoid common pitfalls. Our relationships with a broad network of investors nationwide enable us to negotiate the most favorable terms and conditions for all types of private equity issuance. We offer full-service corporate capabilities emerging businesses need as they mature. Nixon Peabody has a robust Intellectual Property Practice that counsels technology and life sciences companies on due diligence matters, patent prosecution, patent interference, patent application, patent reexamination, patent reissue, transactional matters, and litigation.

Partner Organizations

Founded in 1986, the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship is a top-tier entrepreneurial institute recognized around the world as a leader in enterprise creation. Forward looking and community focused, the Center actively encourages a real-world business culture that innovatively bridges the theoretical with the practical.

Whether you want to start your own nonprofit or for-profit organization, or create social and environmental changes from within a company, Smith's Center for Social Value Creation (CSVC) will equip you to tackle today's complex global issues and create innovative business solutions. CSVC offers real-world field experience, cutting-edge coursework and research, and targeted career planning to connect you with opportunities to effect change and resources to put your ideas in motion. Our mission is to develop leaders with a deep sense of individual responsibility and the knowledge to use business as a vehicle for social and environmental change.

 

FounderCorps is an organization that is managed by experienced technology entrepreneurs for the benefit of entrepreneurs in Washington, DC, Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland.  Our members are experienced technology entrepreneurs who have started, managed or exited successful technology businesses. We share a common purpose – to promote a broader and deeper technology entrepreneurial community in our region.

FounderCorps promotes technology entrepreneurial development by actively partnering with existing organizations to create a supportive infrastructure for technology entrepreneurship.  Through our own programs and through these partnerships FounderCorps intends to bring together the disparate threads existing in our community and create a supportive and coherent infrastructure to support regional entrepreneurial development.