The Maryland Industrial Partnerships Program (MIPS) of the Clark School's Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (MTECH) won the national "Best Practice" award for technology transfer programs from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Advocacy. MIPS was selected (from a field of 44 contenders) by the SBA as one of the top four state initiatives in entrepreneurship and economic development in the nation.

Mark Anstey, president of a Technology Advancement Program (TAP) start-up company, was honored by the Tech Council of Maryland as Executive of the Year. Mr. Anstey is president of Datastream Content Solutions in College Park, Md. Datastream provides data conversion, enhancement and management solutions using XML technology, and is the largest company taking part in TAP, the incubator for technology-based start-up companies offered by MTECH . The company's products and services enable conversion of diversely-formatted electronic data into standard formats and insertion of meta-data tags.

Innovative Biosensors, a College Park start-up and a member of TAP, has been named the 2005 Maryland Life Science Incubator Company of the Year. Innovative Biosensors develops rapid, ultra-sensitive tests to detect harmful pathogens such as E-coli. In addition to being a TAP member, it was a recipient of funding through MIPS and released its first product in January of this year. The company was a finalist in both the Life Science and Technology Transfer categories of the competition.