By: Dan Satinsky, VP of Business Development
NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) is pushing technology commercialization in new, creative ways through its first-ever “Fast Track to Market Competition.” Conceived by Foresight Science & Technology, LaRC’s technology commercialization support contractor, the Office of Innovation at the Office of Strategic Analysis, Communications and Business Development (OSACB) solicited technologies from LaRC’s research community relevant to offshore wind, advanced manufacturing or autonomous unmanned systems to compete for funding awards and accelerated commercialization support.
The seven competing teams went through a two-day pitch training session to orient them on how best to promote the commercial value of their technology. Each team made a seven-minute pitch presentation to a panel of industry experts, composed of Jay Borkland, Apex Companies, LLC.; Ross Tyler, Business Network for Offshore Wind; Luke Chow, Prime Manufacturing Technologies, Inc.; Jeff Johnson, Virginia Tech Center Research Park; Marty Kaszubowski, Center for Enterprise Innovation; and Ed Boudreau, GE Renewable Energy. Norton Kaplan, who initiated the idea of the competition and Daniel Satinsky, who recruited the panel, led the Foresight support team.
The competition was designed to promote the culture of commercialization at LaRC and to acquaint business opinion leaders with the capabilities of LaRC. OSACB is reviewing the panel’s recommendations and will soon announce awards to one or more of the competing technology teams. No matter what the outcome, all of the teams learned more about commercialization and the panelists learned more about LaRC, making winners all around.