Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Innovation Crossroads program welcomes six new science and technology innovators from across the United States to its sixth cohort. As the Southeast’s only research and development program for entrepreneurs based at a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory, Innovation Crossroads provides unique support to science-based startups to help advance game-changing technologies from the laboratory to the marketplace.
DOE's Advanced Manufacturing Office is sponsoring four innovators this year, with DOE’s Building Technologies Office and the Tennessee Valley Authority each sponsoring one innovator in the Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program. The latest group of scientific entrepreneurs is the first to be onboarded in person and on campus since 2020. Each startup is focused on clean energy technologies.
The innovators were selected through a competitive merit-based process and will have the opportunity to advance technologies they aim to commercialize by working with world-class science experts and unique capabilities at ORNL. These include Frontier, recently named the world’s fastest supercomputer; the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, DOE’s largest advanced manufacturing research center; the Building Technologies Research and Integration Center, DOE’s only user facility dedicated to buildings research; and the Spallation Neutron Source for atomic-level insight into materials. The innovators will be partnered with a network of mentoring organizations in the Southeast to help develop business strategies to move their technology breakthroughs into the market.
“Through the Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program, we’re empowering entrepreneurs to pursue domestic clean energy innovation and translate ideas into action,” said Kelly Speakes-Backman, DOE’s principal deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy. “The cutting-edge startups and clean energy technologies that result from this program will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, create good-paying jobs for American workers and strengthen American competitiveness.”