Daily Business Report-April 8, 2020
MiraCosta College’s Technology Career Institute in Carlsbad.
MiraCosta College to start manufacturing
protective equipment for area medical workers
MiraCosta College could soon be manufacturing thousands of face masks, hundreds of face shields, and scores of decontamination boxes as part of a statewide effort to ramp up production of personal protective devices (PPEs) in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s going to take everyone in California to step up and do their part, and that includes us,” said Linda Kurokawa, MiraCosta’s director of community education and workforce development at the college. “It feels wonderful to be part of a community that is doing what it can to save lives.”
Instructors at MiraCosta College’s Technology Career Institute in Carlsbad, using the institute’s machine and engineering shops and 3-D printers, have already developed prototypes and are ordering parts for hospital face shields. It hopes to begin manufacturing up to 100 face shields daily by the end of the week, Kurokawa said. Prototypes of decontamination boxes that will use UV lights and sensors to disinfect various medical equipment should be completed by early next week. In addition, students in a sewing and upholstery class are being recruited to stitch up to 1,000 face masks per week using elastic bands and fabric Kurokawa purchased from a local crafts store.
Face masks and face shields will be sent to Rady Children’s Hospital for distribution. The decontamination boxes will be sent to hospitals and medical centers throughout the region.
“As soon as we can get our protocols, logistics, and approvals in place, we plan on moving forward,” Kurokawa said.
The Technology Career Institute is part of MiraCosta College’s Community Education & Workforce Development Department and is designed to provide not-for-profit, accelerated job training in advanced manufacturing, engineering, health care, security and more. “With our manufacturing and engineering equipment, it became really clear that one of the things we could be doing is have our students get some real hands-on experience making some of the equipment that is needed,” Kurokawa said.
The MiraCosta College Maker Lab at the Oceanside Campus, part of the college’s Design Department, is equipped with seven 3-D printers, and Instructional Associate Chris Boehm last week developed prototypes for a face mask, face shield, and a vent splitter, the latter of which can essentially allow a single ventilator to be used for two separate patients at the same time.
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Small businesses hurt by snag in system
to deliver Paycheck Protection loans
Days after Gov. Gavin Newsom encouraged California small businesses to apply for new state and federal loans to help keep employees on payroll, the system is hitting significant technological snags, Politico reports.
E-Tran, the government system through which banks are processing loans for the $350-billion Paycheck Protection Program that launched Friday, crashed for at least four hours on Monday because of the volume of users. The system also asked banks for documents they didn’t anticipate, further slowing down and complicating the process.
“It is like a feeding frenzy” as banks rush to get loans processed, Bank of the West Corporate President Cynthia Blankenship said.
— Reported by Emily Hoeven, CalMatters
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General Atomics accelerates development
of diagnostic system for coronavirus testing
General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems Group (GA-EMS) announced that it is accelerating the development schedule of its MATCHBOX Point-of-Care molecular diagnostic platform to respond to the growing need for testing for COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses.
MATCHBOX is a stand-alone platform based on polymerase chain reaction technology for positive identification of molecular targets. MATCHBOX works with blood, urine and swab samples and does not require any manual sample preparation, special training, additional equipment, or facility set-up.
MATCHBOX is expected to have the capability to test and provide a diagnosis in the field at the point of care within 30-60 minutes for a wide range of known respiratory infections, including COVID-19 and influenza A and B, using a single patient sample.
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SD Community College District board
to hold virtual meeting on Thursday
The San Diego Community College District (SDCCD) Board of Trustees will hold its first-ever virtual meeting at 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 9.
District board members, the SDCCD chancellor, and other governance leaders will participate in the board meeting remotely using Zoom. The public can watch a YouTube live stream of the meeting at: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheSDCCD/featured
Among the items coming before the board is an update on the tuition-free San Diego Promise program, which has served 4,360 students since its implementation four years ago and is now among the largest of its kind in the state.
The board will also ratify a resolution endorsing Senate Bill 874 (Hill-San Mateo) which would extend and expand the state’s program which allows community colleges the ability to offer four year degrees. The bill would eliminate the 2026 sunset date on the existing baccalaureate programs at San Diego Mesa College and 14 other California community college campuses and allow for an expansion of such programs at any of the state’s 115 community colleges.
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Citations issued throughout county
to social-distancing violators
Dozens of San Diego-area residents and some local businesses received citations over the weekend for violating government social- distancing requirements designed to slow the spread of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, authorities reported Monday.
In the city of San Diego, police handed out 16 tickets to individual scofflaws on Saturday and Sunday — five in Balboa Park and 11 in the Ocean Beach area, including Sunset Cliffs and Robb Field park, SDPD public-affairs Lt. Shawn Takeuchi said.
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Point Predictive offers SyntheticID Alert
to all U.S. auto lenders at no charge
Point Predictive Inc., a San Diego-based company that provides machine learning software to lenders, announced that it will provide its patented technology SyntheticID Alert to auto lenders at no charge for the rest of this year. The company is providing a free license to their software to help lenders scan and identify synthetic identities within their existing loan portfolios, as well as scan new applications that they receive for the remainder of 2020.
SyntheticID Alert scores each application or loan in the lender’s portfolio based on patterns of fraud that data scientists have identified across millions of historical automotive applications.
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Cameron Martel named director
of digital growth at Reel Axis
Reel Axis, a San Diego-based technology firm, has announced the expansion of its leadership team with Cameron Martel being named the director of digital growth.
In this new role, Martel will be focused on delivering next-generation content, website and marketing strategies to support the organization in its continued growth and expansion plans.
Martel also will be responsible for leading the current production team, as well as driving continued adoption of the EOS Model process and methodology.
“We are in unprecedented times right now, and we have a huge opportunity to grow and come out of this altered business environment better than before if we do it together,” says Chris Lee, president of Reel Axis.
Martel comes to Reel Axis with more than 12 years of experience in the digital marketplace both as an entrepreneur, business leader and speaker.
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The Pandemic within the Pandemic
As COVID-19 deaths rise, domestic violence and murder-suicides are rising as well. In just the last week, domestic violence murder-suicides have increased 100 percent.
Click here to read this report from Casey Gwinn, president of Alliance for HOPE International and former San Diego city attorney.
