G. Nagesh Rao — chief technologist at the U.S. Small Business Administration, where he advises on the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant and contract program — is energetic, enthusiastic and opinionated. All of which is complemented by his impressive resume: He’s got a background in engineering and has worked across both the private and public sectors. He was a 2016 Eisenhower Fellow, and spent time in both Vietnam and Sri Lanka over the past year advising both countries how to bring a SBIR-like program to life.

Rao has been working with the SBA for three years now, and he still gets really excited when talking about the kind of investments the SBIR program makes. The Roomba vacuum? That tech was initially developed via a SBIR grant. And many of the component pieces inside youriPhone? Same.

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