TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER 16 “This program is the best program in all the years of working with the lab I’ve ever seen,” said David Noack, one of the judges and director of the Idaho Small Business Development Center regional office in Idaho Falls. Pitch competition teams, composed of INL researchers and entrepreneurial partners, were: Industrial Electrification (Ting He, Dong Ding, Norris Krueger-IM):A new electrolysis cell technology that makes use of a novel electrolyte and catalyst to upgrade ethane into higher-value chemicals. WEX (Kurt Derr, Samuel Ramirez, Kaz Lawler-IM):A wireless communication appliance that automatically scans the radiofrequency spectrum in real time, allowing analysts to discover all the waveforms present in an area of interest. AHA (Ryan Hruska, Shane Cherry, Richard Newman-IM): Software that can create“regional dependency” models for facilities and resources based on information from subject matter experts, technical manuals and open sources for use in emergencies such as natural or man-made disasters. 4Cs (Vivek Agarwal, John Buttles, Jessica Whiting-IM):Wireless valve position sensors for nuclear plant configuration management with applications in oil and gas, and many other manufacturing industries. The Fog (Steve Reese, Jada Williams, Bob Brown, Jon Duval-IM): Application for the abatement of mercury contamination. Pitching Pros (Johanna Oxstrand, Roya Gordon, David Cohen-IM): Highly scalable computer-based procedure system for fieldworkers. INL partners with Cascadia CleanTech to launch Lab Accelerator training DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) launched National Lab Accelerator programs at several national laboratories in 2016 to help scientists understand and interact with industry. National Lab Accelerator is one of several EERE projects collectively called ”Lab-Bridge,” which provides support for laboratories to experiment with new approaches to partnership and tech transfer. National laboratories participating in the Lab Accelerator program partner with local universities and business development networks to present concepts for commercialization.This also serves as a precursor to DOE’s two-month intensive Energy I-Corps program (also part of Lab-Bridge). In spring 2017, INL partnered with Cascadia CleanTech, a Seattle-based business development organization, to initiate its pilot National Lab Accelerator training program. Thirteen INL teams, all partnered with industry mentors (IMs), met April 13 to learn about innovation-to-market techniques and how to create technology value propositions through customer discovery — a practice based on the notion that entrepreneurs must “test sell” at every stage and run pass/fail tests to determine the existence of a viable market for a product or service. From that event, six teams were selected to participate in a “pitch competition,” making presentations to and answering questions from a six-judge panel. Left: Lab Accelerator training at INL. Right: Industrial electrification project.