The Air Force Research Laboratory has chosen New Mexico State University’s Arrowhead Center to pilot its Young Entrepreneur Program aimed at helping student entrepreneurs commercialize technology that is important to AFRL. AFRL has awarded Arrowhead a $50,000 grant to start the program. In addition, AFRL scientists and engineers will mentor the students as they ready their technology for commercial use.
Arrowhead has selected two students—Sasi Prabhakaran, a mechanical engineering doctoral student and Taylor Burgett, who is pursuing a master’s degree in electrical engineering—to take part in the pilot program. The two will work together to commercialize technology developed by Prabhakaran and Professor Dr. Amit Sanyal of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. The selected technology, an Adaptive Singularity-Free Control Moment Gyroscope, has the potential to be a cost-effective and power-saving solution to improve the precision movement of spacecraft.
“We are pleased to be able to provide New Mexico students greater opportunity to take technology and innovation being developed right here in our state and find a market for it,” Casey DeRaad, Director of AFRL New Mexico’s Technology Engagement Center said. “We are confident that our (YEP) will help create business and jobs here in New Mexico and give our best and brightest students incentive to stay here.”
Student entrepreneurs will also receive guidance and coaching from Arrowhead Center’s student incubator, Studio G.
“AFRL’s (YEP) is a tremendous opportunity for our students to work with a top-notch research lab,” Studio G Director Dr. Kramer Winingham said. “I’m excited to see what they will be able to accomplish. I believe we have all the pieces in place to succeed.”
More Details
The Air Force Research Laboratory Air Force Research Laboratory is the Air Force’s only organization wholly dedicated to leading the discovery, development and integration of warfighting technologies for our air, space and cyberspace. AFRL is comprised of nine directorates located across the country. AFRL New Mexico in Albuquerque is the proud home of two of those directorates: Directed Energy and Space Vehicles.
The YEP is funded and managed by AFRL New Mexico’s Technology Engagement Center. For more information visit afrlnewmexico.com.
For more information about the Adaptive Singularity-Free Control Moment Gyroscope and Arrowhead’s Studio G, visit arrowheadcenter.nmsu.edu/
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