After the dot.com bubble burst, Dan Flynn and most of his department at Marconi hit the street at the same time. The ex-director of engineering for the Pittsburgh IT giant, Flynn saw two options for the unemployed pool of local tech talent. “We could scatter individually to other hot spots like Boston, San Jose or Austin,” Flynn told his colleagues. “Or we could form a team right here to attract money and jobs to the region.”
In 2002, Accipiter Systems, Inc. was founded, flush with an idea to perform simulations to test computer networks before they’re built. In hopes of securing the funds they needed to ramp up the concept, the nascent firm submitted a grant proposal to The Technology Collaborative (TTC), an economic development organization dedicated to growing Pennsylvania’s world-class tech industry, TTC awards state funds to help companies get their promising technology projects off the drawing board and into the marketplace.
“We had a short window of opportunity to make these jobs happen, because the personal finances we were bringing to the table were limited,” said Flynn, president and co-founder of Accipiter Systems. “TTC was moving as fast as we needed to move, awarding grants every six months.” Accipiter Systems received $164,000 from TTC’s Technology Commercialization Initiative to perform OPNET Modeling and Simulation of networking equipment, technologies and protocols under simulated network conditions.
As the OPNET project was launching, Accipiter Systems had another iron in the fire—promoting its computer networking expertise to Lockheed Martin, the U.S. Government’s largest defense contractor. “Back then, the Government was investing $800 million to upgrade the military’s network, so it made sense to focus on that industry,” says Flynn. The OPNET project piqued Lockheed Martin’s interest and Accipiter Systems landed a spot on a DARPA project team working to improve connectivity for U.S. troops stationed in mountainous war zones.
In 2004, Accipiter Systems received a second $51,000 grant from TTC to continue its OPNET research to help the DOD get more bandwidth and data into remote locations. In 2006 and 2007, the company received two more TTC grants totaling $254,000 to fund research on Wi-Hy, a wireless system that eliminates network dropouts and provides a more reliable network for the military, especially robots and their operators. “When the robots sent to inspect for IEDs go around corners, the signal back to the operator can drop out,” says Flynn. “Our system offers a seamless switchover between multiple diverse links to maintain continuous communication.”
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