SBIR Phase I: Project to Create an Automated System to Identify and Curate Web-based Resources for Entrepreneurs

该项目的创新之处在于应用机器智能技术，帮助企业家快速连接到特定的资源和服务，帮助他们走上成功之路。企业家是美国经济增长和发展的重要来源，但许多企业家在筹集资金、法律要求和组建创业管理团队等关键技能领域需要帮助。企业家可以利用数以万计的资源在这些领域和其他领域提供帮助，但是这些资源的质量参差不齐，充其量也很难为特定情况找到适当的资源。拟议的在线系统将使用机器智能引擎来识别、分类和预选大量资源，然后使用基于语义网络的系统将企业家的需求与当时最能支持其确切需求的资源相匹配。这项提案的更广泛/商业影响将显著加速美国企业家的成功，包括创造就业机会。许多企业家失败是因为他们“不知道自己不知道什么”，因为他们不知道可用的资源，或者因为他们不能轻易找到这些资源。拟议中的在线“免费增值”系统将成为提高美国初创企业成功率的宝贵工具，引导时间紧张的企业家在需要时获得特定的资源和支持。这些工具将包括与非营利组织、政府机构和优质赞助商的资源和伙伴关系。除了个体企业主，该系统和相关社区还将利用联邦、州和地方机构的现有投资，更好地接触和帮助潜在的和新兴的企业家。这个项目吸引了一些组织的兴趣，他们希望与团队合作，将这个系统带到他们的创业社区。初步工作强烈表明，这种基于机器智能的系统将迅速吸引许多企业家，并加速他们的成功

The innovation in this project is the application of machine intelligence technology to help entrepreneurs quickly connect to the specific resources and services that will help them on their road to success. Entrepreneurs are a key source of growth and economic development in the United States, but many entrepreneurs need assistance in key skill areas ranging from raising capital, to legal requirements to building a startup management team. Tens of thousands of resources are available to entrepreneurs to help with these and other areas, however their quality varies dramatically and it is difficult, at best, to find the proper resources for a particular situation. The proposed online system will use a machine intelligence engine to identify, categorize and pre-qualify a wide array of resources, and then use the semantic network-based system to match the needs of the entrepreneur to the resources that will best support their exact need at the time. The broader/commercial impact of this proposal will significantly accelerate the success of America's entrepreneurs to include job creation. Many entrepreneurs fail because they "do not know what they do not know", because they do not know about available resources, or because they cannot readily find those resources. The proposed, online, "freemium" system will be an invaluable tool to improve the rate of success of America's startups, guiding the time-strapped entrepreneur to specific resources and support whenever it is needed. These tools will include resources and partnerships with non-profits, government agencies and quality sponsors. Beyond the individual business owner, the system and involved communities will leverage existing investments from federal, state and local agencies to better reach and assist potential and emerging entrepreneurs. This project has attracted the interest of organizations which want to partner with the team to bring this system to their entrepreneurial communities. Preliminary work strongly indicates that this machine intelligence-based system will quickly attract many entrepreneurs and accelerate their success