Advanced Technology Center opens at UGA-Gwinnett

The Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), Georgia Tech’s nationally recognized technology business accelerator, opened a new location at the University of Georgia-Gwinnett campus as part of an expanding initiative to support technology start-ups statewide.

ATDC will use the new Gwinnett center to offer educational, networking and mentorship programs and hold regular office hours to meet with area entrepreneurs. The presidents of the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Georgia, both Innovation Crescent member institutions, took part in the official opening.

The Impact of the ATDC
Launched in 1980 as the result of a state-funded study of Georgia’s science, engineering and technology programs, ATDC has become a highly-successful start-up engine for economic and business development in the state and a nationally-recognized science and technology incubator.

Companies associated with the ATDC have raised more than $1 billion in venture capital since 1999. Last spring, ATDC was named by Forbes magazine to its new list of the 10 technology incubators that are changing the world.

"ATDC is the only incubator in the Southeast to be included in the Forbes list," said Georgia Tech President G.P. "Bud" Peterson. "Creating new jobs and bringing innovation to market are top of mind for just about everyone, and our research universities are serving as incubators for new business."

The UGA-Gwinnett campus already offers
numerous services through its Small Business Development Center (SBDC), and adding an ATDC location answered the school’s
intent to further support technology-based economic development in Georgia.

Supporting Small Business
ATDC operates two incubators in midtown Atlanta, one at Georgia Tech’s Savanna campus, and a Biosciences Center. Until recently, ATDC operated its incubators using a co-location model, in which startups would lease space at the ATDC location and have ready access to mentors and training. However, ATDC recently began deploying a "virtual incubator" model in order to expand the geographic reach of ATDC services and support technology start-ups statewide.

According to Nina Sawczuk, ATDC executive director, it was a logical choice to begin ATDC’s geographic expansion in Georgia’s Innovation Crescent region.

"We really got a sense from our research and demographic reports that there is a great deal happening with technology development and entrepreneurship in the Innovation Crescent," she said. "We worked with Partnership Gwinnett and UGA to identify who the entrepreneurial community is, what their needs are and how we can serve them."

ATDC’s mentoring programs are led by eight startup catalysts, all of whom are successful technology entrepreneurs in multiple industries and hold master’s or doctorate degrees in technology.

"Our mentors not only understand the science and technology that our target entrepreneurs are developing," said Sawczuk. "But also understand how to build businesses, acquire funding and support, and market technology innovations."

"My goal is to build a community of entrepreneurs by identifying them, getting them together and offering programs to help them," says Paul Freet, the ATDC startup catalyst heading the Gwinnett location. "A lot of Georgia’s entrepreneurial growth has been in the northern counties, and we want to reach out and bring support to those communities."

"Gwinnett has been working for years to bring a strong start-up program to its community," said Jim Maran, president & CEO of the Gwinnett Chamber. The ATDC will provide an even stronger environment to foster organic growth and the entrepreneurial foundation for which Gwinnett is already so well known."

ATDC’s new Advanced