Apply now for innovation grants up to $30,000
Do you have an idea for a science or technology innovation that would make one of NASA’s missions better, faster or cheaper? Apply now for one of the Technology and Innovation (T&I) Labs grants for up to $30,000 to perform your project. In addition to the funding, grant recipients will get a customized website to host project information and deliverables and the chance to work with the brightest Information Technology (IT) minds across NASA.
Applications can be submitted from Jan. 4 to Feb. 8. Possible study areas include: chemistry, climatology, nutrition, biology, health, technology, meteorology and many more.
The mission of T&I Labs is to engage and empower NASA’s T&I heroes to develop capabilities that support NASA’s needs in a rapidly changing world. To that end, T&I Labs provides a streamlined approach for evaluating new information technologies and processes for agency integration in support of the Office of the Chief Information Officer. Additionally, T&I Labs stimulates networking and collaboration opportunities between NASA IT subject matter experts and other federal agencies.
T&I Labs represents a significant leap forward from how NASA traditionally evaluates new technologies. The program provides a central collection point for innovative ideas, as well as a lightweight, low-cost methodology for research, proofs-of-concept and prototypes. The evaluation process allows projects to be quickly and effectively evaluated based on essential criteria at defined points in the project’s lifecycle. This evaluation of quality and potential viability mitigates risk factors of both time and cost, effectively providing a better chance for more projects to be realized.
Potential ideas are scored on several criteria in two categories: business value and project feasibility. The business value criteria help reviewers score the idea’s value to NASA and justification for committing funding to it. The project feasibility criteria help reviewers understand if the idea’s approach has a reasonable chance of working to produce the intended results.
T&I Labs has already awarded over $1,000,000 to past recipients. Some of the winners from 2015 include: IT solution deployment and testing for Next Generation Zero-Net-Energy Intelligent Buildings, Head Mounted DFC Immersive 3D Viewer and Expanding The Interactive Visualization Engine for SysML Tools (InVEST).
Michelle Fraser-Page
NASA Johnson Space Center