CO.LAB wins SBA contest to fund GigTank program for women and more business news

Contributed photo / Staff of the Company Lab in Chattanooga celebrate winning a $50,000 SBA prize to help fund its business accelerator program
Contributed photo / Staff of the Company Lab in Chattanooga celebrate winning a $50,000 SBA prize to help fund its business accelerator program

CO.LAB wins SBA prize to fund GIGTANK 365

The Company Lab will relaunch its GigTank accelerator program with a female founders focus this fall with the aid of a $50,000 prize awarded to the small business development agency by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

CO.LAB, which won a similar SBA grant in 2015, was one of 84 prize winners in the SBA's Growth Accelerator Fund Competition. The only other Tennessee program to be selected for the award was FoundersForge, a Johnston City-based accelerator.

"The value of this prize shouldn't be understated," CO.LAB CEO Lindsey Cox said. "It will allow us to focus on supporting women founders by connecting them with mentors and resources through our GIGTANK 365 program. CO.LAB is committed to helping close gaps in access to innovation and resources, and these funds will help us do that."

The SBA prize is the result of a new component from the SBA aimed at spurring investment in underrepresented communities within the innovation economy at scale. Along with the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Catalyst competition, SBA gave a total of $5.4 million in prize money.

"This year's cohort of winners emphasizes our commitment to equity," SBA Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman said. "Our awardees have innovative plans to support underserved entrepreneurs, including women, people of color, and individuals from underrepresented geographic areas."

Applications were judged by panels of experts from the private and public sector with experience in early-stage investment, entrepreneurship, academics, startups, and economic development.

Pakistani jailed for 12 years over costly scheme for AT&T

A Pakistan resident has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for a conspiracy to "unlock" phones from AT&T's network, a scheme the company says cost it more than $200 million.

Muhammad Fahd, 35, of Karachi, recruited an employee of an AT&T call center in Bothell, Washington, via Facebook in 2012, and began bribing that employee and his coworkers to use their credentials to unlock phones.

That allowed the phones to be removed from AT&T's network, even if customers had not finished paying for the expensive devices or their service contracts had not expired. The customers could then buy cheaper service for their phones.

Fahd later had workers install malware on the company's network, allowing him to unlock the phones from Pakistan. He persisted even after the company detected the initial scheme and fired two of the workers involved, prosecutors said.

Fahd sold the illegal phone-unlocking service through online retailers, raking in millions. His extravagant lifestyle included frequent trips abroad, $1,000-a-night hotel stays in Dubai and a $30,000 watch. He bragged of hiring the British singer-songwriter Jay Sean to play his wedding for $100,000, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle.

He paid three AT&T workers $922,000 from 2012 to 2017 before he was arrested in Hong Kong in early 2018. More than 1.9 million phones were unlocked as part of the conspiracy, AT&T's forensic analysis found.

The company based its $200 million loss amount on just phones that were removed from its network before customers fully paid for them - not including the amount it lost on service contracts. Prosecutors said such losses would have been passed on to consumers, in terms of higher overall prices, and shareholders.

Air fares get cheaper as flying fears return

The nation's airlines are sweating over an unexpected drop in business travel in the last few weeks - and that's welcome news if you're a traveler looking to save money.

This month, domestic airfares are down 5% from September 2019 and international fares down about 8%, drops that industry experts attribute partly to the traditional price slump that happens at the end of the peak summer travel season plus the rise in coronavirus cases due to the Delta variant, according to the travel website Hopper.

Prices for flights to Europe are at a five-year low, down more than 30% compared with the same month in 2019, according to the travel website.

But the discounted prices are not expected to last long, with increases likely when travelers start booking holiday trips.

"Everything we are seeing says people are definitely going to be traveling," said Adit Damodaran, an economist for Hopper.

The airfare roller coaster shows how the pandemic continues to affect the nation's $1.5-trillion travel and hospitality industry. For the first time since COVID-19 took hold in spring 2020, travel demand this summer began to match and briefly surpass pre-pandemic levels, giving airline executives hope that the industry would soon rebound from more than a year of financial losses.

But in the last few weeks, airlines have reported a steep drop in demand and an increase in reservation cancellations.

The average domestic round-trip flight costs $260, down from $290 at the end of August, according to Hopper. International round-trip fares have dropped to an average of $700, down from $760 at the end of August.

Boeing adds production of aircraft near St. Louis

Aerospace giant Boeing Co. will invest $200 million to begin manufacturing the U.S. Navy's latest unmanned aircraft at MidAmerica St. Louis Airport in a project that could add at least 150 jobs on the company's southwest Illinois campus, officials said Friday.

Boeing will build the MQ-25 Stingray, the Navy's first carrier-based unmanned aircraft in a state-of-the-art plant of about 300,000 square feet (27,870 square meters). The company has been under contract developing and testing the craft since 2018.

"This state-of-the art production facility further roots Boeing's local presence here in Metro East and it extends Illinois' legacy of support for our national defense...," Gov. J.B. Pritzker said. "Boeing employs hundreds of Illinoisans and supports thousands more jobs throughout our state. I'm very proud to have them as a partner in preparing our communities for 21st century manufacturing."

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