Deepika Singh, president of UF start-up company Sinmat, bought a plane ticket and headed for Washington, D.C., where she was praised Monday, along with representatives from other "clean energy" companies, by President Barack Obama.
The event was part of an announcement of billions of dollars in clean energy appropriations in the new federal budget.
"Innovators like you are creating the jobs that will foster our recovery," Obama said during the event.
Sinmat, a 15-employee company cofounded about five years ago by Deepika and her husband, Rajiv, a UF materials science and engineering professor, develops technology that makes lighting more efficient, Rajiv said.
It was created after the couple licensed technology developed at UF, he said.
"It was a great honor to be invited and recognized," Deepika wrote in an e-mail after the event.
