The Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division in southwest Indiana produces a lot of innovations and technology. Most of it is focused on defense.
But Crane officials think there could be broader uses for some of the technology it develops. So Crane is partnering with The Mill, a growing coworking and entrepreneurship center in Bloomington, to launch the Propels Accelerator.
The Propels Accelerator, which is being funded by a federal grant, will provide the opportunity for entrepreneurs and small business owners to bring patented government technology to market. The six-week accelerator runs from May 4 through June 17.
The hope is the free-thinking entrepreneurs that become part of the new accelerator will find a way to build private-sector businesses around the technology that sprouts from Crane. Earlier this month, Crane engineers and inventors showcased – to local entrepreneurs interested in becoming a part of the new accelerator – a handful of their high-tech wares, including assistive devices for low-light emergency response and drone tracking technology, they think could have commercial applications. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
“We have a portfolio of 400 technologies that we will open up,” says Jenna Dix, technology transfer director at Crane.
The Mill will assist the entrepreneurs with guidance and mentoring, access to potential investors and other resources essential to start a business. For its part, Crane is willing to make its innovators and engineers available to entrepreneurs and business operators as they work to take the Crane-developed technology to market.
Groups accepted into the new accelerator will meet regularly for a variety of group activities and one-on-one mentoring.
At the conclusion of the event, participants will be invited to pitch their ideas and compete for prizes at the Radius Indiana Crane Intellectual Property Defense Innovation competition.
“When Crane first contacted us about the possibility of partnering with them on this last December, we were super excited,” expresses Andy Lehman, head of accelerator programing at The Mill. “We think this has the potential to really showcase the talent we have at The Mill and in the southern Indiana region. We think this could be a huge benefit for us and the entrepreneurs we work with.”
That is music to Crane officials’ ears. While Crane could benefit from licensing fees of its technology through this initiative, that’s not the primary motivation.
The big impetus for Crane is bolstering the region’s “innovation ecosystem,” Dix explains.
“We’re working hard to grow our technology-based ecosystem,” Dix states. “Anything we can do to support start-ups around technology is definitely a good thing for Crane. As we grow, we need our ecosystem to grow and be able to support us.”
Dix says Crane officials are so eager to share the technology that sprouts from their facilities, they’re willing to play matchmaker.
“We tell people to call up the (Crane) tech transfer office and tell us what technology you’re interested in,” she says. “We will send you a list of technologies we have related to that. We’re absolutely willing to do that matchmaking from our end.”
This initiative stems from the desire to share with taxpayers what they’re funding.
“Technology transfer is about helping the public get access to resources of a federal laboratory,” Dix explains. “All the developments in our labs are funded by tax dollars, so it’s important that the public get the maximum benefit from those things. We think with some of the technology we’ve developed, there could be quite a bit of potential in a commercial market.”
Since Crane’s prime motivation isn’t to make money from this, Dix says there won’t be steep licensing fees.
“We want to make the maximum use of this technology, so we can make really great deals with the licensing,” Dix emphasizes. “We could even offer a free non-exclusive one-year license so companies (in the Propels Accelerator) can give it a test run.
“We don’t want to hinder start-ups upfront, so we can defer or have graduated licensing fees. We have a lot of flexibility how we do licensing.”
Interest in the Propels Accelerator has come from far and wide. Lehman said entrepreneurs from as far away as South Bend and Terre Haute attended the tech showcase this month.
Crane officials said there’s also been national interest. Already, federal labs in New Jersey and Cleveland have inquired about the accelerator.
“We hope this is the first of many years for the Propels Accelerator, and we hope to make this a model for other (Department of Defense) labs,” Dix says. “We’ve had a lot of interest even outside the Navy, extending to broader federal labs. There’s a lot of interest in replicating what we’re doing here. So the impact of this could be really big.”
