Southern Arizona business leaders celebrated the grand opening today of a high-tech incubator at the University of Arizona Science and Technology Park.

The Arizona Center for Innovation will promote the development of high-tech companies in southern Arizona in six areas: aerospace, advanced composites and materials, environmental technologies, information technology, life sciences, and optics/photonics. Special emphasis will be given to new technology enterprises emerging from UA.

The opening ends a six-month period without an incubator in southern Arizona, following the January closing of the Tucson Technology Incubator at the research park.

The new facilities include 4,500 square feet of office space and 8,000 square feet of chemistry/wet-lab and laser-lab space. Clients move progress through a disciplined, structured program of business development. Each company receives assistance in preparing a business plan, developing products or services, securing financing, and executing a marketing program.

The center opens with two clients and will soon house a local venture-capital group, Coronado Venture Fund, according to the Arizona Daily Star. The clients are Arizona Microsystems, which is developing UA technologies for optical material design; and Earth Knowledge, an environmental consulting company founded by former research scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey.

The park, home to 28 companies and organizations and nearly 6,000 employees, is the sixth largest university research park in the U.S. and was named Research Park of the Year in 2001. Plans are underway to nearly double its current size over the next 5-8 years.

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For more information:

"Arizona Center for Innovation Opens to Promote High Tech Companies," UA News, 7/8/2003

"New incubator set to drive economy," Inside Tucson Business

"New business incubator hatched," Tucson Citizen, 7/23/2003