An effort to spur investment in Alaska-based entrepreneurial efforts — largely in the technology sector — progressed in 2006. Alaska InvestNet, an Anchorage-based nonprofit that aims to connect entrepreneurs with investors, hosted an investment opportunity meeting November in Anchorage.

Five technology companies made presentations at the invitation-only meeting in front of potential angel investors and faculty of the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Representatives from Biopar LLC, Borealis Broadband, Dalson Energy, MontAska Technologies Inc. and Variance Dynamical Corp. made their case for private investment financing to angel investors who sat with poker faces listening to each pitch.

Angel investors are individuals who seek companies ready for private funding in which to invest. Unlike a typical investor, angels come into a project at a very early stage.

These rough-around-the-edges business pursuits are risky. However, the return on a successful investment can be rather lucrative for an angel, who looks for a return in terms of a multiple — 10 or 100 or even 1,000 times — of their initial investment, rather than a percentage.

Investors are expected to come forward sometime in the first quarter of 2007 to fund one of these candidates, according to InvestNet's executive director Kevin Wiley.

Anchorage-based Anlit Technologies launched its computer cleaning product to the world via the Internet in the spring.

The Web-based computer cleaning service that targets PCs operates automatically once the user fills in customer and computer information, and inserts a blank disc into a CD writer. The service, initially offered for $99, is completely automatic and will wipe a computer's hard disk clean and re-install any software owned by the user.

Anlit extended its launching to add new features that will allow the service to install and wipe networked computers clean. The improvements will allow the Web-based service to clean computers installed on networks, then to install proprietary business type software needed in legal and restaurant environments that operate from databases or interface with franchise software.

Juan Pulido, president of Anlit, has aspirations of partnering with Internet service providers worldwide.

Satellite phone service provider Iridium opened a satellite station near Fairbanks this past summer.

Iridium Satellite LLC's top official said his company is in the Arctic to stay, citing a change in its business plan from providing every businessman a cell phone to delivering service in the most rural of areas.

“If you look at our figures from five years ago compared to today, you will see we have handsomely increased our coverage in Alaska,” said Iridium's CEO Dan Colussy in late August in Anchorage.

Using a series of low-orbit satellites, Iridium is providing wireless telephone service in hard-to-get-to places — and Alaska is full of those.

Stating that it has more than 1 million minutes of traffic a year in Alaska alone, Iridium boasts that it covers all of Alaska with its satellite phone service. The company said it has experienced 40 percent annual growth rate in Alaska-based phone calls.

While many Alaska companies explore the virtues of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Harman's Repair Station in Anchorage is ahead of the curve with its plans to put the emerging cargo-tracking technology to work soon.

“If this is going to work, we will have to install it and prove it to our customers, so that's our plan,” said Don Harman, president of Harman's Repair Station. Harman expected to install and use the technology sometime in early 2007.

While radio frequency identification has not officially caught on in Alaska yet, Harman thinks that if he uses it, then others will see the advantages.

RFID works by emitting a radio wave that is reflected back to a transceiver that reads the information. This information can be used in tracking, identification and time-coding arrival and departures of shipments.

Mike Ronchetti, president of RFID Complete LLC and Smart Inventory Management LLC of Anchorage, says the technology improves efficiencies.

An RFID system is tracking certain military shipments as they come in or go out at Alaska Airlines' cargo facilities.

The information from the shipment is “interrogated” by hardware and sent to a database system, according to Ronchetti, whose company monitored the installations two years ago.

The information from the shipments can be accessed by the military worldwide, Ronchetti said.

After seeing the dramatic improvement in safety experienced in Alaska, Germany and Japan as well as nations in Central America are interested in new navigation technology used in Western Alaska.

Known as Capstone in Alaska, and outside the state as Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B), the technology provides weather reports, terrain maps and live air traffic tracking right in the cockpit. The use of ADS-B in Alaska has reduced accidents 43 percent during the last three years in the Yukon-Kuskokwim River Delta, an area not served by conventional radar.

In 2005 China entered into an agreement with Anchorage-based ADS-B Technologies LLC for more than 50 ADS-B units for use on training aircraft and promised to purchase 150 units to go into new Cessna aircraft.

ADS-B Technologies has also deployed ADS-B for use between the Republic of Palau and the Northern Mariana Islands in the South Pacific.

While the technology is ground-based worldwide now, it is estimated that it could be used in a satellite-based system in as little as 2 1/2 years to cover some areas of the planet.

The Alaska Export Assistance Center is working with ADS-B Technologies and Garmin Industries, one of the main U.S.-based manufacturers of the equipment, to help export the equipment to developing countries.