Dr. Keishla M. Tirado

DIRECTOR OF FEDERAL PROGRAMS
DECA ANALYTICS

Keishla has over 15 years of experience as an educator and university professor at various educational institutions and universities in Puerto Rico and has been responsible for their strategic planning, accreditation processes and grant writing. She was the Director of the Center for Innovation and Technology at the Puerto Rico Small Business Development Centers (PR SBDC) and also managed the Puerto Rico Innovation and Entrepreneurship Assistance Program (PRidea), a grant from the Small Business Administration (SBA) Federal and State Technology Partnership (FAST) program, for which she was the primary proposal writer —a grant that had not been awarded to Puerto Rico since 2015. As Director of the Center, Keishla leveraged her experience in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs to provide assistance to entrepreneurs and researchers to further develop their innovations and commercialize their products. She also provides support and training to entrepreneurs, researchers, business counselors and different organizations in areas such as SBIR fundamentals, how to write a competitive SBIR proposal, cybersecurity, commercialization process, business planning for tech companies, intellectual property, patents, nontraditional forms of acquiring capital for your business, among others. Keishla also serves as a reviewer for the National Science Foundation’s SBIR programs.