From textiles that help regulate body temperature to batteries that make solar power more reliable, NASA scientists and engineers have produced thousands of technology and software patents.
But how do those innovations make their way into our everyday life?
This fall, University of Georgia students in the UGA Entrepreneurship Program explored NASA’s treasure trove of patents and developed ideas to bring these technologies to market as part of a collaboration with NASA.
“NASA has thousands of patents, but they don’t commercialize things,” said Don Chambers, assistant director of the UGA Entrepreneurship Program. “These students are searching for commercialization possibilities. They’re looking for problems that need solving.”
NASA’s T2U initiative connects universities with NASA-developed technology, providing students the opportunity to build case studies with the agency’s patent portfolio while learning about technology licensing and design thinking.
Students in Chambers’ entrepreneurship certificate capstone class are the first to participate in the T2U initiative at UGA.
“NASA solves very niche problems with extreme technology,” said Filipe Costa, a finance and real estate senior completing his entrepreneurship certificate. “You go through the patents, and they’re awesome. But what do I do with them? I mean, it’s sick, but how do I sell it? How do I make a business out of it?”
Costa was one of many students pitching their business ideas for NASA patents at the inaugural UGA-T2U pitch day on Nov. 19 at Studio 225, UGA’s student entrepreneurship center. Six teams presented their products to a panel of five judges.
NASA’s Technology Transfer Office launched T2U in 2015 to bring new energy into the technology commercialization process, said Mike Riccio, a NASA technology licensing specialist based in Atlanta. Riccio works with startups and established companies to find applications for NASA’s patents and also builds relationships with colleges and universities across the country, now including UGA.
“T2U serves as an excellent pathway to get our technologies into the hands of creative folks who have the time and the energy to create new innovative solutions for real world problems,” Riccio said. “Injecting NASA’s IP portfolio into the classroom has a special way of generating novel product concepts and igniting the entrepreneurial spirit.”
The collaboration also broadens students’ understanding of the types of solutions to consider.
“What a 20-year-old comes up with is less advanced because they simply don’t have exposure to the decades of research and engineering that NASA has,” Chambers said. “These projects that they are pitching are definitely more advanced.”
Chambers intentionally built his class into interdisciplinary teams, so each group brought multiple skillsets and ways of approaching problems.
For example, Costa’s team started with the idea for a noninvasive sensor that measures the pressure inside the skull. Their final pitch for the product, called Rapid ICP, proposed using the sensor in ambulances to assess stroke and head trauma patients and route them to the appropriate hospitals.
On another team, music therapy and entrepreneurship student Adelaide Mangum helped create Biobeats, a biofeedback sensor that monitors heart rate and adjusts the user’s environment. Her team explored using it as a training tool for exercise or as a component for a virtual reality experience. Finally, they envisioned a device and software that syncs a user’s phone playlist to their heart rate, playing songs to help them regulate their heartbeat and reduce stress — like an automated music-therapy DJ.
The four other teams created products incorporating NASA technology to varying degrees. They included:
- PulseGrid, an ultra-wideband real time location system offering high accuracy for automated manufacturing floors
- HaloPulse, a system using NASA HeartBeat ID technology to convert a person’s cardiac signature into a rapid identity confirmation tool, helping health care workers identify injured people who cannot identify themselves
- Vitals VR, a clinical training program using virtual reality to help medical students hone their skills through simulations that monitor stress levels to keep them in an optimal learning zone
- Resiflex Innovations, a project that uses NASA technology to create durable materials for robotic delivery systems
This cross-pollination of entertainment, therapy, art and technology is part of what makes T2U such an interesting phenomenon, Riccio said. Students bring fresh eyes from disciplines across campus.
“In the Entrepreneurship Certificate program, there’s a lot of different majors represented,” Mangum said. “There are business majors, but there are also people from different places across the university, so you get a lot of ideas that might be more niche to solve problems that people didn’t know existed.”
Mangum said the patents also introduced solutions she never could have considered. “I could never picture myself working on a product that would help with music therapy instead of focusing only on one-on-one therapy,” she said. “But looking at all the NASA patents — that was eye-opening to me.”
The mission of the UGA Entrepreneurship Program is to develop the mindset of future entrepreneurs and prepare students for business leadership roles. UGA Entrepreneurship Program accelerators are open to UGA students and the Athens community.
