SMALL and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) across the region are being encouraged to use technology developed for the defence sector.

The Defence Diversification Agency (DDA) is looking for 80 SMEs which could benefit from cutting edge technology developed by UK Defence.

DDA was set up in 1999 so the fruits of UK Defence research and development could be exploited.

John Gates, technology diversification manager for DDA, said: "We are interested in high or low-tech companies with enough of a research and development background to look beyond the technology to the business opportunity."

The £600,000 project, run in partnership with the Regional Technology Centre (RTC) North, will be extended during the next two-and-a- half-years, during which it is hoped to help the participating companies boost their turnover and staffing.

Mr Gates hopes to see the 80 firms take on 25 percent more staff and increase turnover by an average of ten per cent as a result of their involvement.

At present, he is searching databases and consulting trade sector and regional organisations to help identify the right companies to approach.

After likely firms have been identified, they will be offered an analysis of the technology they are using and given the chance to compare it with the best available.

Mr Gates said: "It is essentially about developing a new product or process that just happens to be a new technology or even an invention, looking beyond invention to the entrepreneur."

Mr Gates believes the DDA will be able to offer firms several opportunities to tap in to new technology.

It will then be the job of each firm to choose which opportunity fits with its particular business circumstance.

Mr Gates said: "My hope is that once they have started they will pick up other opportunities and eventually become serial innovators.

"Because of the massive and rapid changes to the industrial landscape of the North-East, we now have large numbers of experienced professional problem solvers, full of product and marketing ideas, who need an input of technology solutions and the motivation to develop them into some kind of enterprise."

* To find out more about the DDA in the North-East log on to www.dda.gov.uk or telephone 0191- 516 4400.