Tough Tech Today with Meyen and Miller

A chat to review the first year of Tough Tech Today.

In one sentence... Human health upgrades may be unlocked by a data storage expert focused on probing the proteome.   Overview: It’s not everyday that one hears about the crucial relationship between digital data storage and biology, yet this is core to Sujal Patel’s work leading Nautilus Biotechnology. By any measure already an accomplished tech entrepreneur, Sujal’s experience building Isilon Sys...

In one sentence... Living on the Moon requires infrastructure that Justin Cyrus of Lunar Outpost knows can be helpful here on Earth. Overview Earth’s moon is viewed as the upcoming base of operations for humanity’s further exploration of the cosmos. Justin Cyrus , founder of Lunar Outpost, shares what it is like building a suite of technologies that not only meet space objectives, but also address...

Banshees of the United States Air Force hunt for mission-enhancing technologies.  The world's largest startup accelerator, MassChallenge, teamed up with the Air Force Labs to establish the Banshees training program. Members are U.S. Department of Defense acquisitions officers who are learning how to find tough tech and nurture dual-use ventures. Such startups are jointly serving the private c...

In one sentence... A helicopter rescue mission gone awry fuels this man’s mission to bring heroes home safely with drones built for aircraft load stabilization. Overview As a Black Hawk helicopter’s rotors whop-whop-whopped overhead in their fight for command of the winds amid a stormy – and ultimately failed – rescue mission, a teenage Caleb Carr had a life-shaping experience that led him, many y...

He built a mass spectrometer from scratch and reinvented it in the process! Bearing a smile, Mazdak “Maz” Taghioskoui says he immigrated to the United States from Iran for a good education and same-day shipping, two key features that have supported his focus on building – from scratch – a sophisticated next-generation analytical tool: the Trace Matters SPion mass spectrometer. Maz is the Founder a...

While aboard a plane nosediving into Baghdad, one may be forgiven for pondering how one’s life path could lead from vacuum cleaners to minesweeping robots. Yet, not only does Orin Hoffman, of MIT’s The Engine venture capital firm, share this humbling connection, but also how it advances an overarching narrative of the United States national industrial innovation base, VCs, and the crucial roles se...

What happens to the ideas generated across the United States federal government’s research initiatives? Will Dickson and Trinity Torres walk us through the pathways of taxpayer-funded technological advancements and opportunities for a diverse pool of private citizens-entrepreneurs to find commercial success licensing patents owned by the U.S. government. The United States government generates vast...

Dual-use ventures – tough tech startups pursuing commercial relationships with the private sector and federal government, are a unique class of companies with whom Kathryn "Katy" Person, of the MIT Innovation Initiative, works daily. "[Working with the United States government, such as the Department of Defense,] is not for everyone and not for every business. It depends on whether...

No longer the domain of strictly nation-states, 'new space' is undergoing a wave of commercialization and growth. Two key engineering challenges, observed Louis Perna, are in-space communications and propulsion. He and his co-founder, Natalya Bailey, launched Accion Systems to provide cost-effective electrospray propulsion for satellites. While the complexities of space travel are someth...

The building blocks of life, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), can be used for computational advantage, posits Dr. James Banal , postdoctoral research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Biological Engineering, in the Bathe Lab.  “I work on the wackiest things in computing and storage right now, which is quantum computing and DNA data storage,” says James. From u...