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Small Business News

Small Business News

News | Jan. 21, 2025

OSBP at Consumer Electronics Show

By Suzanne Zurn Office of Small Business Programs

The OSBP team will be onsite at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas from January 7-10 to meet with small businesses interested in enhancing national security and providing innovative technologies to support the warfighter.

CES is the only trade show that showcases the entire tech landscape at one event and is a unique opportunity for OSBP to learn from innovative small businesses on the cutting edge of technology development. Our team wants to learn how we can better support these companies to help bring their ideas into DoD while providing them pathways to win government contracts.

If you are attending CES, we invite you to connect with us:

  • Dates: January 7-10, 2025
  • Booth: We will be co-located with the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Industrial Base Policy in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Booth.
  • Location: Booth 61401 in Hall G of the Venetian Expo
  • Meetings: Submit a meeting request through the CES event app or via our meeting request form. Please note that all requests may not be fulfilled due to demand and limited availability.

DoD Small Business News

OSBP and NIST Partner for Small Businesses

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) Office of Small Business Programs (OSBP), the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense on small business matters, and  U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program (MEP) signed a memorandum of agreement on May 02, 2021 to collaborate on strengthening the national security of the small business industrial base.

The new partnership links two DOD organizations with a common mission to assist small businesses and  to achieve shared objectives:

  • Provide training and technical support to small-and-medium U.S. manufacturers engaged or planning to engage with the defense sector.
  • Promote and co-sponsor joint training events beneficial to national security, with an emphasis on cybersecurity for defense manufacturing.
  • Establish direct and consistent relationships at multiple organizational levels within both Parties to document and share complementary assistance best practices.  
  • Develop clear objectives, benchmarks and goals to measure success, added value, and synergy of collaborations between NIST MEP and OUSD(A&S) OSBP.

The OSBP and NIST partnership enables more DOD collaboration and support of small and medium manufacturers (SMMs). They will Collaborate to support the ongoing development and security of the Defense and Industrial Base.

This partnership will combine OSBP’s expertise in leveraging small businesses to close capability gaps for our armed forces with the MEP National Network.  The MEP operational base provides an opportunity for OUSD(A&S) OSBP to serve as a resource for the MEP Program of MEP Centers engages defense sector and defense-relevant manufacturing clients to promote and provide technologies, prototypes and products for National Security missions.