Innovation Program Success Story

Sea-Watch Technologies Testimonial
“Sea-Watch Technologies Launches with R & D Mentoring”

Since 2002, Sea-Watch Technologies has developed and deployed integrated monitoring and communications equipment for client use in marine applications. Recently, the Sea-Watch team developed an advanced remote command and control architecture dubbed “SIS”. The SIS combines the Internet, Artificial Intelligence and GPS into a seamless tool for use in alerting owners and/or fleet managers of “states” of on board systems. To successfully inform marine operators of the SIS it was pertinent to discover effective marketing strategies to promote the configurable ‘command and control’. Sea-Watch also sought methods to create complete and meaningful demonstrations of the product for the client.

In order to accomplish these marketing tasks, Sea-Watch strengthened its partnership with Interface and Control Systems, Inc. (INS) in Indialantic, Time Wise Management Systems (TWMS), and Florida Manufacturing Extension Partnership (Florida MEP), as well as tapped into an H-1B Advanced Manufacturing Grant funded by the US Department of Labor and administered by the Brevard Workforce Development Board. The funds supplied the company with small assessment of Sea-Watch’s products and business practices. As a result of the assessment and partnerships, ICS staff trained and guided Sea Watch employees in the development of appropriate software models able to simulate control systems for prospective clients. From these sessions Sea Watch developed a configurable web based GUI, the “Marine Monitoring and Alert System Preview”. These demonstration models, an excellent marketing tool, will be mentored further in the future on how to use additional complimentary grants to accelerate such efforts.

The grant and partnerships with ICS, TWMS, and Florida MEP allowed the company to: save $20,000 in direct costs; enhance its overall system marketability through web-based simulation tools; increase market reach through the use of internet; reduce shipping time through the use of customizable marketing tools which resulted in a customer specific code, increased customer satisfaction and getting a patent issued, clearing the way for sales of the product.

“Complementary funding from the grant helped reduce the pressure of financial demands we faced as a ‘start-up’, that competed with ‘training’,” said Loretta Kish, President and CEO of Sea-Watch Technologies. “The training we consequently received, allowed us to integrate software modules and create our final product, which was critical to our business.”