The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced two winners for the final prize of the American Inventions Made Onshore (AIM Onshore) Prize Competition, which opened in 2018 as part of a DOE initiative to close the gap between American innovators who develop new energy technologies and domestic manufacturers who produce them.
First-place winner Fuzehub and second-place winner ADL Ventures were awarded $250,000 and $100,000, respectively. They were selected among four finalists who were awarded AIM Onshore initial prizes of $150,000 each, and then leveraged DOE’s Build4Scale training over the past year to help bolster U.S. manufacturing. AIM Onshore prize competition sought out creative, specific, and innovative proposals to train innovators and help create partnerships with U.S. manufacturers. After documenting their work, each finalist submitted applications for the final prize, which were reviewed and scored by a team of external reviewers.
Finalists were asked to demonstrate a sustainable revenue stream to continue providing training, and winners were evaluated by hard metrics, including the number of contracts developed between innovators and domestic manufacturers, and the dollars unlocked by private stakeholders to continue the training and related activities.
“Through AIM Onshore, these innovative organizations worked with American scientists and engineers to increase their knowledge about basic manufacturing processes and improve product design for manufacturing,” said Daniel R Simmons, Assistant Secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. “These models for knowledge transfer through training can help inform strategic manufacturing-related decisions and help ensure that energy technologies invented in America are manufactured in America.”
The Build4Scale training—developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in collaboration with industry, academia, and government—helps innovators avoid the common pitfalls of product design by teaching them manufacturing design fundamentals in the early stages of prototype development and providing the know-how needed to work with manufacturers.
DOE’s Build4Scale training and other resources are available to the public for use and dissemination at Build4Scale.org. To learn more about these programs, visit the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s (EERE) Advanced Manufacturing Office website. EERE's Advanced Manufacturing Office supports early-stage research to advance innovation in U.S. manufacturing and promote American economic growth and energy security.
About the Winners
FuzeHub – Albany, New York
FuzeHub is a not-for-profit statewide organization that connects New York State’s small and mid-sized manufacturing companies to the resources, programs, and expertise for technology commercialization and business growth.
FuzeHub, in conjunction with regional Manufacturing Extension Partnership network partners, clean tech hardware scaleup partners, contract manufacturers and incubators/accelerators, delivered Build4Scale training in four of New York State’s economic development regions: Southern Tier (Binghamton area), Western New York (Buffalo area), Long Island and the Capital District (Albany area). In each region, FuzeHub delivered a full day of in-person training addressing the needs of early stage hardware manufacturers requiring design for manufacturability, prototyping and scaleup tools and resources.
ADL Ventures – San Francisco, California
ADL Ventures specializes in developing and deploying emerging technology-enabled business solutions for legacy sector companies.
ADL Ventures deployed Build4Scale's content through an online platform called Manufacturing Hub. Manufacturing Hub connects hardware innovators with expertise and vendors that can help accelerate their path to market. The content-rich sites helps innovators move from planning to action by facilitating connections with US-based manufacturers. ADL Ventures leverages its partnership ecosystem spanning corporate, entrepreneurial, and technical communities to ensure that the impact of Build4Scale is realized across the country.
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