Tech startups can get free advice on exporting at SBU event

Successful local exporters and government experts will provide advice to technology startups on selling goods and services overseas at a workshop Oct. 27 at Stony Brook University.

The half-day event will showcase the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Startup Global initiative launched in 2015. The effort aims to get new businesses to think about exporting from their earliest days, said Susan Sadocha, director of the department’s Long Island Export Assistance Center.

She said Startup Global works with business incubators and accelerators, which nurture fledgling companies.

Exports from local companies grew 21 percent between 2012 and 2014 to $10.5 billion, government statistics show.

Speakers will include: Thomas McGinty, the Commerce Department’s acting deputy undersecretary for international trade; James A. Hayward, chief executive of Stony Brook-based tech company Applied DNA Sciences; and Michelle Gillette-Kelly, founder of Ms. Michelle’s, a Calverton-based manufacturer of gluten-free cookies.

Local representatives of the U.S. Export-Import Bank and Small Business Administration will also participate.

Topics to be discussed include marketing overseas, intellectual property protection, business strategy and government programs.

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The free event will run from 8:30 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. at the Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology building, 1500 Stony Brook Rd. on the Stony Brook campus.

Register at bit.ly/ 2e5BJoE.— JAMES T. MADORE