Open Innovation Challenge

Open Innovation Challenge

In close coordination with the New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Program (NMMEP), C4 will host a Clean Energy Technology Challenge where cohorts of lab and university innovators will engage with “host” clean energy industry partners to address manufacturing challenges.

This challenge is a unique opportunity for innovators and manufacturers to come together to address Design for Manufacturing (DFM) challenges posed by select industry host companies. C4 will recruit cohorts of lab and local industry innovators to agree upon a DFM challenge question that they believe can be solved by leveraging C4’s materials synthesis and discovery, additive, and advanced manufacturing capabilities within a six-month period. Each team will develop a prototype pop-up workflow or solution which will be presented to a review panel composed of industry, lab subject matter experts, and representatives from the host company.

This panel of judges will determine the winning team who will then progress to finals in which they demonstrate their solution in a Sandia demonstration space. The goal of the demonstration will be to expose the solution to a real-world environment and understand its viability for implementation.

Following a successful demonstration, NMMEP will work with the host company and winning team to develop a commercialization roadmap that articulates the steps required to integrate the demonstrated solution into the host company’s existing product line or workflows.