Baltimore biomedical company
Juxtopia expects to receive $2.6 million in federal grants by the end of the year and plans to use that money toward improving its flagship product, high-tech goggles.
Federal agencies the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Defense will award the grants. It has received $330,000 in federal grants, and expects to receive another $2.35 million before year's end.
Jayfus Doswell, Juxtopia's CEO and Founder, says the money is going toward improving the software and hardware of its goggles, which have a variety of applications. Doswell
envisions that they can be used by combat medics assisting a fallen soldier or by doctors performing surgery.
Johns Hopkins Medicine’s department of surgery is using the goggles in pre-clinical trials to determine their medical applications, says Doswell.
Doswell listed the grants as:
* From the National Science Foundation, $230,000 in 2012 and another $2 million for a three-year period expected within the next six months;
* From the Department of Defense, $100,000 in 2011 and another $100,000 expected in 2012; and
* From the National Institutes of Health, two grants totaling $250,000 expected in 2012.
Juxtopia was founded a decade ago as a biomedical technology company, spun out of Morgan State University. In 2010, it graduated from the ETC Emerging Technology Center @ Johns Hopkins Eastern.
It returned to the incubator this year under a special program in which it will strive to increase the number of minority-owned tech companies in Baltimore. Called the Juxtopia Urban Innovation and Cooperative Entrepreneurship, Doswell says there are currently three companies in the program.
“We try to guide minority-owned companies through the process,” Doswell says.
This summer, Juxtopia is offering five paid internships, thanks to a National Science Foundation grant, for high school and college students. The internships, in different engineering fields, are still open.
With a staff of 10 engineers and four mangers, Doswell says Juxtopia is “always looking” for new employees.
Source: Jayson Doswell, Juxtopia
Writer: Barbara Pash