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McAllen Innovation Grant Program Helps Entrepreneurs Develop Cutting-Edge Ideas
Dr. Joe Sanchez was one of the first three people to be awarded a McAllen Innovation Grant.
When McAllen resident Dr. Joe Sanchez heard the McAllen Chamber of Commerce was giving away money to creative entrepreneurs‚ he jumped at the chance to make his business idea a reality.
Sanchez was one of three recipients of $10‚000 innovation grants the Chamber awarded in 2007 to entrepreneurs developing fresh concepts and products. The McAllen Innovation Grant Program was launched in 2006 and is a joint project of the Chamber and the City of McAllen. Inspiration for the program came from Richard Florida’s best-selling book‚ The Rise of the Creative Class‚ and organizers hope it will attract and retain creative entrepreneurs like Sanchez to the area.
An educational psychologist and educator‚ Sanchez invented a Web-based application for school systems that allows educational professionals to immediately access analyzed data on each of their students‚ including attendance‚ grades and behavior.
“It’s extremely user-friendly and saves them time‚ money‚ effort and redundancy‚” Sanchez says. “Since the data is analyzed‚ a teacher could‚ for instance‚ look up students who have three absences‚ and it would give them an alphabetized list. They can have the application right on their desktop for the specific students they deal with.”
Sanchez has been an educator for more than 20 years and has spent the last 15 years developing the application.
Sanchez launched his company‚ Academic Success Plus Inc.‚ and is using the grant money for third-party Beta testing and to address legal issues related to patent and copyright.
Story by Jessica Mozo
Photo by Wes Aldridge
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