U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

28–412PDF WASHINGTON : 2018

HEAD HEALTH CHALLENGE: 

PREVENTING HEAD TRAUMA FROM 

FOOTBALL FIELD TO SHOP FLOOR 

TO BATTLEFIELD 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

DECEMBER 13, 2017 

Serial No. 115–42 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY K. WEBER, Texas 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

DRAIN LAHOOD, Illinois 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

JIM BANKS, Indiana 

ANDY BIGGS, Arizona 

ROGER W. MARSHALL, Kansas 

NEAL P. DUNN, Florida 

CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana 

RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

JACKY ROSEN, Nevada 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

MARK TAKANO, California 

COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii 

CHARLIE CRIST, Florida 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

HON. BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia, Chair 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

DARIN LAHOOD, Illinois 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

JIM BANKS, Indiana 

ROGER W. MARSHALL, Kansas 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

JACKY ROSEN, Nevada 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

AMI BERA, California 

DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

December 13, 2017 

Page 

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2 

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3 

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee on 

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ..................... 4 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 6 

Statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and 

Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ....................................................... 8 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10 

Statement by Representative Barbara Comstock, Chairwoman, Subcommittee 

on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, 

U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................................ 12 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 14 

Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives 16 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 17 

Witnesses: 

Dr. Michael Fasolka, Acting Director, Material Measurement Lab, NIST 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 20 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 22 

Mr. Scott A. Kebschull, Vice President and Technical Director, Dynamic Research, Inc. 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 31 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 33 

Dr. Alex O. Dehgan, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Conservation X 

Labs 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 39 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 41 

Mr. Shawn Springs, Chief Executive Officer, Windpact 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 55 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 57 

Robert Daniel Reisinger, Director of Engineering, 6D Helmets, LLC. 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 62 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 69 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Dr. Michael Fasolka, Acting Director, Material Measurement Lab, NIST ......... 82 

Mr. Scott A. Kebschull, Vice President and Technical Director, Dynamic Research, Inc. ............................................................................................................ 87 

Dr. Alex O. Dehgan, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Conservation X 

Labs ....................................................................................................................... 88 

Mr. Shawn Springs, Chief Executive Officer, Windpact ...................................... 96 

(1) 

HEAD HEALTH CHALLENGE: 

PREVENTING HEAD TRAUMA 

FROM FOOTBALL FIELD 

TO SHOP FLOOR TO BATTLEFIELD 

Wednesday, December 13, 2017 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:07 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Barbara Comstock [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 
2 

Head Health Challenge: Preventing Head Trauma from 

Football Field to Shop Floor to Battlefield 

Wednesday, December 13, 2017 

10:00 a.m. 

2318 Rayburn House Office Building 

Witnesses 

Dr. Michael Fasolka, Acting Director, Material Measurement Lab, NIST 

Mr. Scott A. Kebschull, Vice President and Technical Director, Dynamic 

Research, Inc. 

Dr. Alex 0. Dehgan, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Conservation X Labs 

Mr. Shawn Springs, Chief Executive Officer, Windpact 
3 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HEARING CHARTER 

December 13,2017 

TO: Members, Subcommittee on Research and Tecbnology 

FROM: Majority Staff, Committee on Science, Space, and Teebno!ogy 

SUBJECT: Research and Technology Subcommittee Hearing: 

"Head Health Challenge: Preventing Head Trauma from Football Field to Shop 

Floor to Battlefield'' 

The Subcommittee on Research and T echno!ogy of the Committee on Science, Space, 

and Technology will hold a hearing titled Head Health Challenge: Preventing Head Trauma 

fi'om Football Field to Shop F1oor to Battlqfield on Wednesday, December 13, 2017 at 10:00 

a.m. in Room 2318 of the Raybum House Office Building. 

Hearing Purpose: 

The purpose of the hearing is to review this science prize competition and its goal of 

spun·ing the development of advanced materials that will improve the performance of protective 

equipment not only for athletes, but also first responders, military personnel and others who face 

head injmy from impact events. 1 

Witness List 

Dr. Michael Fasolka, Acting Director, Material Measurement Lab, NIST 

• Mr. Scott A. Kebscbull, Vice President and Tecbnical Director, Dynamic Research, Inc. 

• Dr. Alex 0. Debgan, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Conservation X Labs 

• Mr. Shawn Springs, Chief Executive Officer, Windpact 

Staff Contact 

For questions related to the hearing, please contact Cliff Shannon of the Majority Staff at 

202-225-6371. 
4 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. The Committee on Science, Space, and 

Technology will come to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses of the Committee at any time. 

Good morning, and welcome to today’s hearing entitled ‘‘Head 

Health Challenge: Preventing Head Trauma from Football Field to 

Shop Floor to Battlefield.’’ 

I now recognize Chairman Smith, who has another hearing right 

now, to give his statement first as he has another obligation in Judiciary Committee that he needs to get to. Chairman Smith. 

Chairman SMITH. Yes, I appreciate your recognizing me out of 

order. I do have to shuttle between hearings, so that will be helpful. 

And thank you to Chairwoman Comstock for holding today’s 

hearing. 

The Science Committee has a longstanding, bipartisan interest in 

the use of science prizes and challenge competitions to address difficult national problems. The American Innovation and Competitiveness Act, signed into law in January of this year, included provisions from our Committee that streamlined and improved how 

federal agencies participate in science prize competitions. 

Our Committee is particularly supportive of the Head Health 

Challenge due to the involvement of the National Institute of 

Standards and Technology, or NIST, over which this Committee 

has jurisdiction. NIST has been a leader among federal science 

agencies in challenge prizes and science competitions, including 

private-public and multi-agency initiatives. 

Science prizes aren’t new. At a Science Committee hearing last 

Congress, curators from the Smithsonian brought the original 

$25,000 prize check earned by Charles Lindbergh for his solo, nonstop flight from New York to Paris in 1927. At the time, Lindbergh’s daring feat and the $25,000 prize attracted a lot of attention. But few people understood what we know today, that Lindbergh’s achievement launched the age of aviation and the aerospace industry. 

Scientific prizes and challenges are proven approaches for spurring innovation and solving problems. As we will hear this morning, collaboration between the federal government and the private 

sector adds credibility and is often the best way to trigger breakthroughs. 

Our witnesses will tell us about the final phase of the Head 

Health Challenge, a challenge prize sponsored by NIST, the National Football League, Under Armour, and General Electric. The 

objective of this challenge is to accelerate the design and development of advanced materials for helmets, pads and other products 

that protect against head injuries. 

Better design and materials for helmets and other protective 

gear can reduce head injury risk in many occupations. These include all sports and at all levels of competition, head—high-risk 

jobs like construction, manufacturing, and forestry, first responders, frail elderly individuals and, importantly, our American soldiers. 

DOD estimates that 22 percent of combat casualties from the 

conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan involved brain injuries, compared 

to 12 percent of Vietnam-related combat casualties. Improved hel-
5 

met protection is one of the best steps we can take as a nation to 

improve the quality of life for our military veterans. 

Preventing or minimizing head injuries is also an important public health and safety issue for children on bicycles, for amateur and 

professional athletes, for fire and police personnel, and for men and 

women of all ages and all walks of life. I look forward to hearing 

from our witnesses about the success of the Head Health Challenge 

and yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:] 
6 

For Immediate Release 

December 13,2017 

Media Contacts: Thea McDonald, Brandon VerVelde 

(202) 225-6371 

Statement from Lamar Smith (R-Texas) 

Head Health Challenge: Preventing Head Trauma from Football Field to 

Shop Floor to Battlefield 

Chairman Smith: The Science Committee has a longstanding, bipartisan interest in the 

use of science prizes and challenge competitions to address difficult national 

problems. 

The American Innovation and Competitiveness Act, signed into law in January of this 

year, included provisions from our committee that streamlined and improved how 

federal agencies participate in science prize competitions. 

Our committee is particularly supportive of the Head Health Challenge due to the 

involvement of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, over which 

we have jurisdiction. 

NIST has been a leader among federal science agencies in challenge prizes and 

science competitions, including private-public and multi-agency initiatives. 

Science prizes aren't new. At a Science Committee hearing last Congress, curators 

from the Smithsonian brought the original $25,000 prize check earned by Charles 

Lindbergh for his solo, non-stop flight from New York to Paris in 1927. 

At the time, Lindbergh's daring feat and the $25,000 prize attracted a lot of attention. 

But few people understood what we know today, that Lindbergh's achievement 

launched the age of aviation and the aerospace industry. 

Scientific prizes and challenges are proven approaches for spurring innovation and 

solving problems. As we will hear this morning, collaboration between the federal 

government and the private sector adds credibility and is often the best way to trigger 

breakthroughs. 

Our witnesses will tell us about the final phase of the Head Health Challenge, a 

challenge prize sponsored by NIST, the National Football League. Under Armour and 

General Electric. 
7 

The objective of this challenge is to accelerate the design and development of 

advanced materials for helmets, pads and other products that protect against head 

injuries. 

Better design and materials for helmets and other protective gear can reduce head 

injury risks in many occupations: these include all sports and at all levels of 

competition, high-risk jobs like construction, manufacturing, and forestry, first 

responders, frail elderly individuals and, importantly, our American soldiers. 

DOD estimates that 22 percent of combat casualties from the conflicts in Iraq and 

Afghanistan involved brain injuries, compared to 12 percent of Vietnam-related 

combat casualties. Improved helmet protection is one of the best steps we can take 

as a nation to improve the quality of life for our military veterans. 

Preventing or minimizing head injuries is also an important public health and safety 

issue for children on bicycles, for amateur and professional athletes, for fire and police 

personnel and for men and women of all ages and all walks of life. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about the success of the Head Health 

Challenge. 

### 
8 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I now recognize Mr. Lipinski for five minutes. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Chairwoman Comstock, for holding this 

hearing, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today. 

Prizes and other types of challenges have proven to be valuable 

tools to advance research and technological innovation to help solve 

some of today’s biggest social and economic problems, including 

head injuries. 

Under the Obama Administration, the federal government’s use 

of prizes and challenges increased exponentially, and we’ve heard 

that the current Administration is likewise interested in maximizing the use of such competitions. 

It is important for this Committee to periodically examine federal 

agencies’ use of prizes authority, so I’m pleased that we’re having 

this hearing this morning. 

Since World War II, the United States has become a leader in 

advancing science and innovation thanks in large part to long-term 

commitment of the federal government to research and development. Today, grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements form 

the cornerstone of government support for R&D. While these traditional research financing mechanisms continue to be critical, they 

also require a big upfront investment with no guarantee of success. 

For certain types of scientific and technological problems, prize 

competitions and challenges can stimulate major breakthroughs 

with little to no risk to the taxpayer. Science prizes and challenges, 

whether cash prizes or nonmonetary awards, incentivize creative 

approaches to bold but achievable goals. Early prize competitions 

dared inventors to do the unthinkable: to fly over the Atlantic 

Ocean, to determine longitude for accurate ship navigation, and to 

preserve food to feed an army on the battlefield. Achieving bold 

goals requires bold thinkers, and prize competitions and challenges 

often attract participants who do not typically seek government 

grants or contracts. The nation’s advancement and innovation depends on thought leaders with a diversity of ideas and experience. 

I have long supported the use of prizes to promote the advancement of emerging technologies. I co-authored the H–Prize Act 

which became law in 2007. It has given the Department of Energy 

authority to conduct prize challenges for development of hydrogen 

as a transportation fuel. I also introduced a bill to provide prize authority to The National Science Foundation and supported the 2010 

COMPETES reauthorization provision that provided broad prize 

authority to all federal agencies. 

And I’m soon going to be introducing a bill called the Challenges 

and Prizes for Climate Act, which will establish new prize competitions overseen by the Department of Energy to work toward breakthroughs in clean energy technology development and implementation and climate change adaptation and mitigation. I urge my colleagues to look at this bill and to consider co-sponsorship. 

One hundred federal agencies have offered 800 prizes since the 

launch of Challenge.gov in 2010. The NIST Head Health Challenge 

III is one such example, and I believe it may serve as a model for 

public-private collaboration in the development and implementation of a prize competition. As the witnesses describe their experience in the Head Health Challenge, I hope they’ll leave us with 
9 

their thoughts on how this challenge has changed the protective 

gear industry, why it was successful, and what if anything they 

might have improved in the design or implementation of the challenge. I also look forward to hearing what next steps are planned 

and underway to take advantage of the lessons learned and technological advances made during the three Head Health Challenges. 

Ensuring that the attention and excitement generated by challenge is effectively channeled into action upon its conclusion is one 

of the hardest parts of running an effective challenge, and I look 

forward to hearing from our witnesses their best ideas for doing 

that. 

I also look forward to Dr. Dehgan’s testimony about his work 

launching USAID’s global challenges for development and his current work to facilitate public-private partnerships for prizes and 

challenges. I believe he will help us understand the types of problems that are best solved through open innovation and some of the 

cutting-edge new ways prizes and challenges are being used. I also 

look forward to hearing his thoughts on how federal prize competitions and challenges best fit in the government’s broader R&D 

portfolio. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. I look forward to hearing from 

the witnesses this morning, and I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lipinski follows:] 
10 

OPENING STATEMENT 

Ranking Member Daniel W. Lipinski (D-IL) 

of the Subcommittee on Research & Technology 

House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

"Head Health Challenge: Preventing Head Trauma from Football Field to Shop Floor to 

Battlefield" 

December 13, 2017 

Thank you Chairwoman Comstock for holding this hearing and thank you to the witnesses for 

being here. Prizes and other types of challenges have proven to be valuable tools to advance 

research and technological innovation to help solve some oftoday's biggest social and economic 

problems, including head injuries. Under the Obama Administration, the federal government's 

use of prizes and challenges increased exponentially and we've heard that the current 

administration is likewise interested in maximizing the use of such competitions. It is important 

for this Committee to periodically examine federal agencies' use of prize authority, so I am 

pleased we are having this hearing this morning. 

Since World War II, the U.S. has become a leader in advancing science and innovation thanks in 

large part to the long-term commitment of the federal government to research and development. 

Today, grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements form the cornerstone of the government's 

support for R&D. While these traditional research financing mechanisms continue to be critical, 

they also require a big up-front investment with no guarantee of success. For certain types of 

scientific and technological problems, prize competitions and challenges can stimulate major 

breakthroughs with little to no risk to the taxpayer. 

Science prizes and challenges, whether cash prizes or non-monetary awards, inccntivize creative 

approaches to bold but achievable goals. Early prize competitions dared inventors to do the 

unthinkable: to fly over the Atlantic Ocean; to determine longitude for accurate ship navigation; 

and to preserve food to feed an army on a battlefield. Achieving bold goals requires bold 

thinkers, and prize competitions and challenges often attract participants who do not typically 

seek government grants or contracts. The nation's advancement in innovation depends on 

thought leaders with a diversity of ideas and experience. 

I have long supported the use of prizes to promote the advancement of emerging technologies. 

co-authored the H-Prize Act which became law in 2007 and has given the Department of Energy 

authority to conduct prize challenges for the development of hydrogen as a transportation fuel. I 

also introduced a bill to provide prize authority to the National Science Foundation and 

supported the 2010 COMPETES reauthorization provision that provided broad prize authority to 

all federal agencies. And I will soon be introducing a new bill called the Challenges and Prizes 

for Climate Act, which will establish new prize competitions, overseen by the Department of 

Energy, to work toward breakthroughs in clean energy technology development and 

implementation, and climate change adaptation and mitigation. I urge my colleagues to look at 

this bill and to consider cosponsoring. 

I 00 federal agencies have offered 800 prizes since the launch of Challenge.gov in 20 I 0. The 

NIST Head Health Challenge III is one such example, and I believe it may serve as a model for 
11 

public-private collaboration in the development and implementation of a prize competition. As 

the witnesses describe their experience in the Head Health Challenge, I hope they will leave us 

with their thoughts on how this challenge has changed the protective gear industry, why it was 

successful, and what, if anything, they might have improved in the design or implementation of 

the challenge. I also look forward to hearing what next steps are planned and underway to take 

advantage of the lessons learned and technological advances made during the three Head Health 

Challenges. Ensuring that the attention and excitement generated by a challenge is effectively 

channeled into action upon its conclusion is one of the hardest parts of running an effective 

challenge, and I look forward to hearing from our witnesses their best ideas for doing that. 

I also look forward to Dr. Dehgan's testimony about his work launching USAID's Global 

Challenges for Development and his current work to facilitate public-private partnerships for 

prizes and challenges. I believe he will help us understand the types of problems that are best 

solved through open innovation, and some of the cutting edge new ways prizes and challenges 

are being used. I also look forward to hearing his thoughts on how federal prize competitions 

and challenges best fit into the govermnent's broader R&D portfolio. 

Thank you Madam Chair. I yield back. 
12 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. And I now recognize myself 

for a five minute opening statement. 

The purpose of this morning’s hearing is to review the results of 

the final phase of the Head Health Challenge, a significant publicprivate collaboration for public health and safety. This worthy 

event is cosponsored by the National Institute of Standards and 

Technology (NIST) and three private organizations: the National 

Football League, General Electric Corporation and Under Armour, 

Inc. The final phase of the Head Health Challenge is aimed at design and development of advanced materials to improve protective 

equipment and prevent head injuries in sports, industry, the military and others who are at a higher risk of head trauma. 

As a mom of three children who did play sports, the boys played 

football, my daughter played soccer, baseball—and I think we covered all the sports among the three of them—but now with five 

grandchildren, I really appreciate all of the work you’re doing. It’ll 

just be great for our children, as well as for our warriors and for 

our professional—I mean, there’s just—this covers so many areas, 

so I’m just really excited about what you’re doing for our entire 

community. 

These kinds of public-private science challenges have a long history of catalyzing innovation and creating solutions to difficult 

problems. For instance, the Longitude Prize of 1714, offered by the 

British Government, resulted in the marine chronometer and dramatically improved shipping safety. Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1800 

Food Preservation Prize led to development of canned foods. 

More recently, spurred by the clean-up problems after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2009, the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X 

CHALLENGE of $1 million demonstrated a technology that had 

more than four times the previous recovery rate for cleaning oil off 

the ocean’s surface. 

In recent years, NIST and other federal agencies have organized 

and/or supported prize competitions and challenges that ranged 

from accelerating the development of autonomous vehicles to 

breakthroughs in facial recognition technology. NIST and other federal agencies are involved in a number of multi-agency and privatepublic challenge initiatives, for which I congratulate them. 

As my colleagues know, provisions of the American Innovation 

and Competitiveness Act, which originated in this Subcommittee, 

streamline prize competition procedures for federal science agencies 

and encourage them to consider them to stimulate problem-solving 

innovation. There is no shortage of priority research areas for 

which federal agencies should consider using prizes in the future. 

Health issues are at the top of my list because there is the potential to save many lives and also save huge sums of taxpayer money, 

as well as protect the quality of life in so many different areas. 

At the last hearing on this subject, subcommittee members and 

our witnesses discussed the potential for catalyzing development of 

portable dialysis devices. A breakthrough in portable dialysis would 

improve hundreds of thousands of lives and could save Medicare 

billions of dollars every year and again obviously improve the quality of life. 

Another terrible disease for which a public-private challenge 

prize might be considered is Alzheimer’s disease. More than five 
13 

million Americans live with Alzheimer’s today, and that total could 

triple by 2050 if there aren’t breakthroughs in prevention and 

treatments. 

Through support for basic research, through support for measurement science, through support for commercialization of taxpayer-funded research breakthroughs, and through science prize 

competitions, the top priority of the Science Committee is to encourage innovation and technological breakthroughs and advancements. 

Initiatives like the Head Health Challenge encourage individual 

incentive and inspire creative solutions. They leverage significant 

private sector investments in important national priorities, for instance, preventing serious head injuries. And they engage the 

brightest and most creative minds our nation has. 

We look forward to hearing from some of those best and brightest 

minds this morning, including Shawn Springs from Windpact, Inc., 

which is located in the 10th Congressional District of Virginia that 

I am proud to represent. I hope the stories of all our witnesses will 

help to inspire a new generation of scientists and entrepreneurs. 

[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Comstock follows:] 
14 

For Immediate Release 

December 13, 2017 

Media Contacts: Thea McDonald, Brandon VerVelde 

(202) 225-6371 

Statement from Barbara Comstock (R-Va.} 

Head Health Challenge: Preventing Head Trauma from Football Field to 

Shop Floor to Battlefield 

Chairwoman Comstock: The purpose of this morning's hearing is to review the results of 

the final phase of the Head Health Challenge, a significant public-private 

collaboration for public health and safety. 

This worthy effort is cosponsored by the National institute of Standards and Technology 

- NIST- and three private organizations: the National Football League, General Electric 

Corporation and Under Armour. The final phase of the Head Health Challenge is 

aimed at design and development of advanced materials to improve protective 

equipment and prevent head injuries in sports, industry, the military and others who are 

at higher risks of head trauma. 

These kinds of public-private science challenges have a long history of catalyzing 

innovation and creating solutions to difficult problems. 

For instance, The Longitude Prize of 1714, offered by the British government. resulted in 

the marine chronometer and dramatically improved shipping safety. 

Napoleon Bonaparte's 1800 Food Preservation Prize led to development of canned 

foods. 

More recently, spurred by the clean-up problems after the Deepwater Horizon disaster 

in 2009, the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE of $1 million demonstrated a 

technology that had more than four times the previous recovery rate for cleaning oil 

off the ocean's surface. 

In recent years, NIST and other federal agencies have organized and/or supported 

prize competitions and challenges that ranged from accelerating the development of 

autonomous vehicles to breakthroughs in facial recognition technology. 

NIST and other federal agencies are involved in a number of multi-agency and publicprivate challenge initiatives, for which I congratulate them. 
15 

As my colleagues know, provisions of the American Innovation and Competitiveness 

Act. which originated in this subcommittee, streamline prize competition procedures 

for federal science agencies and encourage them to consider them to stimulate 

problem-solving innovation. 

There is no shortage of priority research areas for which federal agencies should 

consider using prizes in the future. Health issues are at the top of my list because there 

is the potential to save many lives and also save huge sums of taxpayer money. 

At the last hearing on this subject. subcommittee members and our witnesses 

discussed the potential for catalyzing development of portable dialysis devices. A 

breakthrough in portable dialysis would improve hundreds of thousands of lives and 

could save Medicare billions of dollars every year. 

Another terrible disease for which a public-private challenge prize might be 

considered is Alzheimer's disease. More than five million Americans live with 

Alzheimer's today, and that total could triple by 2050 if there aren't breakthroughs in 

prevention and treatments. 

Through support for basic research, through support for measurement science, 

through support for commercialization of taxpayer-funded research breakthroughs 

and through science prize competitions. the top priority of the Science Committee is 

to encourage innovation and technological advancements. 

Initiatives like the Head Health Challenge encourage individual incentive and inspire 

creative solutions. They leverage significant private sector investments in important 

national priorities- for instance, preventing serious head injuries. And they engage the 

brightest and most creative minds our nation has. 

We look forward to hearing from some of those best and brightest minds this morning, 

including Shawn Springs from Windpact Inc. which is located in the 1Oth Congressional 

district of Virginia that I represent. I hope the stories of all our witnesses will help to 

inspire a new generation of scientists and entrepreneurs. 

### 
16 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. And I now recognize Mrs. Johnson, the 

Ranking Member, for her opening statement. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much, and good morning. I’d like 

to thank Chairwoman Comstock and Ranking Member Lipinski for 

holding today’s hearing on the NIST Head Health Challenge and 

the benefits and challenges of federal prize competitions. I support 

the federal government’s use of prizes and challenges to spur innovation and technology breakthroughs. 

However, I want to begin with a brief comment about our larger 

commitment to research and development. I am deeply troubled 

that so many of our colleagues would support a tax bill that adds 

$1 trillion or more to the deficit while helping only the wealthiest 

among us and at the same time repeatedly vote to cut funding for 

research and so many other critical investments in our future. 

Many of my colleagues would even make it impossible for any but 

the wealthiest Americans to pursue graduate degrees in STEM because of proposed changes to the tax law. 

While tough choices have to be made, and I am confident the 

overwhelming majority of my colleagues on my side of the aisle are 

willing to have those discussions, cuts to our federal R&D enterprise weakens the country’s ability to be a leader in innovation, 

economic growth, and job creation. No corporate tax cut will fix 

that. Our competitors have the same tough budget choices to make, 

yet they are not just maintaining their R&D investments but increasing them. 

While prizes and other types of challenges are not a substitute 

for the sustained investment in long-term national outlook that 

traditional federal R&D funding provides, they do have a role in 

how the government funds R&D. The prize authority granted to all 

federal agencies in 2010 COMPETES reauthorization stimulated a 

significant increase in agencies’ use of such competitions of incentives, more high-risk, high-reward research. Prizes also help agencies to reach out to a broader partnership of researchers and 

innovators across all areas of science and technology. I’m encouraged by indications that the current Administration will continue 

support for prize competitions. 

With several years of experience to build out—to build on, there 

are many lessons learned on how to best design and implement 

successful prize initiatives. There’s also a new category of prize design expertise both in the government and the private sector. The 

NIST Head Health Challenge III appears to be a good model for 

public-private partnership and for the use of a challenge competition to spur innovation that had largely stalled. I look forward to 

hearing from NIST and the participants in this challenge about 

what worked well and how any lessons learned might be applied 

to future challenges. I also look forward to a broader discussion on 

how best to incorporate prizes into our broader federal R&D agenda. 

I thank all of our witnesses for being here, and I yield back. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:] 
17 

OPENING STATEMENT 

Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) 

House Committee on Science, Space, and Teclmology 

Subcommittee on Research & Technology 

"Head Health Challenge: 

Preventing Head Trauma from Football Field to Shop Floor to Battlefield" 

December 13, 20 17 

Goop morning, I would like to thank Chairwoman Comstock and Ranking Member Lipinski for 

holding today's hearing on the NIST Head Health Challenge and the benefits and challenges of 

federal prize competitions. 

I support the federal government's use of prizes and challenges to spur innovation and 

technology breakthroughs. However, I want to begin with a brief comment about our larger 

commitment to research and development. I am deeply troubled that so many of my colleagues 

would support a tax bill that adds a trillion or more to the deficit while helping only the 

wealthiest among us, and at the same time repeatedly vote to cut funding for research and so 

many other critical investments in our future. Many of my colleagues would even make it 

impossible for any but the wealthiest Americans to pursue graduate degrees in STEM because of 

the proposed changes to the tax law. 

While tough choices have to be made- and I am confident the overwhelming majority of my 

colleagues on my side of the aisle are willing to have those discussions- cuts to our federal R&D 

enterprise weaken the country's ability to be a leader in innovation, economic growth, and job 

creation. No corporate tax cut will fix that. Our competitors have the same tough budget choices 

to make, yet they are not just maintaining their R&D investments, but increasing them. 

While prizes and other types of challenges are not a substitute for the sustained investment and 

long-term national outlook that traditional federal R&D funding provides, they do have a role in 

how the government funds R&D. The prize authority granted to all federal agencies in the 2010 

COMPETES Reauthorization stimulated a significant increase in agencies' use of such 

competitions to incentivize more high-risk, high-reward research. Prizes also help agencies reach 

out to a broader partnership of researchers and innovators across all areas of science and 

technology. I am encouraged by indications that the current administration will continue support 

for prize competitions. 

With several years of experience to build on, there are many lessons learned about how to best 

design and implement successful prize initiatives. There is also a new cadre of prize design 

expertise both in the government and the private sector. The NIST Head Health Challenge III 

appears to be a good model for public-private partnership and for the use of a challenge 

competition to spur innovation that had largely stalled. I look forward to hearing from NIST and 

the participants in this challenge about what worked well, and how any lessons learned might be 
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applied to future challenges. I also look forward to a broader discussion of how best to 

incorporate prizes into our broader federal R&D agenda. 

I thank our witnesses for their testimony and I yield back 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. I will now introduce our witnesses. Our 

first witness today is Dr. Michael—am I going to get this—Fasolka, 

okay, Acting Director of the Material Measurement Lab at NIST. 

MML, one of the seven research laboratories within NIST, did all 

the measurements and testing for the Head Health Challenge. This 

challenge was NIST’s first prize competition conducted under the 

America COMPETES Act of 2010. 

We should also note that the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act, which was signed in the law in January 2017, included a number of provisions that originated in our Committee 

that are named in encouraging more activity like NIST co-sponsorship of the Head Health Challenge. Dr. Fasolka has held his current position since 2012 and is responsible for strategic planning, 

communications, and operations for the lab. He received a Bachelor’s of Arts in Liberal Studies from the University of Pittsburgh 

and his Ph.D. in Material Science and Engineering from MIT. 

Now, our second witness today is Mr. Scott Kebschull, Vice President and Technical Director of Dynamic Research, Inc., DRI. He 

has been with DRI for over 30 years primarily working on crashworthiness and occupant protection for passenger cars, motorcycles, 

and off-road vehicles. He is an expert in multi-body and finite element computer simulation, the work that resulted in the team’s 

winning of the Head Health Challenge grand prize. He holds a 

Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Valparaiso 

University and a Master’s of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Southern California. 

Dr. Alex Dehgan, our third witness, is Chief Executive Officer 

and Founder of Conservation X Labs. He recently served as the 

Chief Scientist at the U.S. Agency for International Development 

where he was the architect of a number of new agency institutions, 

including the Grand Challenges for Development program, which 

used prizes to open innovation and address the biggest emerging 

global challenges. To date, USAID has launched nine Grand Challenges for Development. Dr. Dehgan earned a Bachelor’s of Science 

from Duke University, as well as a Master’s of Science and a Ph.D. 

from the University of Chicago. He also holds a J.D. from the University of California Hastings. 

Now, Mr. Shawn Springs, our final witness, is Chief Executive 

Officer of Windpact, a northern-Virginia-based safety technology 

company that I’m proud to have in the 10th District of Virginia 

that is leveraging its patented padding technology to improve impact performance in helmets and protective gear. Windpact participated in certain Head Health Challenge competitions resulting in 

a first-place victory in the 1st and Future competition, as well as 

an award under the HeadHealthTECH II challenge. 

From 1997 to 2010, Mr. Springs played football professionally for 

the Seattle Seahawks, the Washington Redskins, and the New 

England Patriots. It is that unique experience that he really brings 

a full range of experience, and also being a dad I’m sure, and I 

really appreciate your engagement on this issue. 

He holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Sociology from Ohio State 

University, and while playing for the Seahawks, Mr. Springs continued his education by attending the University of Washington, 
20 

where he was inducted into the Society of National Collegiate 

Scholars. 

So I now recognize Dr. Fasolka for five minutes to present his 

testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. MICHAEL FASOLKA, 

ACTING DIRECTOR, MATERIAL MEASUREMENT LAB, NIST 

Dr. FASOLKA. Good morning, and thank you for inviting me 

today. Before I begin my testimony, we have a short video about 

the Head Health Challenge III. 

[Video shown.] 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you so much. As a mom who 

would just wince at all those things as you see them on the field 

and everywhere else, it’s exciting. And please, you don’t have to 

take that out of your five minutes, so go ahead. 

Dr. FASOLKA. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Johnson, 

Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking Member Lipinski, and members of 

the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss NIST’s 

role in the Head Health Challenge III, which advanced the materials used in protective gear and help small companies mature 

ideas into marketable products. 

Thank you for your attention to the video, which was made in 

2015 when the semifinalists were announced. I’m pleased to testify 

today, along with the challenge grand prize winners who were 

named this past September. 

NIST helps to ensure the U.S. system of measurements is firmly 

grounded in sound scientific and technical principles. The Head 

Health Challenge III is just one example of how NIST measurement science helps industry overcome barriers to developing new 

products and to manufacture them efficiently and reliably. 

While NIST has a long history of inspiring solutions to difficult 

problems using challenges, this was our first offer of cash prizes 

through a public-private partnership. The Head Health Challenge 

III is just one aspect of the larger Head Health Initiative launched 

by GE and the National Football League in 2013 to quote, ‘‘accelerate concussion research, diagnosis, and treatment.’’ NIST and 

Under Armour joined with GE and the NFL on this challenge to 

spur development of improved impact-resistant materials. As you 

saw in the video NIST’s role was to act as a neutral provider of 

various technical results for the challenge. 

One of the barriers to innovation in helmet design has been the 

lack of data of how well new materials absorb forces. More and better materials data helps manufacturers understand if developing a 

product with new material will result in improved performance. It 

is especially difficult to test how materials perform in real-world 

conditions such as when they are compressed, flexed, on a playing 

field, or in combat. 

Small and medium-size companies may not have the resources to 

develop such types of facilities, so for this challenge we build on 

NIST expertise and measurements of body armor for law enforcement to make new instruments for materials testing. We also created a method to measure the forces exerted on the material by a 

rotational—also called shear—impacts which are under-evaluated 

in today’s protective gear. 
21 

Many of the participants in this challenge said that they benefited from having their candidate materials assessed by NIST’s new 

instruments. We tested the finalists’ materials under a broad range 

of conditions: impact forces range from those seen in youth leagues 

to professional sports; test temperatures range from freezing to a 

hot summers day; and when we executed what might be a full season’s worth of impacts about 20—1,200 hits. A panel of independent experts from industry, academia, and government evaluated the competitors’ written proposals, their materials, along with 

the NIST test data to choose a winner. 

A collaborative team, Dynamic Research and 6D Helmets, clinched the grand prize of $500,000 provided by NIST. Their material reduces some impact measures by nearly 80 percent compared 

to the benchmark materials we examined and helps reduce the 

transmission of rotational forces. 

Beyond the prize money, the Head Health Challenge III generated terabytes of test data, which allowed some of the participants to inform computer models of how their materials respond to 

impacts. To serve the broader community, we will release to the 

public the data generated from our tests of the nonproprietary 

baseline materials we used. In addition, our new measurement capabilities will provide data for a materials genome approach to impact-resistant systems so that more people can benefit from higherperforming materials sooner. 

Since the launch of Head Health Challenge III, NIST has announced more prize competitions at the Challenge.gov website. We 

also established a NIST-wide community interested in using these 

mechanisms to further our mission. We greatly appreciate the efforts of the Members of this Committee and other Members of Congress to support federal agency use of prize competitions and challenges. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Fasolka follows:] 
22 

Testimony of 

Michael J. Fasolka 

Acting Director, Material Measurement Laboratory 

National Institute of Standards and Teclmology 

United States Department of Commerce 

Before the 

Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

Subcommittee on Research and Technology 

United States House of Representatives 

"Head Health Challenge: 

Preventing Head Trauma from Football Field to Shop Floor to Battlefield" 

December 13, 2017 

1 
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Introduction 

Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking Member Lipinski, and Members of the Committee, I am Mike 

Fasolka, Acting Director of the Material Measurement Lab at the Department of Commerce's 

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Thank you for the opportunity to appear 

before you today to discuss our role in the Head Health Challenge III (Challenge), which has 

helped spur innovation in the development of protective gear for athletes, war fighters, and 

civilians. This Challenge gained the attention of a diverse set of scientists and engineers and 

supported small companies seeking to transform these innovations into marketable products. 

The NIST laboratory programs work at the frontiers of measurement science to ensure that the 

U.S. system of measurements is frrmly grounded on sound scientific and technical principles. 

Today, the NIST laboratories address increasingly complex measurement challenges, ranging 

from the very small such as nanoscale devices to the very large like vehicles and buildings, and 

from the physical as in renewable energy sources to the virtual world ofcybersecurity and cloud 

computing. As new technologies arc developed and evolve, NIST's measurement research and 

services remain central to innovation, productivity, trade, and public safety. 

NIST and Challenges 

NIST has a long history of using challenges to bring a community together to solve ambitious 

problems in support of the NIST mission which is to promote U.S. innovation and industrial 

competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that 

enhance economic security and improve our quality oflife. In the early 1970's, for example, 

NIST issued a public challenge to develop a data encryption standard 1 to support computer 

security. Today, many decades later, a challenge is underway with NIST's Post-Quantum 

Cryptography Project2 that asks developers to propose new algorithms that will meet security 

needs in the quantum computing era. Another example is the Global City Teams Challenge, 3 an 

ongoing effort by NIST to encourage collaboration and the development of standards for the 

deployment of smart technologies in cities and communities. 

Head Health Challenge III was NIST's first prize competition conducted under the "prize 

competitions" authority in Section 105 of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of2010 

(Public Law lll-358), subsequently amended by Section 401 of the American Innovation and 

Competitiveness Act of2016 (Public Law 114-329), and codified in 15 U.S. C. 3719. Prize 

competitions authority allows NIST to offer cash prizes, and further paves the path to partner 

with private sector for-profit and nonprofit entities as well as appoint judges from outside of 

NIST, including the private sector. Since the launch of the Head Health Challenge III, NIST has 

announced many more prize competitions under the prize competitions authority which can be 

found on the Federal government prize and challenge competitions web portal, 

www.challenge.gov/list/, and established an institute-wide community of interest in using prizes 

and challenges to further our mission. NIST greatly appreciates the efforts of the members of 

1 https:/ /www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2017/05/09/report01-2.pdf 2 http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/ST/post-quantum-crypto/ 

3 https://www.nist.gov/el/cyber-physical-systems/smart-americaglobal-cities 

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this Committee and other members of Congress to support Federal agency use of prize 

competitions and challenges. 

NIST and the Head Health Challenge 

NIST and Under Armour joined with GE and the NFL on Head Health Challenge III with the 

goal of spurring the creation of innovative impact absorbing materials that will result in 

increased protection for athletes, warfighters, and civilians. The Challenge partners understood 

that the experts who could produce better materials could be found in a hugely diverse set of 

communities, from aerospace to automotive to sports medicine. The national prize competition 

sought to advance research and technology development in this field by gaining the attention of a 

wide network of materials scientists and others with an interest in answering this call to action. 

Together, the Challenge partners decided to reward designers with up to $2 million in prizes to 

develop or fmd existing materials that offer improved protection from impacts. 

NIST was asked to become a partner in Head Health Challenge III because of its long history of 

finding new ways of measuring known substances and systems with ever more precision and 

accuracy, and creating ways of characterizing novel substances and systems for the first time. 

Participating in the Head Health Challenge III leveraged NIST's technical expertise and allowed 

NIST to do what it docs best-conduct measurement science that helps industries overcome 

barriers to developing new products and manufacture them efficiently and reliably. As you'll 

soon hear, the Head Health Challenge III has assisted the participants in these ways. 

NIST Measurement Expertise 

One of the barriers to innovation in helmet design has been a lack of data about how well new 

substances absorb the force of hits to the head. Improved data helps helmet manufacturers 

understand if the risk of developing and manufacturing a helmet with a new material will give 

them an advantage over their competitors in terms of performance. 

It is particularly difficult to test how materials perform in real-world conditions, such as when 

they are compressed and flexed by the forces of a hit on a playing field or a blast in combat. 

Small and medium-sized companies often don't have the capital to develop in-house testing 

facilities or pay for testing, or the in-house expertise to develop new test methods. NIST's 

participation in Head Health Challenge III helps provide the community with this testing 

infrastructure. NIST has a long history of producing best-in-the-world materials science 

measurements, and working with the private sector to help define industry parameters for 

protective helmets and body armor for law enforcement through private-sector led standards. 

Building on these capabilities, NIST applied its technical expertise to build materials testing 

instruments in the laboratory and even created a new test in support of the Head Health 

Challenge III, explained below. As NIST learned during the competition, one of the major 

benefits reported by participants was the opportunity to have their materials assessed by NIST 

experts. 

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Head Health Challenge III 

Head Health Challenge III asked entrants: "Can your material withstand a force range of up to 

12 kilonewtons, with the potential to withstand 1,200 impacts above 20 KE (J), and peiform in 

the impact velocity range of 3.4 mls to 11.2 mls, and in temperatures ranging from 0 to 40 

degrees Celsius, ·with up to 100 percent humidity?" These parameters translate into real-world 

use: a broad range of impact conditions from youth leagues to the highest level of professional 

sports, temperature extremes from freezing to a hot summer day, and a year's worth of repeated 

impacts. NIST worked closely with the partners at Under Armour, the NFL, and GE throughout 

the past two years of this challenge to set the technical requirements and overall vision. During 

phase two of Head Health Challenge III, NIST acted as a neutral third party, generating rigorous 

technical results. A panel of independent judges, appointed by the NIST Director, made all 

decisions about the fmalists and the grand prize winner. This panel of judges, listed below, 

represented unique and world-class materials expertise from industry, academia, and the Federal 

government 

Jeff Crandall, Ph.D., Professor in Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of 

Virginia; 

• Sharon Glotzer, Ph.D., Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan; 

• Heinrich Jaeger, Ph.D., Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago; 

• Michael Maher, Program Manager for the Defense Sciences Offices at the Defense 

Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); 

• Tresa Pollock, Ph.D., Chair of the Materials Department at the University of CaliforniaSanta Barbara; 

• Alton D. Romig, Ph.D., Executive Officer of the National Academy of Engineering and 

former vice president and general manager of Advanced Development Programs 

Engineering and Advanced Systems, known as Skunk Works, for Lockheed Martin 

Aeronautics; and 

• Alan Taub, Ph.D., Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of 

Michigan. 

NIST is grateful for the time and commitment of this group of individuals who played a critical 

role in achieving the ambitious goals set by the Head Health Challenge III. 

The Challenge was structured in three phases with awards made in the first and final rounds of 

the competition. 

First, NIST invited participants to submit an abstract that described a novel material that 

met specific performance criteria related to maximizing energy absorption while 

minimizing momentum transfer. Subject Matter Experts evaluated 125 abstracts 

submitted by participants against the submission evaluation criteria and then invited 

authors of the 55 top-rated abstracts to submit more detailed proposals with samples of 

the materiaL 

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Next, a panel of judges selected five finalists to receive $250,000 in the First Round and the 

opportunity to compete for the grand prize of $500,000 in the Final Round. From the full 

proposals, 21 materials selected by Subject Matter Experts underwent mechanical testing at 

NIST. The judges evaluated the written proposals and, very importantly, the test results 

generated by NIST. 

NlST's experts conducted a series of impact and compression tests on each sample, as well 

as on some conventional impact absorbing materials currently used in helmets to establish a 

baseline. While NIST had the necessary measurement infrastructure on hand because of its 

existing work supporting the development of improved test methods for ballistic- and stabresistant body armor, NIST performed a considerable amount of customization to its 

equipment to subject the materials to the impact energies and velocities that have been 

reported in different sports and defined in protective equipment standards. NIST's 

capabilities include sophisticated features like instrumented impact systems and autonomous 

controls that generate smaller variations in the conditions from test to test. In the 

measurement science world, this means that it's more meaningful to compare test results 

from one material to another using NIST's equipment. Variations in results can be more 

safely ascribed to differences in performance rather than to margins of error in the tests. In 

December 2015, NIST announced the five First Round winners selected by the judges to 

move on to the Final Round. They included teams from academic institutions as well as 

businesses: 

• Alba Technic, LLC (Winthrop, Maine) developed a patented, shock-absorbent 

honeycomb material with an outer layer that diverts the energy from a fall or hit; 

• Charles Owen Inc. (Lincolnton, Ga.) made cellular structures that use a stacked, 

origami-like design to optimize energy absorption; 

• Corsair Innovations (Plymouth, Mass.) developed a textile that uses tiny, springlike fibers to repel rotational and linear impacts, thereby reducing potential 

damage; 

• Dynamic Research Inc. (Torrance, Calif.) and 6D Helmets LLC collaborated to 

evolve 6D's single-impact suspension technology for usc in repeated impact 

conditions; and 

• University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, Mich.) researchers designed a lightweight, 

multi-layered composite that includes a viscoelastic material. 

In addition to receiving a cash prize of$250,000, the fmalists received the technical data 

generated by NIST and advice from the judges to direct the continued development of 

their materials for the fmal phase of testing. 

Finally, the finalist teams were given about a year to improve their materials for 

consideration for the grand prize, $500,000. Between March and December 2016, the 

finalists submitted samples of their materials to NIST for a variety of testing. First, the 

samples were compressed between two instrumented plates to measure how they 

compress and rebound, using increasing amounts of force, through three cycles of testing. 

Second, NlST performed drop testing with an instrumented impactor to measure how 

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materials respond to sudden impact, progressing through five steps of increasing energy. 

NIST researchers also performed these tests at 0 degrees Celsius (freezing) and 40 

degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). Third, to measure durability, the NIST 

researchers repeatedly performed drop tests on samples from each competitor I ,200 times 

before running additional impact tests on them. Importantly, in addition to the regimen 

described above, NIST developed a fourth, new type oftest. A common injury-causing 

impact is rotational; imagine a glancing blow to the side of the head that sends the head 

swiveling on the neck. These kinds of hits cause the brain to rotate within the skull, 

damaging delicate tissues. Inside a helmet that has taken a glancing blow, material is 

undergoing both compression and shear-the kinds of forces exerted when you press 

your palms together and one of them slips. When NIST partnered in the Head Health 

Challenge Ill, there were only limited approaches to measuring these forces at the same 

time at high rates, so NIST developed a new method. 

Head Health Challenge III Results 

After the fmal testing round, the judges evaluated each Head Health Challenge III participant on 

innovation, material performance, degree of improvement during the Challenge, and 

commercialization potential, emphasizing creativity over product maturity. 

In September 2017, NIST announced that a team of materials designers led by Dynamic 

Research, Inc. was the Head Health Challenge III grand prize winner. The Dynamic Research 

team has received $500,000 to help them progress their product toward commercialization. The 

team, which includes members from 6D Helmets, used advanced computer modeling and a series 

of iterative improvements to create a novel material, based on a 6D Helmet proprietary 

technology, with an unusual geometric structure. The winning entry reduced certain measures of 

impact by more than 70 percent when compared with baseline foam material that has been 

commonly used in protective gear, and the material's middle layer of absorbent posts 

sandwiched between foam helps reduce the shear forces that can cause rotational injuries. The 

winning concept also can be fine-tuned to a variety of impact environments and adapted to 

different body types and applications. 

Benefits of the Head Health Challenge III 

The Head Health Challenge yielded benefits for all involved. 

Through the Challenge, NIST saw dramatic technical advances in how well a material can 

absorb impact. Some of the materials tested reduced the force of an impact by up to 80 percent, 

compared to conventional materials. The incidence of concussions and severe brain injuries can 

be significantly reduced with advances like that. 

The many measurements performed at NIST amounted to terabytes of data, including high-speed 

video of samples as they were compressed. Between the first and second phases of testing, some 

of the contestants used the data provided by NIST to inform computer models of how their 

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materials might respond to impacts, or to verify models they had made themselves. To help 

encourage further material design improvements, NIST intends to release to the public large 

amounts of data generated from tests on the conventional baseline materials. 

Computer modelling is used increasingly in materials development to predict performance before 

developers spend time and money making an actual material. This approach is promoted 

throughout many industries. It is supported by infrastructure being developed by the Federal 

govemment's multi-agency Materials Genome Initiative, which has the goal of bringing new 

materials to the marketplace faster than traditional trial-and-error invention. Currently, the 

materials genome approach is more commonly used for new metal alloys than for soft materials 

like shock-absorbing foams. NlST foresees that its new measurement capabilities for soft 

materials will provide data for predictive computer modelling, accelerating research and 

development of soft-materials so that more people will benefit from higher-performing materials, 

sooner. 

The fmalists reported that they have benefitted fi·om their participation in the Head Health 

Challenge III in many ways. For example, they found they could adjust material to meet a wide 

variety of impact scenarios, making it possible to expand into new product lines and markets. 

They attracted commercial partners for further development of their material and integration into 

helmets and pads for further testing. Participants also reported that they integrated their novel 

material into an existing product. They verified that industrial 3D printing, also known as 

additive manufacturing, could be used to make their novel material, which will be incorporated 

into a new product. They also worked with a major materials manufacturer to develop and 

combine materials for optimum performance, now with patents pending. 

This work demonstrated that there is significant opportunity to develop new designs and 

techniques for testing the performance of soft materials used in protective gear and other 

applications. What NIST has leamed from testing will help inform future standards tor the 

performance of such gear. NIST's new testing device, developed for this challenge, has already 

provided valuable data to the Head Health Challenge III participants, and will enable the 

development of future standards for new generations of protective equipment for athletes, frrst 

responders, soldiers, and others. 

NIST is proud to have partnered with the NFL, Under Armour, and GE in Head Health 

Challenge III. Such a public-private partnership approach can leverage the best the public and 

private sectors have to ofTer, to solve pressing problems that would be hard for any one group to 

solve on its own. NIST was honored to have been recognized for its efforts with an award tor 

"Public/Private Partnership Collaboration" by the General Services Administration (GSA) in 

GSA's first-ever Five Years of Excellence in Federal Challenge and Prize Competition Awards4 

Thank you for the opportunity to testifY today. I would be happy to answer any questions you 

may have. 

4 https :/ /www .challenge .gov I challenge-gov-celebrates-five-years-of-open-innovation/ 

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Michael Fasolka is Deputy Director and Acting Director of the 

Material Measurement Laboratory (MML), at the National 

Institute of Standards and Technology (NJST). MML, one of 

seven research laboratories within NIST, has nearly 1,000 

Federal employees and guest researchers from industry, 

universities, and foreign laboratories. 

MML provides a measurement science and standards 

infrastructure for the nation's industries based in the biological, 

chemical and materials sciences, promoting U.S. innovation and 

industrial competitiveness in ways that enhance economic 

security and improve our quality of life. MML is a source of 

unbiased measurement standards, data, and cutting-edge 

methods and technologies that promote innovation, market 

readiness, and quality control in vital economic sectors. 

MML develops measurement standards in the form of documented measurement methods and 

instmment calibrations, and coordinates the NIST-wide Standard Reference Material® and 

Standard Reference Data programs. MML provides more than I ,200 Standard Reference 

Materials that ensure the accuracy of millions of measurements vital for efficient manufacturing, 

acceptance of American-made goods in intemational markets, regulatory approval of new 

technologies and medical treatments, and consumer confidence. 

In his role of Deputy Director ofMML, Dr. Fasolka is responsible for strategic planning, 

strategic communications, and operations for the laboratory. He has held this position since 

2012. Previously at NIST, Dr. Fasolka has been a Senior Scientific Advisor or Deputy to several 

NIST laboratory Directors. From 2005 to 2010, Dr. Fasolka was Director of the NIST 

Combinatorial Methods Center and Leader of a Combinatorial Methods Research Group, 

established to provide industry with guidance and tools for the high throughput discovery of 

polymers and other soft materials. Before that, he was a Staff Scientist conducting research in 

polymer self-assembly and advanced scanning probe microscopy techniques. Dr. Fasolka 

received his doctorate degree in polymer science from MIT in 2000. 

Education 

Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

B.A. in Liberal Studies from the University of Pittsburgh 

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Dr. Michael Fasolka Video: 

Title: Head Health Challenge III: Semifinalists Selected 

Published By: National Institute of Standards and Technology 

Date: September 6, 2017 
31 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. Mr. Kebschull. 

TESTIMONY OF MR. SCOTT A. KEBSCHULL, 

VICE PRESIDENT AND TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, 

DYNAMIC RESEARCH, INC. 

Mr. KEBSCHULL. Good morning. My name is Scott Kebschull. I 

am Vice President and Technical Director of Dynamic Research, 

Inc., of Torrance, California. I want to thank Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking Member Lipinski, Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Johnson, and fellow members of the Subcommittee on Research 

and Technology for the opportunity to speak to you today about the 

Head Health Challenge III. 

My company, DRI, partnered with 6D Helmets for the Head 

Health Challenge III prize competition to develop a material suitable for use in football helmets or other protective equipment that 

can better protect against traumatic brain injury. DRI is primarily 

involved in automotive research and testing, as well as helmet research and testing. 6D Helmets designs and manufactures helmets 

for bicycle and motorcycle riders that uses their patented 

omnidirectional suspension technology. 6D’s role in this project was 

to provide the intellectual property and to fabricate the material 

samples for testing, and DRI’s role was to manage the project, develop the simulation models, and optimize the geometry and material characteristics. 

Football helmets with foam liners have been around since the 

1950s. With the latest helmets available on the market, fatal head 

injuries are rare, but concussions still occur frequently. Traditional 

helmet liners are made out of monolithic blocks of foam. When 

these blocks of foam are optimized for linear performance, in other 

words, their performance in a perpendicular impact, they are much 

too stiff in shear, as occurs in glancing impacts. It has been known 

for many years that absorbing the energy in linear impacts is important for head protection, and more recently, it has become clear 

that cushioning impacts that cause rotation of the head is also important to protecting against both severe brain injuries, as well as 

concussion. Therefore, our goal was to develop a multi-impact material that performs well in both linear and shear impacts over a 

wide range of impact severities. 

This is an early prototype of the material that we developed. 

They are based on 6D Helmet’s omnidirectional suspension technology modified for multi-impact usage. The material comprises top 

and bottom layers of foam separated by a layer of foam columns 

glued to the top and bottom layers. As you might expect, since the 

layer of columns has quite a bit of empty space between the columns, this layer is softer in compression than the top and bottom 

layers. This provides good impact protection in lower speed, or 

minor, linear impacts. The layer of columns also allows the top 

layer to slide laterally relative to the bottom layer in order to mitigate shear impacts. The key breakthrough in our research was 

identifying a method for making the material softer in shear without changing the linear performance, which allows optimization of 

the material for both linear and shear performance. 

Now that we have won the Head Health Challenge III Grand 

Prize, our next step is to incorporate this material into a football 
32 

helmet and optimize it for both linear and shear impacts in severe 

and also relatively minor impacts. The research which has brought 

us to the point where we are now would not have been possible 

without the Head Health Challenge competition. 

The announcement of the competition solicited 125 ideas for improved materials. From that 125, the judging panel selected the 

most promising five finalists to receive first-round funding to develop their ideas, and of those five, we were selected the Grand 

Prize winner. This approach in my opinion proved to be a cost-effective way of soliciting a wide variety of ideas from bright people 

around the country to find potential solutions to a very difficult 

problem. Without the science prize competition format, the judging 

panel would not have seen these 125 ideas and would not have 

benefited from seeing how the five selected ideas could be developed. 

In addition, there would not have been the added benefit of competition. It’s difficult to quantify, but for me, the competition aspect 

was a great motivator. We spent hours poring over our simulation 

models, brainstorming ideas about how to achieve the best results, 

and wondering what our competition was up to. 

In my view, some problems, such as the one we’re talking about 

today, have proved to be difficult for the private sector to solve 

alone. Funding is very difficult to come by for ideas that have not 

yet reached a particular level of development, but ideas cannot 

reach that level of development without funding. For these problems, one of the ways that the federal government can spur innovation is through the use of science prize competitions. In partnership 

with key stakeholders from the private sector who can provide 

much-needed financial and technical resources, I believe these competitions can result in revolutionary breakthroughs. 

The concussion problem is most visible at the NFL and college 

levels, but the benefits of improved helmets can go well beyond 

that. Over one million kids play high school tackle football in the 

United States, as well as over one million younger children. Protecting them needs to be a high priority. 

The materials that we are developing also holds promise for 

other types of helmets. 6D has already incorporated the key breakthrough that I mentioned earlier into its latest cycling helmet that 

recently arrived on the market. Potentially, this material could also 

be used in other multi-impact helmets such as hockey or lacrosse 

helmets, in other protective equipment such as shoulder pads, in 

flooring or turf sub-surfaces, or in protective crash barriers on 

roadways. 

In view of my experience with the Head Health Challenge and 

the important strides that have been made towards improved head 

impact protection, I would urge you to continue to support science 

prize competitions. Thank you for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kebschull follows:] 
33 

2017-12-10 

Scott Kebschull Bio: 

Scott Kebschull is Vice President and Technical Director of Dynamic Research, Inc. 

of Torrance California. Scott has been with DRI for over 30 years, and during that 

time has been primarily involved in crashworthiness and occupant protection for 

passenger cars, motorcycles, and off-road vehicles. Scott was one of the main 

authors of the ISO 1 3232 Standard for evaluating protective devices on 

motorcycles and serves on various committees that develop standards for off-road 

vehicles. He is an expert in multi-body and finite element computer simulation and 

was responsible for the finite element simulation work that resulted in the team's 

winning of the Head Health Challenge Ill Grand Prize. Scott has a Bachelor of 

Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Valparaiso University and a Master 

of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Southern 

California. 

Written Testimony of Scott A. Kebschull to the Committee on Science, Space, and 

Technology, Subcommittee on Research and Technology of the U.S. House of 

Representatives, "Preventing Head Trauma: The NIST-NFL Head Health Challenge 

2017-12-13 

BACKGROUND 

My company, DR!, partnered with 6D Helmets for the Head Health Challenge Ill 

prize competition to develop a material, suitable for use in football helmets or other 

protective equipment, that can better protect against traumatic brain injury. DRI is 

primarily involved in automotive research and testing as well as helmet research 

and testing. 6D Helmets designs and manufactures helmets for bicycle and 

motorcycle riders that uses their patented Omni-Directional Suspension technology. 

60's role in this project was to provide the IP and to fabricate the material samples 

for testing, and DRI's role was to manage the project, develop the Finite Element 

(FE) simulation models, and optimize the geometry and material characteristics. 
34 

Football helmets with foam liners have been around since the 1950s. With the 

latest helmets available on the market, fatal head injuries are rare, but concussions 

still occur frequently. 

Traditional helmet liners are made out of monolithic blocks of foam. When these 

blocks of foam are optimized for linear performance, in other words, their 

performance in a perpendicular impact, they are much too stiff in shear, as occurs 

in glancing or angled impacts. It has been known for many years that absorbing the 

energy in linear impacts is important for head protection, and more recently it has 

become clear that cushioning impacts that cause rotation of the head is also 

important to protecting against both severe brain injuries as well as concussions. 

Therefore, our goal was to develop a multi-impact material that performs well in 

both linear and shear impacts and in both severe and relatively minor impacts. 

APPROACH 

Finite Element models of the prototype material were developed as shown below. 

Hundreds of computer simulations were run in order to optimize parameters such 

as the height of the columns; the width of the columns; the spacing of the 

columns; and the material properties of the top foam, bottom foam, and columns. 

Prototype Material (Left} and Finite Element Model (Right} 

The simulations allow the evaluation of the stresses and strains at each point in 

time as shown in the example linear impact simulation below. The colors toward 

the red end of the spectrum indicate relatively higher levels of strain (deformation), 
35 

and the colors toward the blue end of the spectrum indicate relatively lower levels 

of strain. 

LS·DYNA keyword deck by LS-PrePost Time= 9 

ContotlfsofLowerJptEITectlveStraln 

mJn;<(l,!ltl!fem#46013 

max::tt.~645t,ate!em#3417 

Cutaway View of FE Linear Impact Simulation Model Showing Strain Levels 

Simulations were also run in order to evaluate other shapes for the columns such 

as cones, but ultimately the cylindrical shape was selected as the best design. 

RESULTS 

The material design that was ultimately selected is based on 6D Helmets' OmniDirectional Suspension (ODS) technology, modified for multi-impact usage. It 

comprises top and bottom layers of foam separated by a layer of foam columns 

glued to the top and bottom layers. As you might expect, since the layer of 

columns has quite a bit of empty space between the columns, this layer is softer in 

compression than the top and bottom layers. This provides good protection in 

lower speed, or minor, linear impacts. The layer of columns also allows the top 

layer to slide laterally and rotate relative to the bottom layer in order to mitigate 

shear impacts. 

The key breakthrough in our research was identifying a method for making the 

material softer in shear without changing the linear performance, which allows 
36 

optimization of the material for both linear and shear performance. The figures 

below show the effect of a key tuning parameter on the linear and shear 

performance. In these figures, as the value of the tuning parameter is reduced, the 

material's linear performance does not change, but in shear, the material becomes 

softer (allows greater shear displacement). 

Tuning Parameter 

a. Linear Impact 

Tuning Parameter 

b. Shear Impact 

Effect of Column Attachment in Linear and Shear Impact Simulations 

NEXT STEPS 

Now that we have won the Head Health Challenge Ill Grand Prize, our next step is 

to incorporate this material into a football helmet and optimize it for both linear and 

shear impacts in severe and also relatively minor impacts. This will involve using an 

FE model of an existing commercially available football helmet, including the shell, 

liner, and facemask. This baseline helmet would be tested in laboratory drop tests 

in order to validate the results of the simulation model. Then, a liner for the helmet 

based on the column ODS design would be modeled to replace the baseline liner, 

and that model would be optimized for linear impacts and shear impacts (oblique 

impacts) at a range of impact speeds representing sub-concussive level impacts up 

to very severe impacts. 

LESSONS LEARNED 

This research which has brought us to the point where we are now would not have 

been possible without the Head Health Challenge competition. The announcement 
37 

of the competition solicited 125 ideas for improved materials. From that 125, the 

judging panel selected the most promising five finalists to receive first round 

funding to develop their ideas, and of those five, one was selected the Grand Prize 

winner. 

This approach proved to be a cost-effective way of soliciting a wide variety of 

ideas from bright people around the country to find potential solutions to a very 

difficult problem. Without the science prize competition format, the judging panel 

would not have seen these 125 ideas and would not have benefitted from seeing 

how the five selected ideas could be developed. 

In addition, there would not have been the added benefit of competition. It's 

difficult to quantify, but to me, the competition aspect was a great motivator. We 

spent hours pouring over our simulation models, brainstorming ideas about how to 

achieve the best results, and wondering what our competitors were up to. 

In my view, some problems, such as the one we're talking about today, have 

proved to be difficult for the private sector to solve alone. Funding is very difficult 

to come by for ideas that have not yet reached a particular level of development, 

but ideas cannot reach that level of development without funding. For these 

problems, one of the ways that the federal government can spur innovation is 

through the use of science prize competitions. In partnership with key stakeholders 

from the private sector who can provide much needed financial and technical 

resources, I believe these competitions can result in revolutionary breakthroughs. 

The concussion problem is most visible at the NFL and college football levels, but 

the benefits of improved helmets can go well beyond that. Over one million kids 

play high school tackle football in the U.S. as well as over one million younger 

children. Protecting them needs to be a high priority. 

The material we are developing also holds promise for other types of helmets. In 

fact, 60 has already incorporated what we learned in our Head Health Challenge 

research into their new cycling helmet that has recently arrived for sale in the 

marketplace. 

Potentially this material could also be used in other multi-impact helmets such as 

hockey or lacrosse helmets, in other protective equipment such as shoulder pads, 
38 

in flooring or turf subsurfaces, or in protective crash barriers on roadways and 

racetracks. 

In view of my experience with the Head Health Challenge, and the important 

strides that have been made toward improved head impact protection, I would urge 

Congress to continue to support science prize competitions. 
39 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you very much. And now, we will 

hear from Dr. Dehgan. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. ALEX O. DEHGAN, 

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER AND FOUNDER, 

CONSERVATION X LABS 

Dr. DEHGAN. Good morning. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member 

Johnson, Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking Member Lipinski, and 

other esteemed Members of the Subcommittee, thank you very 

much for the opportunity to present today. 

We face many challenges as a country. Many of those increasingly fail to respect political boundaries, state sovereignty, even 

military force. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Excuse me, Dr. Dehgan, is the microphone on or 

you need to move it closer to you. 

Dr. DEHGAN. Oh, I’m so sorry. There are challenges that come 

from scientific competition with new powers that seek to claim our 

place as America’s greatest—as the world’s greatest economy and 

scientific engine. 

We’ve seen that our solutions tend to be linear but the problems 

are exponential, so we need to incentivize the revolutionary over 

the evolutionary and broaden the available solutions in our scientific and technical arsenal. 

Much as we’ve created many of these problems, we possess the 

abilities to address them by harnessing American ingenuity, entrepreneurship, and leadership. Many of these grand challenges are 

actually grand opportunities, and we can use the power of open innovation to transform the very realm of what is possible, to democratize our ability to solve the challenges that face our nation, and 

to accelerate and fully harness our nation’s ingenuity. 

You’ve heard about my fellow witnesses, about the power of open 

innovation for the Head Health Challenge. I want to make the case 

for their larger use. The basic value proposition is this: Instead of 

looking for the needle in haystack, you’re incentivizing the needle 

to find you, right? Open innovation through prizes, challenges, advanced market commitments solve a fundamental problem that we 

face in government, that talent is everywhere but opportunity is 

not. They allow government to be in the business of creating greater opportunity to harness American talent to solve our most pressing problems, to unlock creativity, to break down barriers between 

scientific fields that are frequently stovepiped. 

I want to go through some of the benefits of open innovation. 

Next slide, please. 

[Slide.] 

First, and this is very relevant to Congress, they are efficient and 

careful uses of American taxpayer dollars. They are pay-for-success 

mechanisms rather than pray-for-success mechanisms. They serve 

as forms of procurement reform that allow anyone to be able to 

solve the problem and even can eliminate sources of bias. They leverage additional funds by the innovators. They have low monitoring costs of fund disbursements. They have simple application 

processes. They were procurement performed for USAID in terms 

of who could come, and because of that, 50 percent of the applications actually came out of the developing world, came from sectors 
40 

that never approached our agency before, and they could also 

jumpstart very importantly the flow of private capital. They help 

create new solutions and support out-of-the-box thinking. Because 

they’re focused on the problem and not the solution, they don’t constrain the potential innovation space but can draw from new sectors. They can bring in new solvers by mobilizing new talent to 

what seem to be intractable problems. 

The history of science is filled with instances of outsiders proposing novel and ultimately revolutionary solutions to problems 

that insiders had failed to solve. They attract a diverse group of experts, of practitioners, of laypeople regardless of formal credentials 

to try to take them on. And we saw that—again, that many of the 

applicants to the Grand Challenges for Development of USAID 

were first-time applicants to the agency, and that was important 

for us. 

I want to give one quick example which was Saving Lives at 

Birth, and it was our very first grand challenge. And it was fundamentally about two problems. How do we ensure that we can 

provide access to world-class health care to women and children 

from the onset of labor to 48 hours after delivery, and how do we 

do so whether—where they give birth, whether in a hospital or a 

hut, to make that distinction of where they give birth irrelevant to 

their ultimate success in what we’re trying to do? 

The reason is we can’t afford to build hospitals in every village 

around the world. We can’t afford to train doctors. We can’t afford 

to actually provide the equipment that they needed. So how in the 

absence of that could we achieve our mission on global health as 

an agency? And what we found was an outpouring of ideas and innovations that we never even saw before, including one that came 

from an Argentinian car mechanic that was the first new tool for 

obstructed labor in 40 years. We never could’ve seen that. Others 

came from undergrads, biomedical engineers at Duke and Rice University that are now scaling up. All these tools are now scaling up 

worldwide. 

Finally, prizes and challenges I think can help create new industries. The history of prizes and challenges are filled with that. Napoleon’s food preservation prize helped—led to canning, the billiard 

prize to replace ivory led to plastics, the Orteig Prize helped create 

the commercial airline industry, the Ansari X prize helped with the 

private spacecraft industry, and the DARPA Grand Challenge led 

to self-driving cars. These are great opportunities for our country. 

Prizes and challenges, they don’t work for every case and every situation, but they’re a tool within our arsenal to be able to use to 

advance American innovation. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Dehgan follows:] 
41 

TESTIMONY OF DR. ALEX DEHGAN, CEO, CONSERVATION X LABS, 

BEFORE THE HOUSE SCIENCE, SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY 

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13th, 2017 

2318 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON DC 

ACCELERATING INNOVATION & HARNESSING AMERICAN TALENT THROUGH PRIZES, 

CHALLENGES, AND OPEN INNOVATION 

THE PROBLEMS ARE BIG, BUT THE OPPORTUNITIES ARE BIGGER 

Good Morning. I am Dr. Alex Dehgan, CEO of Conservation X labs, a conservation 

innovation company that focuses on finding solutions to the underlying drivers of extinction 

through exponential technologies, open innovation, and entrepreneurship. I am the former 

Chief Scientist of the US Agency for International Development. 

I want to thank Subcommittee Chairwoman Barbara Comstock, Ranking Member Daniel 

Lipinski of the Subcommittee on Research and Technology and Ranking Member Eddie Bernice 

Johnson for the honor to speak about the power of open innovation, particularly prizes and 

challenges, as a powerful tool of innovation. 

We face many challenges as a country. Many of those challenges are ones that 

increasingly fail to respect political boundaries, state sovereignty, and military force. They are 

challenges that come from the growing billions emerging into the middle class around the 

world, and the demands and competition that they will place on our resources, and their 

growing demand for dairy, protein, air conditioning, and refrigeration. They are challenges that 

come from new nations that seek to claim our place as the world's greatest economy and 

leader of the free world. Even the challenges that affect other places, other countries, other 
42 

peoples, are challenges increasingly capable of undermining American economic growth, and 

destabilizing our national security. Increasingly, we have seen that our solutions are linear, but 

our problems are exponential. We must incentive the revolutionary over the evolutionary in 

the available solutions in our scientific & technological arsenal. 

However, much as we have created many of these problems, we also possess the 

abilities to address them by harnessing American ingenuity, entrepreneurship, and leadership. 

Many of these grand challenges are increasingly grand opportunities. We can use the power of 

open innovation to transform the very realm of what is possible, to democratize our ability to 

solve our biggest challenges, and to accelerate our nation's ingenuity and inventiveness. 

Given the speed and scale of the problems that face us, many of which have their genesis as 

questions of science & technology, and similarly, their solutions, we can accelerate the speed of 

innovation through prizes and challenges as one of a suite of tools for innovation in science & 

technology, and research. 

THE VALUE PROPOSITION: PRIZES ACCELERATE INNOVATION, AllOW US TO MORE FULLY 

BENEFIT FROM THE DEMOCRATIZATION OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, AND HARNESS 

PLANETARY GENIUS BY OPENING THE DOOR TO NEW SOLVERS AND SOLUTIONS. 

Open Innovation through prizes, challenges, and advanced market commitments solves 

a fundamental problem that we face as a government. While talent may be everywhere, 

opportunity is not. Open innovation allows the government to be in the business of creating 

greater opportunity to harness American (and when appropriate, global) talent to solve our 

most pressing problems, unlock new solvers and new solutions, breakdown barriers between 

scientific fields that are frequently stove-piped. 

Unlike traditional grant or investment programs, they eliminate hidden biases by 

focusing on the problems rather than the solutions and encourage competition. They help 

translate and source new ideas from adjacent technical spaces, identify excellence, and allow 

funders to uncover the landscape of potential solutions and understand emerging trends. This 

has the net effect, when executed properly, of allowing us to accelerate innovation, break 
43 

down barriers among fields, and allow us to more fully harness the democratization of science 

and technology. 

While the concept of prizes and challenges is not new, there is a renewed enthusiasm 

for their use. Before 2009, NASA, DOE, and DOD had limited authority to offer incentive prizes, 

and they conducted only a handful of competitions. Between 2009 and 2015, the federal 

government conducted more than 440 prize competitions and challenges. This increase in 

prizes and challenges demonstrates the power these tools have to transform how we find 

solutions. 

WHAT IS A PRIZE, A CHALLENGE, OR AN ADVANCED MARKET COMMITMENT? 

Prizes, Challenges, and Advanced Market Commitments are a relatively straightforward 

approach to finding solutions, yet require highly strategic implementation to efficiently and 

successfully identify impactful and innovative solutions. 

Prizes award a single winner, using the first to achieve a clear objective or goal. They are 

intended to move the needle in terms of potential solutions, demonstrate a breakthrough, 

literally showing that the impossible is now possible. Monetary prizes can help spur privatesector action by offering a lump sum to winners of contests, but prizes may utilize other types 

of incentives and structures beyond monetary prizes, including recognition, advanced market 

commitments, media attention, and credibility. These lump sums typically represent a return 

on investment for the winners, and use the psychology of gamification to incentivize previously 

untapped innovators and encourage them to engage with difficult problems. 

Challenges are similar to prizes in the way they tap into the wisdom and experience of 

"unusual suspects." Unlike prizes, however, they reward a few winners, rather than a single 

winner. They seek to spur collaboration, especially cross-sectoral collaboration, and 

participation to solve large, seemingly intractable public problems and to build communities of 

practice, essential for building new ecosystems of solutions, rather than a single point solution. 

By bringing together insight and experience from a variety of actors with different backgrounds, 
44 

challenges can inspire out-of-the-box thinking and innovative approaches to problem solving. 

Finally, they help map the larger landscape of potential innovations. 

Advanced Market Commitments. Advanced Market Commitments (AMCs) are a type of 

prize. An AMC is a legally-binding agreement for an amount of funds to subsidize the purchase, 

at a given price, of an as yet unavailable product whose creation would create a substantial 

advance against a specific challenge. The establishment of AMCs should encourage the 

development of future generations of such innovations, and work to resolve a market failure, 

by creating incentives for private industry and capital to generate such solutions. They 

essentially serve to derisk research and development by guaranteeing a market. 

Prizes, Challenges, and AMCs can be incredibly powerful tools to focus attention on a 

problem, without being constrained by existing communities of practice. A prize can be useful 

to focus on a specific breakthrough, while a challenge could result in a community of possible 

solutions. With well-developed problem statements and identified characteristics of a solution, 

a challenge or prize model may be employed for rapidly developing deployable solutions. If 

significant research and development is needed to bring identified solutions to market, a 

challenge can lead to an identified community of solutions that can then be rapidly developed 

for scale. 

BENEFITS OF OPEN INNOVATION 

Prizes, Challenges, AMCs, and other forms of open innovation offer a number of advantages 

when well executed. 

1. EFFICIENT & CAREFUL USES OF AMERICAN TAXPAYER DOLLARS 

Prizes and challenges are efficient and cost-effective uses of American taxpayer dollars. 

First, they are pay for performance mechanisms. You only pay for success- Prizes and 

challenges are only paid when a specific objective is met or a specific problem in solved. 
45 

Moreover, rather than searching for the right solution to a problem, through a contract or 

grant, they incentivize the solution to find you. 

Second, they are forms of procurement reform. At USAID, we were heavily straddled 

with systems that prevented us from working with all but a small number of implementers. 

Moreover, the cost of even being able to apply for USAID funding is in the thousands of dollars. 

By creating an open, transparent, and simple process that is focused on outcomes, not process 

& bureaucracy, they open the door for new entrants and even build momentum for new 

entries. They also serve to eliminate hidden biases of traditional grant programs by focusing on 

the problems rather than the solutions. While experts may be able to help identify the 

problems we want solved, the complexity of science and technology prevent any single person 

or institution from owning most of the solutions. 

Moreover, prizes and challenges can be an extraordinarily effective use of resources due 

to the leveraging of additional funds by the innovators themselves, low monitoring costs of 

fund disbursement, a relatively simple application process (compared to grant funding), quicker 

feedback cycles, and streamlined review based on simple solutions-based criteria. 

Third, prizes and challenges also provide additional layers of motivation beyond money, 

such as prestige, recognition and credibility, and intellectual curiosity. In an era when more and 

more people want to see solutions to societal problems that have proved resistant to 

traditional market or academic solutions, prizes-and their flexibility to address a range of 

issues- are increasingly valuable for social entrepreneurs who benefit from prize money and 

the recognition from the global community, and for prize sponsors seeking change. 

Fourth, prizes and challenges provide substantial leverage and mitigate risks for 

American taxpayer dollars. At USAID, because of the size of the Grand Challenges, we executed 

all the Grand Challenges for Development with other partners- this included other bilateral 

and multilateral development agencies, foundations like Gates and Omidyar, and private sector 

companies. This had multiple benefits to the American taxpayer. We were able to mitigate risk 

among multiple organizations, and leveraged considerable prize capital among multiple parties, 
46 

as well as were able to incentivize a greater number of participants to compete for the prize 

through greater amplification through each of the partners. 

Saving lives at Birth, our first Grand Challenge for Development, is an insightful 

example. It sought to address two problems. First, if we could provide medical care to women 

and their children from the onset of labor to 48 hours after delivery, no matter what was the 

setting in which they gave birth- in a hospital or a hut- we could dramatically improve the 

chances of survival for both the mother and the child. Second, we recognized that there 

weren't sufficient resources, even among all the development agencies in the world, to build 

world-class hospitals, equipment, and well trained physicians and nurses in every village that 

needed them to save the lives of women and children. We needed to be innovative. 

Specifically, we needed to create innovations for maternal and child-care that ensure their 

survival and health irrespective of where a woman gave birth. Saving lives at Birth, which 

became a partnership of Gates, Norway, Korea, the United Kingdom, Grand Challenges Canada, 

ended up leveraging for US taxpayers $100 Million+ in external funding, based on an 

investment of $20 Million by the US. Overall, the Grand Challenges program at USAID has 

leveraged over $400 million in external funding. 

Finally, prizes, challenges, and AMCs can also jumpstart the flow of private capital. They 

serve as vetting mechanisms for the private sector. And through AMCs, we may harness the 

private sector to create new market incentives for private investment. The Department of 

Energy Better Buildings Advanced Market Commitment partnered with private sector 

commercial firms, like Whole Foods, to make commitments of increasing cooling efficiency on 

all its buildings, creating a market incentives for manufacturers to improve existing cooling 

technology. Since 2013, 300 partners have replaced or upgraded a total of 77,000 units, saving 

over $166 million in energy costs and racking up $66 million in savings in 2016 alone. 

2. CREATING NEW SOLUTIONS & ACCELERATING INNOVATION 

Prizes, challenges, and AMCs also help create new breakthrough solutions and 

accelerate innovation. They do this by focusing on the problem, not the solution, and as such, 
47 

they do not constrain the potential innovation space. When well crafted, they set aspirational 

goals for discovery and invention, which incentivizes the entry of new disciplines, and the 

application of breakthroughs from adjacent fields to being applied to new problems in new 

ways. This helps translate and source new ideas from adjacent technical spaces, and allows the 

funder to uncover the landscape of potential solutions, understand emerging trends, and create 

communities of interests. A recent Harvard Business School report, The Value of Openness in 

Scientific Problem Solving, found that "the further the problem was from the solver's expertise, 

the more likely they were to solve it."1 

The US Government has used prizes and challenges to accelerate innovation on 

important human health and security challenges where traditional approaches were 

insufficient. These include, but are in no way limited to: 

• Food Safety: The Food and Drug Administration launched the Food Safety prize 

competition in 2014 to encourage innovators to think of ideas that would quickly detect 

disease-causing organisms in food. The winning team from Purdue University, led by 

Professor Michael Ladisch, developed a technology that concentrates Salmonella to 

detectable levels using automated microfiltration, making it possible to process samples 

in hours instead of days. 

• Desalinization: The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Bureau 

of Reclamation challenged innovators around the world to create cost-effective, energy 

efficient, sustainable desalination technologies to provide water for people and crops. 

powered system that removes salt from water with electricity and uses ultraviolet rays 

to disinfect the water, showing the potential for photovoltaic-powered electrodialysis to 

be a scalable, sustainable, and affordable desalination technology for rural areas of 

developing countries. 

1 Karim R. Lakhani, et al. 2007. "The Value of Openness in Scientific Problem Solving," Harvard Business 

School working paper. 
48 

• Disease Outbreaks. USAID used prizes and challenges to accelerate innovation for child 

and material care, education, energy & agriculture, water, but most recently, has been 

using prizes and challenges as ways of addressing the Ebola and Zika outbreaks. 

3. NEW SOLVERS- MOBILIZING NEW TALENT 

The ability of prizes to mobilize new talent to focus on difficult problems is an important 

driver of innovation. The history of science is filled with instances of outsiders proposing novel 

and ultimately, revolutionary solutions to problems that had vexed insiders. At USAID, the 

Agency has increasingly seen prize and challenge applicants coming from sectors that have 

never previously approached the Agency. Many awards were from first-time applicants and a 

significant number of applications, and a growing share of the winners, came from the 

developing world. It makes sense that those closest to the problem may have some good ideas 

of how to address it. Prizes and challenges provide that opportunity. 

Prizes also attract diverse groups of experts, practitioners, and laypeople-regardless of 

formal credentials-to attempt to solve difficult problems. The citizen-inventor working out of 

a garage is a cherished part of prize lore. Technology may allow more garage innovators to 

succeed. The democratization of science & technology through exponential gains in the power 

of technology and exponential decreases in the cost of computing power and storage, greater 

connectivity through the internet and cell phones to an ever increasing and unprecedented 

trove of human knowledge, the merger of biology and technology to advance molecular 

sciences & microbiology, and the many ways the information technology enables cheap and 

easy collaboration are working together to dramatically expand the pool of potential solvers 

and lower the cost of attempting or recognizing solutions. 2 

Saving Lives at Birth, USAID's Grand Challenge, for instance was notable for one of its 

winners: an Argentinian car mechanic who created one of the first new innovations for 

2 McKinsey & Company. 20009. And the Winner Is: Capturing the Promise of Philanthropy Prizes. Read 

Developing and Delivering Effective Prizes. 
49 

obstructed labor in 40 years inspired by a Youtube video. Innovation can come from many 

sectors, and we can use prizes and challenges to uncork it. 

Incentives prizes also provide more entrepreneurial opportunities for under represented 

sectors because they level the playing field. 3 In a study of more than 166 science challenges 

involving over 12,000 scientists, open innovation scholars Karim lakhnai and Lars Bo Jeppesen 

found that "female solvers-known to be in the 'outer circle' of the scientific establishmentperformed significantly better than men in developing successful solutions." By "removing 

barriers to entry to non-obvious individuals," prizes increase access to innovation. 4 

4. CREATING NEW INDUSTRIES 

Prizes, challenges and AMCs have the power to create entire new industries, markets, 

businesses, and leaders while extending the frontiers of possibility. This may be because they 

make the impossible possible, and capture the public imagination. That breakthrough effect 

serves to galvanize others to enter into the space, including again, investors and finance. The 

history of prizes and challenges is filled with such examples: 

The Longitude Prize created by an act of Parliament in the UK in 1714 was used to 

establish a simple and practical method for precisely determining a ship's longitude, which 

greatly facilitated transatlantic shipping. Napoleon issued a prize in 1794 for a new method to 

preserve food and avoid loss of capacity from food poisoning, particularly "when an invaded 

country was not able or inclined to sell or provide food." That prize led to canning, which was 

won by a French confectioner Nicholas Appert, who lacked any formal training in science. He 

went on to create a canning factory that revolutionized food safety. In 1863, the first 

conservation prize, intended to replace ivory in billiard balls, provided $10,000 for the inventor 

of a suitable substitute as ivory became increasingly scarce. It resulted in a celluloid that 

helped spur the modern plastics industry. 

3 pers. comm. Jenn Gustetic, NASA 

4 Lars Bo Jeppesen, and Karim lakhnai, "Marginality and Problem Solving Effectiveness in Broadcast 

Search," Organization Science 21 (2010): 1016. doi 10.1287 /orsc.1090.0491. 
50 

Two more recent prizes stand out. The Orteig Prize in 1919 promised $25,000 to the 

first Allied aviator who could cross the Atlantic from Paris to New York or New York to Paris in a 

single flight. Charles lindberg, who had been a mail messenger flying from St. Louis to Chicago, 

took out a $15,000 bank loan, and won that prize in 1927 in the Spirit of St. Louis, a feat which 

was thought impossible. Within 18 months of that flight, the modern airplane industry was 

born. Passenger traffic increased 30 times, the number of aircraft increased 4 times, pilot 

applications increased four times, and aviation stocks stored. 

Similarly, the Ansari X Prize, which was a $10-million prize for the first team to privately 

build a spacecraft that could carry 3 adults to 100 km twice in a week, helped incentivize the 

private space craft industry. Twenty-six teams, from 7 nations, spent over 100 million dollars 

competing for the prize, which lead to over a billion dollars of investment in the sector. The 

Ansari X-prize helped create a new wave of commercial space exploration and contributed to a 

fundamental shift in NASA's approach to travel to low earth orbit. Even the non-winners found 

it helpful: 40% of non-winning participants said the process of applying was helpful in clarifying 

their ideas and connecting them with new partners. Half were still developing their solutions 

even though they did not receive funding from the prize competition. The winning ship, 

Space5hip0ne, sits in the Air and Space Museum on the Mall next to the Spirit of St. Louis. 

A final example of how prizes and challenges incentivize new industries was 2004 

DARPA Grand Challenge that helped lead to the self-driving car revolution. Fourteen years ago, 

the idea of a self-driving car seemed within the realm of science fiction, when DARPA first 

launched its Grand Challenge. 

The immediate goal of the DARPA Grand Challenge was to autonomously navigate a 

142-mile course across a Nevada desert. The first team to pass a series of qualification tests 

and then complete the course in less than 10 hours would win a million-dollar cash prize. The 

longer-term aim was to accelerate development of the technological foundations for 

autonomous vehicles that could ultimately substitute for men and women in hazardous military 

operations, such as supply convoys. 
51 

like other challenges, it was a way to incentivize new solvers and solutions, and build 

new communities of practice and collaborations across diverse fields. No one won the first 

round, however, with the top-scoring vehicle traveling only 7.5 miles. The competition 

however offered a chance to view the future and see that autonomous driving was possible. A 

second Grand Challenge took place 18 months later in 2005, and 5 vehicles successfully 

completed the course. DARPA conducted a third competition, the Urban Challenge, in 2007 

that featured driverless vehicles navigating a complex course in a staged city environment in 

Victorville, Calif., negotiating other moving traffic and obstacles while obeying traffic 

regulations. These would have the effect of encouraging the development of a multibillion 

dollar autonomous vehicle industry that looks to change the American landscape. 

5. ITS NOT JUST ABOUT THE WINNERS 

Finally, through my work at Conservation X Labs and at USAID, I have learned that prizes 

and challenges are not enough, but can be complemented by other mechanisms. There is a 

great value to harnessing both competitive and collaborative mechanisms to spur innovation. 

For this reason, in addition to running prizes and challenges, we have investing into mass 

collaboration- through the creation of a Digital Makerspace, a collaborative innovation 

platform- to encourage the development of ideas that were successful. Many of the 

innovations that don't win may still have nuggets of innovation, that when combined with other 

ideas or further iterated on, can provide powerful solutions. 

Mass Collaboration, another form of open innovation, has previously solved significant 

problems. The Open Source Drug Discovery (OSDD) created a large community comprised of 

more than 5, 700 registered users of the portal from 130 countries, who helped create new 

license-free drugs for malaria and TB that were not being created by traditional pharmaceutical 

industry. 
52 

RULES FOR EFFECTIVE PRIZES AND CHALLENGES 

While powerful tools, prizes and challenges need to be executed effectively to work 

well. This requires a focus on problems, not solutions, which frequently sounds easy, but is 

difficult to achieve. Prizes, challenges, and AMCs must ensure that they are solving the right 

problem, and a problem that is sufficiently audacious but achievable. They must address a 

large enough and important enough problem to excite, inspire, and attract broad communities 

of solvers, from disparate fields, to the problem. They must target by definition-- a market 

failure. They also must clearly define the criteria for winning. 

Second, there must be a sufficient purse. Prizes shift the risk to the participants as a pay 

for success mechanism. As such, there has to be a sufficient understanding of the participant 

cost structure to incentivize their participation. This is especially true of prizes and AMCs where 

the purse must also be large enough to attract broad public attention and create demand for 

the solutions. 

Third, execution is critical. My experience at USAID has taught me integrating 

procurement and legal teams with the design teams is necessary to create a great prize. It 

must be rewarding and simple for both teams to participate and for Agencies to operate. There 

are increasingly sophisticated ways to run prizes, using staged capital to incentivize greater 

success, and create a pathway to scale. It is not enough just to design a prize, but we must 

design for what happens afterwards. Scale must be built into the process from the beginning. 

However, most things are not a prize or a challenge. Prizes, challenges, and AMCs are a 

tool in a research and technology portfolio. They should only be used when there is a clear and 

measurable outcome defined in advance. They are best when taking on problems where the 

objective is clear, but the way to achieve it is not. As McKinsey noted in its report, And the 

Winner is, "By attracting diverse talent and a range of potential solutions, prizes draw out many 

possible solutions, many of them unexpected, and steer the effort in directions that established 

experts might not go but where the solution may nonetheless lie." 
53 

CONCLUSION 

Prizes, challenges, and AMCs are powerful tools in our science & technology toolbox for 

advancing American innovation and solving wicked problems. While they are not right for 

every approach, or even most of them, they can transform the realm of what is possible, allow 

for greater interdisciplinary solutions, attract new solvers and solutions, and catalyze new 

industries. 

Such open innovation tools have the very qualities that define the best of American 

values and spirit- they are entrepreneurial, rely on self-selection, are by definition open and 

transparent, and reward merit, ingenuity and hard work. In some ways, they reflect the values 

of the American story, where everyone has a chance, and the pathways to success are open to 

anyone. 
54 

DR. ALEX DEHGAN - PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY 

Alex Dehgan is the CEO & co-founder of a new startup, Conservation X 

Labs, focused on harnessing exponential technologies, open innovation, 

and entrepreneurship for addressing global challenges, including 

launching the first Grand Challenge for Conservation on Aquaculture, 

creating the first digital makerspace, and developing a new handheld 

microfluidics based DNA field scanner. He is also The Chanler Innovator 

in Residence at Duke University and previously served as the Inaugural 

Rubenstein Fellow, where he researches and lectures on technology 

innovation for the SDGs. 

Dr. Alex Dehgan recently served as the Chief Scientist at the U.S. 

Agency for International Development, with rank of Assistant Administrator, founded and headed 

the Office of Science and Technology, and created the vision for and helped launch the Global 

Development Lab, the Agency's DARPA for Development. As the Agency's first chief scientist in 

two decades, Dr. Dehgan implemented the President's promise to restore science and technology 

to its rightful place within USAID. Alex was the architect of a number of new Agency institutions, 

including the Grand Challenges for Development program, Agency partnerships with universities 

(HESN) and federal science agencies (PEER), the independent office of science and technology 

(OST), the position of the Agency geographer and the GeoCenter, and data for development 

programs, and the Global Development Lab. In less than four years, Alex built OST from scratch 

to an 80-person office, a $100 M dollar research program, and leveraged or raised $500 million 

dollars from other donors and partners. Alex was also part of the founding team for the creation of 

the Policy, Planning, and Learning Bureau (PPL), rebuilt technical capabilities in the Agency by 

putting scientists, physicians, and engineers directly into USAID missions and technical bureaus, 

and led efforts for the Agency's research policy and first ever scientific integrity policy. 

Prior to coming to USAID, Alex worked in multiple positions at the Department of State, including 

the Policy Planning Staff, the Office of the Secretary, the Office of the Science Adviser (STAS), 

and the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, and the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. At State, 

Alex developed political and science diplomacy strategies towards addressing our most 

challenging foreign policy issues in Iran, Iraq, and the greater Islamic world, including helping 

initiating the Obama Administration's diplomatic efforts with Iran through science diplomacy 

working with Am b. Dennis Ross, and serving as a liaison to the late Am b. Richard Holbrooke. 

Alex Dehgan was also the founding Afghanistan Country Director for the Wildlife Conservation 

Society's Afghanistan Biodiversity Conservation Program. Through his leadership, WCS led efforts 

to create Afghanistan's first national park, conducted the first comprehensive biological surveys of 

the country in 30 years, helped develop Afghanistan's biodiversity conservation Jaws and policies, 

and curtailed illegal wildlife trade on US and ISAF military bases. Alex is also currently writing a 

book, The Snow Leopard Startup, through Public Affairs, an imprint of Perseus Books Group, on 

setting up the first national park in Afghanistan. 

Dr. Dehgan holds a Ph.D and M.Sc. from The University of Chicago's Committee on Evolutionary 

Biology, where he focused on extinction and adaptation of 121emur species during environmental 

change in tropical forests in Madagascar. He also holds a J.D. from the University of California, 

Hastings, and a B.S. from Duke University. He was chosen as an "Icon of Science" by Seed 

Magazine in 2005, received the World Technology Award for Policy in 2011, and has been 

recognized through multiple awards from the Departments of State and Defense, and USAID. In 

2013, AAAS selected Alex as one of its 40@40 fellows out of 2,600 AAAS Science Policy Fellows 

as "an individual who has made exemplary dedication to applying science to serve society, was 

creative, innovative, and collaborative problem solvers in addressing global challenges, and was 

an uncommon ambassador for the role of science and technology." 
55 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. And I now recognize Mr. 

Springs for his testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF MR. SHAWN SPRINGS, 

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, WINDPACT 

Mr. SPRINGS. Good morning, Chairwoman Comstock and Ranking Member Lipinski and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to participate in today’s 

discussion on the Head Health Challenge. My name is Shawn 

Springs. I’m the Chief Executive Officer of Windpact, a northernVirginia-based safety technology company I founded in 2011. 

Windpact is an innovative startup with a goal to become the 

most advanced impact protection company in the world. We leverage our patented Crash Cloud technology to improve impact performance in helmets and protective gear. 

Learning and accepting the guidance from the medical community, our aim is to be the catalyst of innovation for impact protection technology so manufacturers can build better products for 

their customers. Windpact partners with top equipment brands to 

improve products by replacing their existing padding with our 

Crash Cloud technology. We are working with multiple customers 

across sports and recreation, including football, baseball, lacrosse, 

and hockey brands, and are in negotiating partnerships in other 

sectors, including the military and automotive. 

My inspiration for founding Windpact stems from my desire to 

make playing sports safer for the next generation of athletes. I 

spent 20 years playing football, including 13 years in the National 

Football League. 

Windpact has participated in a few Head Health Challenge competitions resulting in a first-place victory in the First and Future 

Competition, which was held during Super Bowl weekend down in 

Houston, partnering with the NFL and Texas Medical Center, the 

largest medical center in the world. There were 200 participants, 

and we were fortunate to come out and win our category for best 

materials for the game, as well as an award under the 

HeadHealthTECH Challenge—a group of challenges launched over 

the last 12 months through collaboration with NFL and Duke University’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute. We won our 

second award. 

As a startup company, gaining access to, and trust from, larger 

brands can be a challenge. As a recipient of multiple awards, we 

have found that a formal acknowledgement and support of our 

technology by an institution like NIST or Duke University’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute through the 

HeadHealthTECH program provides welcome validation and legitimacy to our own findings. 

I strongly believe that public-private science prize competitions 

are invaluable to the advancement of player safety. The NFL has 

done a good job the past few years partnering with corporations 

and research facilities to encourage the improvement of the technology to protect its players. Having sustained concussions and witnessed concussions among friends and teammates, I developed a 

sense of urgency and obligation to work towards a solution and af-
56 

fect change. It’s important to me to protect the future of players 

from injury and make both the game I love and other sports safer. 

There has been a growing negative attention directed to sports 

in the past few years with the elevated awareness of concussions 

and injury, resulting in a reduced participation, especially at the 

youth level. I feel strongly that is the opposite reaction that we 

need. Team sports and recreational activities are invaluable in 

what they provide to our communities and children. 

While football has received the bulk of the attention for injuries 

to its athletes, they are now also receiving compliments for the 

work they are doing to spur innovators, entrepreneurs, and manufacturers to build the next generation of protective gear. It’s imperative for other industries to follow suit by creating their own initiatives to improve safety. Protecting our loved ones with better 

equipment is Windpact’s mission statement, but it is also a common goal for parents, players, coaches, emergency responders, and 

military personnel as well. 

Our experience has been that public-private science prize is an 

excellent way to spur innovation and speed up much-needed improvements to the market. The right partners and support of the 

funding program like Head Health Challenge are providing opportunities to young companies beyond what otherwise would be accessible to them. I recommend the continued exploration and investment in these types of competitions across sports and beyond. 

Another operation is needed to continue to update and modernize 

standards. This underscores the need to update standards as go 

hand-in-hand with private sector innovation. Windpact welcomes 

the opportunity to participate in future challenges. Science prize 

competitions spur innovation, and that requires significant capital 

investment. 

Thank you for the opportunity to offer my testimony, and I look 

forward to answering any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Springs follows:] 
57 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE. SPACE. AND TECHNOLOGY 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY 

·Head Health Clwllcngc: Preventing Head Trauma l1·01n Football Field to Shop Floor to 

Battlefield.·· 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Wednesday. December 13.2017 

Written Testimony 

Shawn Springs, Chief Executive Officer. Windpact. Inc. 

Chairwoman Comstock. Ranking Member Lipinski and distinguished members of the 

Subcommittee. thank you for the opponunity to participate in today·s discussion on the Head 

Health Challenge. 

My name is Shawn Springs. I am the Chief Executive Off!ccr of Windpact, a Northern Virginia 

based safety technology company I founded in 20 ll. Windpact is an innovative startup with a 

goal to become the most advanced impact protection company in the world. We leverage our 

patented Crash CloudTM technology to improve impact perf(mnancc in helmets and protective 

gear. Leaming and accepting guidance hom the medical community, our aim is to be the catalyst 

of innovation for impact protection technology so manufacturers can build better products for 

their customers. 

Windpact panncrs with top equipment brands to imprO\e products by replacing their existing 

padding with our Crash Cloud technology. We are working with multiple CLtstomcrs across 

sports and recreation, induding football. baseball. lacrosse and hockey hdmet brands. and we 

are cuJTcntly negotiating pannerships in other sectors, including the military and automotive. 

My inspiration for founding Windpact stems 11-r)m my desire to make playing sports safer for the 

next generation of athlct..:s. [ spent over 20 years playing football. ti·om the youth kvel to the 

professional level. playing 13 years in the 1'\ational Football League (NFL). Football is a 

beautiful sport when played properly within the confines of the ruks. Even when played 

conectly. there are some inherent dangers that are unavoidable. Having sustained concussions 

and witnessed concussions among friends and teammates. I developed a sense of urgency and 

obligation to work towards a solution and cf!\:ct change. It is important to me to protect futun; 

players from injury and make both the gam.: I lon~ and other sports safer. 

There has been growing negative attention directed at sports in the past few years with the 

elevated awareness of concussions and injury. resulting in a reduced panicipation in sports, 
58 

especially at the youth leveL I feel strongly that this is the opposite reaction that is needed. Team 

sports and recreational activities are invaluable in what they provide tn our communities and nur 

children. Studies have found that panicipation in these activities makes us healthier. and the 

values of teamwork. hard work and discipline have been shown to make more productive 

citizens. 

In 2013, the NFL General Electric and Under Armour announced a partnership with the 

National Institute of Science & Technology (NIST) with the launch of the Hl'ad Health 

Challenge f. !1 & !fl. This four-year, $60 million collaboration was lormed to accelerate the 

diagnosis and improvement of treatment of traumatic brain injury. The Head Health Clwllcngc 

(HHC) was followed by additional programs supported by the NFL's Play Smart Play Safe 

initiative. The annual 1st and Future Startup Competition held at the Super Bowl, which last 

year, teamed the NFL with Texas Medical Center and the !Iead!leal!hTECH il!HTC) group of 

challenges, launched over the last 12 months, which teamed the NFL and Football Research, Inc. 

(FRI) with Duke University's Clinical and Translational Science Institute. 

\rVindpact has participated in a few of the Head Health Challenge competitions, resulting in a 

first-place victory in tho: 1st and Futun· Compi.!litiun, as well as an award under the 

HeadHea!tlz'lECH!! Challenge. 

As a startup company, gaining access to, and trust tt·om, larger brands can be a challenge. As a 

recipient of multiple awards, we have found that the fonnal acknowledgement and support of our 

technology by an institution like the NIST or Duke University's Clinical and Translational 

Science Institute, through the HcadllcalthTEC!l program, provides wdcome validation and 

legitimacy to our own t]ndings. This has opened doors with funding panncrs as well as 

commercial opportunities. which arc so critical to gaining traction as an emerging company. 

Through our applications to HHC and l!EITC programs, we learned the importance of 

understanding the specific underlying mission behind each of the programs. For instance, the 

first Head Hcal!h Challenge was focused on improving the diagnosis and treatment of patients 

with traumatic brain injury. Windpact initially applied to the Head Health Challenge !!, but the 

program mission didn't perfectly match our business model and technology, and our application 

was tumed down. The HmdHcaltlzTECH challenge is specitically aimed at commercializing and 

deploying technologies that show promise in improving the health of professional football 

players. The HmdHcalth!ECH c:hallenge has a mission in alignment with Windpact's current 

state of development, ultimately resulting in their decision to award our company funding. 

Additionally. we learned the importance of tailoring an application to lit those program goals. In 

one instance, Windpact's grant application requested funds that would enable us to achieve 

signi !kant gains on several development ti·onts, induding physical prototyping of helmets, as 

well as initial brain modeling and \·ir1ual model simulation. Ultimately, our application was too 

ambitious for the program and Windpact was not selected as a recipient of that grant. We drew 

on our experience and our subsequent succcssfi.il application contained a signiticantly pared back 

set of objectives and smaller funding request. 

Based on our experience with these competitions, l strongly belie\ e that public-private science 

prize competitions are im aluable to the advancement of player safety. The NFL has done a good 
59 

job the past few years pannering with corporations and research facilities to encourage the 

imprO\"Cmcnt of technology to protect its players" And while football has received the bulk of the 

attention lor injuries to its athletes. they are now also receiving compliments l(n the \\ ork they 

are doing to spur on innovators. entrepreneurs and manufacturers to build the next generation of 

protecti\<C gear. 

Other industries can follow suit by creating their own initiatives to improve safety. Protecting 

our loved ones with better equipment is Windpact"s stated mission. but it is also a common goal 

for parents. players. coaches. emergency responders, military personneL and otht:rs. Our 

experience has been that the public-private science prize is an excellent way to spur innovation 

and speed much needed improvements to market. With the right partners supponing the funding. 

a program like the Head Health Challc11gc provides oppol1unities to young companies beyond 

what would otherwise be accessible to them. We would recommend continued exploration and 

investment in these types of competitions across spor1s and beyond. 

As it applies to head health among athletes. studies have highlighted the dangers of concussion in 

a wide variety of sports. including football. hockey. lacrosse, wrestling. rugby, and girls· soccer. 

Due to recent studies. women ·s lacrosse. tor example. is facing new standards f()r protective 

headgear. The state of Florida is the first to mandate that all girls playing high school lacrosse 

wear headgear. and it is widely expected that other states will follow suit. Windpact·s technology 

is in the first girls· lacrosse headgear to pass the stringent ASTJ\.1 standards. 

Head protection in the cycling industry offers another signiilcant opportunity for new standards 

and innovation driven by public-private 1\.mding support. Today, most cycling helmets continue 

to rely on dated rigid loam technology to address an outdated Consumer Product Safety 

Commission certification standard. Anecdotally, we know that concussions and other mild 

traumatic brain injuries can occur at impact speeds far below those measured by the certification 

standard" 

Another consideration f(H· leveraging prize money tn spur innovation is evaluating the size of the 

grants. Using HcadffcalthTECH as an example. from a signilicant pool of funds (S60 million), 

the program appears to be on track to award many very modest sized grants, from $20.000 to 

$190.000. This is helpful to spn:ad funding to multiple recipients, but also limits the gains any 

one recipient can make with prize funding" I 1voulcl recommend more tlexibility in award size to 

encourage holder and more ambitious ideas. as well as those that demonstrate incremental 

improYcmcnts" 

Thank you for the oppor1unity to otTer my t~stimony and I look !t)rwarcl to answering any 

questions. 
60 

Shawn Aaron Springs 

Shawn Springs is the CEO and Founder of Windpact, Inc., a Northern Virginia based 

safety technology company leveraging its patented padding technology to improve impact 

performance in helmets and protective gear in sports, military and recreation. Shawn, an 

entrepreneur, visionary and investor, has participated in numerous businesses, from real 

estate to tech startups. Additionally, Shawn works during the NFL season as a local 

commentator/ anchor for NBC Sports, discussing all things relating to the Washington 

Redskins. He also appears on ESPN and NFL Network. 

His inspiration for founding Windpact came from a car seat made by Dorel Juvenile. 

Shawn was using the car seat to transport his children when he was struck with the idea that 

perhaps the same technology being utilized to protect his kid's heads in an auto accident 

could be transferred into helmets to protect athletes, soldiers, etc. After 13 years as a 

football player in the NFL. Shawn sustained or witnessed enough concussions to realize that 

if he had found a way to protect future players from injury, then it was his obligation to work 

to develop this technology. 

Shawn is a graduate of The Ohio State University and completed a Bachelor of 

Science in Sociology. At Ohio State. as a member of the football team, he was a two-time 

Academic All-Big Ten Athlete and was named the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year in 

1996 despite having no interceptions. While attending Ohio State, Shawn served as the 

President of the Majority of One Program, a program offering support, scholarships and 

mentoring to minority students. 

In 1997, Shawn entered the National Football League and was drafted by the 

Seattle Sea hawks with the third pick overall. He remains the highest cornerback ever drafted 

in the NFL and spent 7 years in Seattle playing under Mike Holmgren and Dennis Erickson. 

He was selected to the ProBowl in 1998. While playing for the Seahawks, Shawn continued 

his education and attended the University Washington, where he was inducted into the 

Society of National Collegiate Scholars. 

He was signed as a free agent in 2004 by legendary coach Joe Gibbs and the 

Washington Redskins. While playing for the Redskins, he became the only player in NFL 

history to lead his team statistically with sacks and interceptions in the same year (2005). He 

finished his career in 2010 by spending a year playing for Bill Belichick and the New England 

Patriots. 

During his time in the NFL, Shawn was the Founder and President of the 

Springs for Life Foundation, a non-profit which supported at-risk youth. Additionally, he 

committed himself to charitable organizations seeking a cure for diabetes and continues to 

participate in numerous events for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and the American 

Diabetes Association. For his continuous dedication to community work, both the Seahawks 

and Redskins chose him to represent them as an NFL Walter Payton "Man of the Year." In 

2009, he was selected as a ""Washingtonian of the Year" by Washingtonian Magazine. 

Since retiring from the NFL and founding Windpact, Shawn has been active in 

lobbying the government to improve consumer safety standards in protective gear. He 

regularly appears on The Hill for meetings with senators and congressman, discussing not 

only head protection but the importance of health and physical fitness at the school level. 

Shawn gave a TEDx Columbus talk in 2015 entitiled "Tackling Helmet Protection 

Head On" 

Shawn's father, Ron Springs, was an All American and team captain at Ohio 

State University. Ron played 9 NFL seasons with the Dallas Cowboys and Tampa Bay 

Buccaneers. Born in Williamsburg, VA, Shawn went to high school in Maryland at 

Springbrook High School in Silver Spring, MD. He currently resides in Northern Virginia, 

where he spends time coaching local youth football teams, mentoring athletes working to get 

to the college level and training his own sons who all play football. 

His company website is www.windpact.com. He can be reached via email at 

shawn@windpact.com 
61 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you so much. And I really thank 

the witnesses for their testimony. And in addition to the testimony 

submitted by our witnesses today, I ask unanimous consent that 

the written testimony submitted by Mr. Robert Reisinger, Cofounder and Director of Engineering at 6D Helmets and co-winner 

of the Head Health Challenge be included in the record. He was 

invited to testify today but unfortunately was unable to attend. So 

without objection, so ordered. 

[The information follows:] 
62 

Written Statement 

of 

Robert Daniel Reisinger 

Director of Engineering 

6D Helmets, LLC. 

Preventing Head Trauma: The NIST-NFL Head Health Challenge 

Improved Protection using Omni-Directional Suspension (ODS) Technology 

Before 

The Committee on Science, Space, and technology, Subcommittee on Research and 

Technology, of the House of Representatives 

December 13,2017 

A Review of the Head Health Challenge, a public-private science prize competition 
63 

Page 2 of7 

Introduction 

Hello, my name is Robert Reisinger. I am the Director of Engineering and one of 

two founding partners of 60 Helmets, LLC, of Brea, California. 

I want to thank Chairwoman Comstock and fellow members of the Subcommittee 

on Research and Technology for the opportunity to provide my written testimony 

to you about the Head Health Challenge Ill. 

My company, 60 Helmets, partnered with DRI for the Head Health Challenge Ill 

prize competition to develop a material, suitable for use in football helmets or 

other protective equipment, which can better protect against traumatic brain 

injury. 

60 Helmets LLC is a privately held helmet design and manufacturing enterprise 

with ten employees founded in 2011 by Bob Weber and Robert Reisinger to 

develop advance technology helmets with broad range kinetic energy 

management systems, which led to the development of the Omni-Directional 

Suspension (ODS) technology. 60 Helmets is in its 5th year of sales. 

Stage of Development 

60's Omni-Directional Suspension (ODS) technology was first developed in 2011 

by 60 Helmets co-founders Bob Weber and Robert Reisinger, which offered up 

to nearly 80% reductions in energy transferred to the headform in some impact 

events compared to traditional motorcycle helmets. After extensive preliminary 

prototype development, laboratory testing and meetings with manufacturers, 60 

Helmets' first production helmet, the ATR-1 competition off-road motorcycle 

helmet, was born. The ATR-1 helmet was an immediate success and gained 

rapid acceptance among motocross and off-road riders for its creative design 

solution to rotational energy management and improved performance over a 

wide range of linear impact events compared to contemporary off-road helmets. 

In September 2013, a youth version, ATR-1Yofthe successful ATR-1 was 

produced along with a downhill Mountain Bike/BMX helmet, the ATB-1, both of 

which incorporate the ODS technology. 

In February 2015, the ODS technology was awarded US Patent Number 

8,955,169 and all intellectual property rights belong to 60 Helmets. 

In February 2016, 60 Helmets introduced a full-face street motorcycle helmet, 

ATS-1, with the ODS technology, as well as the first bicycle Trail helmet, the 

ATB-1T, with a new ODS design scaled down for the bicycle size helmet. 

In February 2017, 60 helmets reintroduced its ATB-1T Trail helmet with the new 

ODS-2 technology influenced by R&D discoveries during the Head Health 
64 

Page 3 of7 

Challenge Ill contest, which separated the linear and rotational design elements 

for individual control. 

In February 2018, 6D Helmets will introduce its newest ODS-3 technology, which 

was influenced in its design features in part by R&D discoveries during the Head 

Health Challenge Ill contest. This new ODS-3 technology offers up to nearly 30% 

more energy absorption, in various impact events, over the original ODS design. 

Head Health Challenge Ill 

In January 2016, Dynamic Research Inc. and 6D Helmets LLC were awarded a 

$250,000 development grant inside the NFL's Head Health Challenge Ill (HHC3) 

to further develop the ODS technology for a multi-impact material solution. While 

it is common for football and other field stick and ball sport helmets to be 

designed with multi-impact materials, the motorcycle and bicycle industries 

primarily used single impact materials. Our goal for the HHC3 was to modify the 

design of the ODS system for football applications, use only multi-impact 

materials and gain individual control over the tuning of both linear and rotational 

impact attenuations. High order finite element analysis (FEA) was used by our 

team partners, Dynamic Research, to iterate through various design concepts 

and physical test coupons were constructed to compare and prove the FEA data. 

Through these efforts, a modified version of the original ODS technology in test 

coupon form, per the requirements of HHC3, reached the advanced prototype 

stage in which several iterations of the design have proven effective at reducing 

impact forces sustained during both linear and shear-type impacts with multiimpact materials. We were also successful in separating the control features of 

the linear and rotational impact energy attenuation giving us separate control 

capabilities. 

My Involvement 

My involvement from the outset of 60 Helmets has been the Chief Technology 

Officer bringing my past experiences in the field of engineering, manufacturing 

and suspension system designs to bear in helmet technology to address the 

growing knowledge of what helmets are not doing, and need to be doing, for 

brain protection over the antiquated design parameters of today's test standards, 

and yesterday's helmets, that focused primarily on skull protection. The ODS 

design used in the HHC3 program is one of many design iterations that I had 

been processing over a few years. The HHC3 was the catalyst that provided the 

opportunity to bring this new concept to the physical world. One of my primary 

roles is to create and conceptualize technology solutions that are 

manufacturable. Another of my roles is to guide and lead our team through the 

design and implementation process of the new technologies. With the help and 

advance analysis capabilities from our team partners, Dynamic Research Inc., 

we were able to collaborate on the design modifications needed to continually 
65 

Page 4 of7 

improve, through each iteration of physical test coupons and the FEA modeling, 

the performance of the new ODS system. 

60 Helmets' Involvement 

From the beginning, 60's involvement was to supply the intellectual property, 

CAD designs models and was responsible for creating the fabrication process to 

make the test coupons for the joint effort between 60 and Dynamic Research. 60 

created the initial concept test coupons to submit with our application to the 

HHC3 committee for the grant, as well as, created all of the grant period test 

coupons. 60 work with our specialty material suppliers to obtain various multiimpact materials. Through physical testing at our team partners, Dynamic 

Research, we determine the best performance of the initial test coupon design 

and submitted it to the HHC3 committee for our baseline sample. Once awarded 

the grant, and grant testing protocols defined, we created a new and improved 

design in CAD and provided the CAD design with the design intent to our team 

partners at Dynamic Research to be processed into their high order FEA analysis 

software for iterative design and parameter testing. 

In addition to the physical testing and FEA analysis at Dynamic Research, during 

the development process 60 conducted impact testing of various materials in 

relationship to the material properties and its geometric shape to better 

understand the response characteristics of additional materials and shapes not 

being used in the FEA analysis. 60 created a testing protocol to evaluate 

numerous materials in various geometric shapes. 60 CAD designed these new 

test coupons to be custom machined at a specialty vendor skilled in the unique 

process of machining foam materials. 60 conducted impact testing on these new 

material coupons in the various geometric configurations to establish the 

response characteristics. 

Obstacles and Challenges 

As with any new adventure into the unknown there are always the unexpected 

events to overcome including technical and operational. Since this "Challenge" 

had not previously been conducted some of the testing parameters had yet to be 

defined at the outset of the Challenge. As well, given that rotational testing is 

difficult in and of itself, and it has many variables that need to be addressed to 

limit deviations, it is challenging to control the process for repeatability compared 

to linear testing. Also, given the fact that there is no one set universal testing 

protocol for rotational testing at this time that is accepted by all, it was hard to 

know exactly how to design our energy absorption system for maximum 

performance without clear parameters. 

Fortunately for our team, we have been conducting physical rotational testing for 

the previous six years prior to the HHC3 contest, so we decided to initially stay 

true to our roots, and assumed that we were designing our system for a helmet 
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Page 5 of7 

environment and would use impact energy analysis as such. We also chose to 

use the rotational testing protocol that we had developed over the previous six 

years for physical testing to maintain an understanding of the expected outcome 

of the testing data. As more testing parameters became clear from the HHC3 

committee, we aligned our design and testing to meet the protocols of the 

Challenge. 

Purely from a helmet designing perspective, some of the testing protocols 

presented by NIST to be conducted seemed out of line with the dynamics of 

various types of helmet impacts that might occur. However the HHC3 contest 

was not specifically defined for helmets, but moreover, generic energy 

management materials. This was a loose definition to the desired contest 

outcome that was not focused on a particular type of impacts event that define a 

specific goal, which left our team to itself to pick a particular direction for the 

impact event type. When designing for energy management one needs to 

understand the impact event related dynamics since they differ by the types of 

impact events. That is to say, a helmet with a head in it has different impact 

dynamics than a football field surface, a rubber motor mount or a ballistic blast 

wave. The dynamic events that occur in each type of impact event need to be 

considered to maximize the performance of the energy management system. I 

believe that a focused goal for the Contest outcome, opposed to a "grab-all" let's 

see what we might discover from a broad request, would be more efficient for the 

participants and more affective for the contest outcome expectation. I can only 

assume that the other contest participants made similar choices to pick a 

particular type of impact event to model their particular technology around. 

Use and Benefits of Science Prize Competitions 

We only need to look at historical event to see that innovation does not lie within 

one geographical location on the planet, with just one group of people or one 

organization. Necessity is truly the mother of invention. However, I believe more 

powerful than necessity is the desire of creative minds to overcome and solve a 

given challenge, which once identified, brings out an endless volume of ideas 

that only need to be acted on to vet out the solutions. Science Prize Competitions 

offer these opportunities to advancement by utilizing the mind power found in all 

corners of the world by presenting problems to the population in the form of a 

challenge. By providing the basic funds for these creative minds to act upon 

those ideas, that would otherwise be left to die nearly as fast as they may have 

been conceived, advancement is made. Guided processes like the HHC3 are 

functional in vetting out large volumes of idea submissions, and then distill those 

ideas down to a smaller group that seemed to have the best possibility of 

success, and then fund them. 

60 Helmets is no different from many of the dreamers of the world, in that, we 

are a small company with limited funds to act upon the various ideas that we 

have, and had not the HHC3 program come around we would surly have been 
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Page 6 of7 

delayed in discovering the ever growing depths to understanding our own 

technology and how we might use it to solve more problems. Everybody has 

ideas that come and then soon fade into the past if not acted upon, but having 

the resources to act on those ideas is crucial to giving inventors the inspiration 

and hope that their ideas may be the winning answer to the problem. Industry, 

academic and government entities can all benefit from providing the resources to 

be utilized by appropriate participants to help solve these problems. 

Recommendations to Federal Government Participation 

I believe that the federal government is using funds at one of the most efficient 

and effective ways possible when engaging small private sector businesses and 

inventors on development projects like the HHC3. I also believe that technical 

progress from these contests could be more efficient and effective if the winner of 

the contest had opportunities to receive significant funds after the contest to 

proceed onto future development activities opposed to a small award. 

Business is expensive but big business and governments arguably spend tax 

payer's money in the least effective manner. If the goal of the federal government 

is for technical progress, then funding projects further after a winner has been 

selected seems only prudent to get the value from the contest activities. As an 

example, if the goal is for better helmet technology it would seem to be more 

effective to target several of the leading helmet technology companies to produce 

new helmets, give them a goal and the funding to deliver a better helmet in a 

three to five year window. This is much like the government's activity with 

aerospace projects where the companies are funded to do the development and 

then awards for production are given to the wining company. These companies 

could then assign dedicated teams and resources to the project to get the work 

completed without the loss of momentum. Funding research like the HHC3 but 

not funding the winning technology and company to go forward and do 

something with the new found technology seems counterproductive. 

As well, in my opinion, it could be argued that giving $5 million dollars to several 

leading helmet companies to develop new technology over a three to five year 

period would cost less and provide more solutions and improvements, sooner 

than later, opposed to giving out many small amounts to various incremental 

contest recipients without a go forward funding plan. 

It should be noted that keeping the process as simple as possible to allow each 

contest entity to use its particular strength to the fullest, without encumbering the 

process, is key. This is to say, academic and government entities tend to not be 

efficient at processing activities and tend to bog the processes down in "red tape" 

and internal agendas, and it would be best to operate more like a private sector 

company that needs to perform each day or die on the vine. Inventors and small 

private sector companies have to produce profits each and every day, especially 

small entities that are less than 25 employees, and long drawn out decision 
68 

Page 7 of7 

making and red tape is counterproductive to the goals of progress. The HHC3 

program was ran fairly efficiently with its structure that appeared to be private 

industry companies driving the process, with the government involved only in 

testing and final review. From a small business perspective, the system to fund 

and operate these contests should be kept as streamlined as possible to 

maximize the outcome of progress. 

Thank you for your time and this opportunity to make my comments. 

Robert Reisinger 

Bio 

Robert Reisinger, 6D Helmets LLC 

Robert Reisinger is co-founder and Director of Engineering at 6D helmets LLC. Along 

with Bob Weber, Robert came up with the concept of the ODSTM technology and 

developed the technology from concept to full scale helmet production. Prior to forming 

6D Helmets in 2011, Robert founded several entrepreneurial consumer product design 

and manufacturing companies spanning a twenty year period within the bicycle and 

motorcycle industries that produced various products, some of which are in the San 

Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Bicycle Hall of Fame Museum. Robert was a 

part time lecturer at Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, Ca, where he taught 

courses on manufacturing engineering, CAD/CAM design and CNC fabrication. In 

addition to his engineering expertise, Robert was a top professional motocross racer and 

R&D test rider. Robert holds licenses as: Commercial pilot airplane & rotorcraft, A&P 

aviation mechanic and general contractor. 
69 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. And I now recognize myself for five 

minutes for questions. 

Mr. Springs, I really appreciate your goal of becoming the most 

advanced impact protection company in the world and having it 

right in Loudoun County in the 10th District. You know, we know 

how important this is in sports, but as number of you have mentioned, head injuries particularly in construction continue to be a 

serious issue, obviously, our warriors, accidental falls are a problem with the elderly, and so these innovations that your company 

is working on, can you draw on a little bit how they are going to 

be applicable to preventing head injuries in the workplace, in the 

military, in homes, in healthcare settings? And then I’ll just add 

a little bit, too, also about how we sell changing this concept to 

teams and team sports and how we move that in and get people 

to adapt, maybe engage parents and sort of a community engagement on this and understanding the issue. 

Mr. SPRINGS. Right. When I founded Windpact, I believed there 

was an opportunity to bridge the gap because I spent several times 

listening to the hearings on concussions and traumatic brain injuries, and I believed there was a real opportunity because innovation had lagged for 30 years in football. There needed to be a 

bridge between what the really smart people like many of these 

panelists here today who were trying to figure out how the brain 

works on rotational impacts and how you lower peak linear accelerations, and the guys who are building products—companies like 

Riddell. 

I believe that there still is a knowledge gap. My goal when I 

started Windpact was take our technology, learn from the smart 

doctors and some of the researchers at places like NIST, take those 

learnings and findings, apply our technology to build safer helmets. 

So we consider ourselves an ingredient brand. We work with large 

host brands in retrofitting their old solutions with our new technology to make their product better for the consumer. Basically, we 

try to make sure we understand what the medical professionals 

were saying, as well as the parents and others who are buying the 

product for their kids. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Great. Thank you. And, others, if you’d 

like to engage on that question, how do we sell this to the public 

at broad and understand all the cross benefits from it in so many 

different areas? Sure. 

Mr. KEBSCHULL. Yes, if I may, one of the things that has become 

clear to me is that these kind of innovations have a lot of spillover 

into far greater areas than what we’re really targeting. I mean, in 

the Head Health Challenge III we were targeting football helmets 

was really kind of our main focus, maybe other protective equipment as well, but we started brainstorming other ideas where this 

kind of material could be used, and we were coming up with things 

like roadside barriers, you know, protective equipment for the— 

where there are construction zones and things like that, which are 

hazardous areas right now. And we think our material concept can 

be applied to those other areas as well, and to date, nobody’s really 

started talking that much about that kind of approach. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Okay. And as another area, you know, 

we know links now from head injuries and dementia and even pos-
70 

sibly Alzheimer’s. Is this another area where, as you have that improvement, whether it’s in sports or other areas, that it also has 

that down-the-road impact of maybe lessening what we’re seeing in 

dementia or Alzheimer’s to the extent that we have knowledge 

about that now? 

Mr. KEBSCHULL. Yes, I was talking to a medical doctor who was 

working in the field of brain trauma, and they’re approaching the 

concussion problem from another aspect, from kind of a nutritional 

supplement aspect that would—I’m not sure on the details—some 

kind of antioxidants that would protect against long-term damage 

from repeated impacts. But they were also hopeful that that would 

apply then to Alzheimer’s field as well, so it’s possible that the 

plaques that are developing in the brain—and I don’t understand 

all the medical issues very well—but those could be protected by 

this same kind of nutritional supplement that could protect concussion injuries as well. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Excellent. Anyone else want to jump in? 

Dr. Dehgan, I just wanted to thank you. I loved your characterization of how you—you know, for us incentivizing the needle to 

find us and really getting outside the box on this, so I thought you 

really captured that well, and I think the importance of this is capturing the public’s imagination. And, Mr. Springs, bringing your 

experience into it I think really does kind of sell the idea to the 

public at large in so many areas, so thank you for vividly, you 

know, describing that and capturing that for us. Thank you. 

I’ll now yield to Mr. Lipinski for five minutes. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. As I mentioned in my opening statement, federal funding for R&D traditionally comes through grants 

and contracts, investments in research and infrastructure, and I 

don’t think I want anyone to think listening to this hearing that 

we are suggesting otherwise, that this is just an easy way to save 

money because I think it’s important that we keep funding to the 

way we’ve traditionally done the funding. I think this is just a way 

to add to that to really unleash and find in places that we would— 

someplace we would expect to find them and we’re not finding as 

much as we have—you know, as we should be able to I think in 

our research universities to sort of unleash that—you know, the entrepreneurial spirit there and all the way, too, as Dr. Dehgan 

talked about, the auto mechanic in Argentina coming up with a solution through a challenge. So I want to start out by asking Dr. 

Dehgan. To what extent and how should agencies integrate prize 

and challenge competitions into this broader federal R&D? 

Dr. DEHGAN. It’s a phenomenal question and important. The 

standard for us is they should be used when there’s a clear and 

measurable outcome defined in advance, and in particular where 

the objective is clear but the way to achieve it is not, right? 

And it allows us to do one thing. There is this incredible democratization of science and technology that has happened, just the 

prices of processors and the power of processors and memory and— 

has increased exponentially but decreased exponentially in cost. We 

have incredible opportunities for iteration of design thanks to additive printing. We have greater connectivity and access to knowledge ever than before. That has allowed for a greater democratization of science and technology. That allows us to capture many 
71 

other people, but we still need basic research to be able to create 

the underlying basis for that democratization of science and technology. 

We still need to advance what we are doing in creating the diversity of potential solutions and the advances of knowledge to be able 

to solve many of these problems, but we can harness them in new 

ways and in complementary ways particularly where we are stuck 

on a particular problem or where that problem has tended to focus 

on a single discipline where we can cross and capture the potential 

of other disciplines to help contribute to solving that problem. 

And that’s where I think prizes and challenges work really well 

is where do we want to capture the democratization of science and 

technology? Where do we want to actually make use of the existing 

funded research and particular broaden the number of disciplines 

that are involved beyond it, where do we want to actually inspire 

the public, and where can we actually unlock private capital? Because I think that has been one of the great things. The DARPA 

Grand Challenge for the self-driving car was for the marines, but 

the application is a revolution that we probably couldn’t have foreseen or DARPA couldn’t have foreseen 13 years ago. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Dr. Dehgan—and I also want to ask Dr. Fasolka— 

any recommendations on what can be done better by federal agencies to design these challenges? 

Dr. FASOLKA. This being the first challenge that we did under 

the new authority under AICA, NIST really learned that having a 

community of practice within the organization that really knew a 

lot about how to implement the authority, how to use it to work 

in a private-public partnership, how to effectively communicate the 

challenge to folks. That was what we learned at NIST is that having in terms of advice that you can get, guidance that you can get 

or how to implement these challenges, there’s a lot more out now 

than there was when we started. So what we learned is that the 

more that you know about how to get into these things and properly manage them, it can stop—some of the things that we did 

when we started, We were going to for the first time give cash, for 

the first time work with—in a public-private partnership, for the 

first time do something where NIST would be receiving materials 

to test. And so it took us a long time to get up to speed and actually launch it and probably longer than we expected going into it. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Dr. Dehgan? 

Dr. DEHGAN. Yes, so elements of good design, I think this idea 

of a challenge creating a community of practice is really important 

because what you’re trying to do is create an ecosystem of solutions. And I think we have focused on the competitive aspects of 

challenges, but there’s also collaborative aspects of challenges. How 

do you advance knowledge overall in terms of what you’re trying 

to do? How do you actually capture the losers in the challenge and 

make sure that they benefit? Scale has to be built in at the beginning within what we’re trying to do, so thinking about what happens after the challenge, how do we benefit the companies that are 

taking on these solutions and helping them implement what they’re 

doing into helmets, into every aspect of American life is really important. Leverage is great and leverage allows you to mitigate risk 
72 

and have greater impact, so thinking about who your partners are 

within you doing the challenge. 

And then even things like—it is clear that money is insufficient 

by itself—is one great benefit of potential challenges but, as Mr. 

Springs pointed out, the recognition is really important because 

that can untap investment. That can bring credibility to people, so 

thinking carefully about the prize purse and the benefits are critical. 

And one of the things just to recognize about challenges—and it’s 

a limiting factor—is we are shifting the risk. Because it is pay-forperformance, we’re shifting the risk on the innovators, right? We’re 

asking them. So the benefit that we are providing them has to be 

commiserate with the risk that we’re asking them to take within 

it. 

And the last—just two other things. I think we—our prizes and 

challenges should be audacious but achievable, so we do want to 

inspire that public imagination that Chairwoman Comstock talked 

about. And the other piece is that even failure is instructive. The 

first DARPA Grand Challenge no one won, right, but we have a 

self-driving car industry because they continued to do that two 

more times and learn from that. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. I now recognize Mr. Marshall for five 

minutes. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you, Chairwoman. 

I continue to believe that innovation is going to do more to drive 

the cost of health care, the money spent on health care, down than 

any piece of legislation that we can write. And this is one more example. If these concussions weren’t happening, we wouldn’t be 

spending money on MRIs and CAT scans and ER visits and overnight stays at the hospitals. 

I think I’ll go with my first question to Dr. Fasolka. Like many 

of us, we’ve had children play football. My youngest son, an allstate running back, not quite as fast as Mr. Springs or quite as big 

but was certainly a great football kid—had three concussions. 

Those were some of the longest days of my life watching my son 

not be himself, not knowing maybe who he was, where he was, just 

kind of in a third world almost. And at the time I did research. 

Other kids with concussions and it was—Kevlar was about the only 

thing on the market that I saw, so my question for Dr. Fasolka is 

how much better are these new materials than Kevlar is, 20 percent better, 100 percent better? If you—you’re the—go ahead. 

Dr. FASOLKA. The measurements that we did in our challenge 

prize showed that compared to baseline materials, the kind of 

foams that Mr. Kebschull mentioned, that they could improve impact absorption sometimes 80 percent better than what we saw in 

the sort of old technology. But what’s more important is the ability 

for the material to mitigate these rotational forces, these shear 

forces. And this is really the thing that makes these new technology special. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Did you measure Kevlar as well? Was that one 

of your base materials that you tested? 
73 

Dr. FASOLKA. No, the baseline materials that we tested were basically foam rubber that you would see in a helmet technology, so 

just the pad—— 

Mr. MARSHALL. The traditional—— 

Dr. FASOLKA. —right? 

Mr. MARSHALL. The state-of-the-art helmet? 

Dr. FASOLKA. State-of-the-art helmet. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Did anybody else test it against Kevlar—I’m just 

curious—in anything? Okay—go ahead. 

Dr. FASOLKA. Yes, Kevlar—I mean, we test Kevlar at NIST—— 

Mr. MARSHALL. Okay. 

Dr. FASOLKA. —but usually, it’s for ballistic protection. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Okay. 

Dr. FASOLKA. Yes. 

Mr. MARSHALL. There was products on the market with Kevlar, 

and that’s what I—— 

Dr. FASOLKA. Yes. 

Mr. MARSHALL. —purchased and tried. That’s the best thing I 

could find at the time. I’ll go to Mr. Springs next. Tell me a little 

bit about turf material. Have you done any work with turf material 

and any thoughts on that? 

Mr. SPRINGS. We have not done any work on turf material. There 

are companies who are innovating on new solutions that can go underneath the turf. I think Viconic is one that comes to mind that 

you might have seen in NFL commercials. I would say one of the 

things that’s important from our perspective as a startup company 

is that innovation can be sparked by money and the partnerships, 

as well as the learning from NIST and universities like Duke— 

when we won the HeadHealthTECH challenge working with Duke 

University and those guys holding our hand through the process 

was really good. So it goes beyond money. It’s about the partnerships and the relationships and the validation. Winning the award 

at Texas Medical Center as well, the validation helps. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Certainly from my experience I think that 2/3 of 

the concussions I saw in football were related to the heads hitting—going backwards—— 

Mr. SPRINGS. Yes. 

Mr. MARSHALL. —and getting hit, and I think that the incidence 

of concussions doubled when our high school went from a traditional field to a turf, and it’s my belief there needs to be national 

standards of what this turf needs to be made out of and that you 

all should be testing it and saying, look, if we’re going to subject 

our kids to this, that this is the standard. Is anybody seeing anything in your industry going towards that? 

Mr. SPRINGS. Well, I think it’s there. You’ve got to look at the 

turf. I think you also have to look at the rules of the game. I know 

that in the Ivy League, Dartmouth was one of the first schools who 

actually took tackling out of practice and reduced concussions by 

70 percent, so as I see it—it’s looking at the materials, the way the 

helmets being built, the surface the game is played on, as well as 

the rules of the game, I think it’s a collaboration of all those things 

coming together. 
74 

Mr. MARSHALL. Is anybody else seeing as much work with the 

turf as they are with the helmets? I think it’s half the—at least 

half the equation. 

Mr. Springs, back to you. The NFL is certainly the gold standard, 

and all of us—Great Bend High School now uses a super concussion protocol. It’s so much better than it used to be, and we are 

doing it by the book. There’s no more pressure from the coaches 

that, ‘‘Hey, your kid’s the star running back; he’s got to get back 

in there for this big game.’’ That stigmata has gone away. Is your 

impression of the NFL that maybe some of that traditional ‘‘You 

just got to toughen up and get back in there,’’ do you think it’s improving? Is NFL doing everything that they can do to help us lead 

the way? 

Mr. SPRINGS. Well, I think the awareness at the parent level and 

at the youth level, moms are more concerned. Moms and the whole 

community as a whole are getting better in understanding concussions. When I came up, my generation, they would tell you to just 

sniff a little smelling salt and go back in. Now, I think teachers, 

parents, coaches, everybody who’s involved with youth or kids playing a sport is aware of the seriousness of traumatic brain injury 

and concussions. 

Mr. MARSHALL. How about the NFL? Do you think—— 

Mr. SPRINGS. But to answer your question—— 

Mr. MARSHALL. —what’s the culture over there? 

Mr. SPRINGS. —I think the guys who are playing in the NFL 

today are more aware of the seriousness of traumatic brain injury. 

We saw what happened a few weeks ago when Ryan Shazier was 

hit in the Steelers-Cincinnati game, and I believe every player is 

aware of the seriousness of sports injuries. I think the NFL is also 

doing its best in trying to educate the players as well. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Chairwoman, can I have another minute since 

there’s nobody else back yet? Or we can go across the aisle and 

come back to me if you want to if we have time. 

Okay. I want to talk to the military just a second. I’m more concerned about mini-concussions, just a chronicity of mini-concussions 

than I am one big blow. And one of my theories is posttraumatic 

stress disorder may be related to this—these hundreds and thousands of mini-concussions. Have any of you done any research or 

what are we doing for our soldiers to help with those mini-concussions? I think you sit next to a tank or you’re in a tank and a boom 

goes off, you can feel the force of it even though you have hearing 

stuff in but there’s got to be just some incredible forces going on. 

Anybody touch the military more so? Go ahead. 

Mr. KEBSCHULL. We did a little bit of work with military helmets 

in our impact test lab and in our other research, and military helmets are—most of the effort that goes into designing military helmets is for ballistics. And I think impact protection is kind of an 

afterthought. I don’t mean to be too harsh on the people who do 

those helmets, but they have multiple pads in them, and those 

pads are Velcroed in so they’re configurable. And you can imagine 

that in hot climates like Iraq or Afghanistan the soldier is saying 

I’m going to go with just—take several of the pads out of there and 

I’ll get a lot more ventilation and it’ll be a lot more comfortable. 

So I think there does need to be more research done on military 
75 

helmets with respect to impact protection and not just the ballistic 

protection. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Okay. All right. Thank you, Chairwoman. I yield 

back. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you, very instructive. I appreciate it. 

And I now recognize Mrs. Johnson. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you very much. 

I’d like to hear from each one of you as it relates to the topic 

since there are many questions now about injuries to the brain but 

I want to especially ask Mr. Springs. Mr. Springs, I know your father and his Dallas family extremely well, and you must be a very 

proud son. 

The products that have been designed to attempt to avoid some 

of the injuries that have been talked about to the brain in the field 

of football, have you seen any results or have you been able to tell 

that you’re on the right track? 

Mr. SPRINGS. I believe there are companies out there in the last 

five years who have looked at the seriousness and are getting the 

push from parents to build better products, so I’m excited about the 

future of technology. 

There’s one thing I will say there. Innovation, in football particularly, has come a long way since the Virginia Tech standard. That 

came out only five years ago when the Virginia Tech star rating, 

which talks about the risk of concussion. When that came out, 

there was only one five-star and now there’s 13 in football. I think 

other industries like hockey and baseball will follow suit as their 

standards and scoring systems to rate these helmets, it will continue to improve. 

I will also say that more of these manufacturers are receptive or 

open to new innovation from the outside where maybe five years 

ago that wasn’t the case. So I’m encouraged by the fact that there 

are large brands who are looking for outside technology like our 

technology and what 6D uses in their motocross helmets and their 

helmets as well. So I believe—I am encouraged that the direction 

of technology is improving. I do believe that we need to also update 

our standards so companies like Windpact and other companies 

who are innovating technology, the standards are on the same page 

and speed of innovation. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you. Any other comments? 

Mr. KEBSCHULL. I would just like to follow up on what Mr. 

Springs said about the Virginia Tech star rating system for football 

helmets. That’s another aspect where you’re looking at a competition. It’s not a prize competition, but it’s a competition that results 

in better helmets. And standards alone are just a minimum bar 

that people have to meet in order to sell a helmet, and what happens when there’s only a standard and no star rating system or 

other kind of competitive system is that everybody just gets themselves over the bar and they don’t have this kind of innovation that 

develops better products. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you. Yes? 

Dr. FASOLKA. The standards now, too, are really aimed at these 

sort of linear impacts still, and so this is one of the things that 

NIST would like to help with is to begin to help the private sector. 
76 

These are consensus standards from industry, so that body be able 

to underpin new standards with the new science that we’re learning about how shear is important, rotation is important, and if they 

can properly measure that. 

Ms. JOHNSON. Any other comments from anyone? 

Dr. DEHGAN. Just one thought. I’m not an expert in football unfortunately, but one of the ways that we could use which is a subset of prizes which are called advanced market commitments as a 

way of doing—how do you deal with this challenge of standards 

being that minimum bar. So could—you know, how can the government actually work together to organize high schools, colleges, professional leagues to say we will buy all the helmets that are made 

that involve a 50 percent decrease in concussions. 

The Department of Energy did this with rooftop air-conditioning 

units. They had the big box storse say we’re going to create the incentive for a market if you guys can improve the energy efficiency 

of these units. Not a dollar of federal taxpayer funds were used in 

doing that, but there was investment that was created and a drive 

that was created to be able to meet those incentives because there 

was an established market. At USAID and Gates, we created the 

global vaccine initiative, GAVI, actually around the same idea to 

create an advanced market commitment for neglected tropical diseases, so this is one way to think about how we may get around 

that problem. 

Ms. JOHNSON. My time is about expired, but I want to ask if— 

do you think that it’s appropriate that some additional research be 

funded by the government since this is such a broad spectrum 

sport and not just football but—and we are seeing more and more 

questions about the injuries to the point where parents are beginning to be a little skeptical of their children going into the profession. It does concern me. I’m a strong Dallas Cowboys fan from the 

beginning until now, and I know that this is mostly Redskin country, and I do pull for Redskins now and then when they’re not playing the football team called Cowboys, America’s team, but I really 

am very interested in this because I think it does have a very wide 

interest of the public. Thank you. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Okay. Thank you. I now recognize Ms. 

Bonamici for five minutes. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Comstock 

and Ranking Member Lipinski, for this good bipartisan discussion. 

I really appreciate it. I want to just first mention I appreciated the 

discussion between Mr. Marshall and Mr. Springs. When I was in 

the Oregon Legislature, serving on the Education Committee we 

had this very poignant hearing where a father came in and his son 

was basically unable to continue learning, had serious brain injury. 

He thought it was because of the helmet, but after many hearings 

and talking with healthcare experts, it’s because he had multiple 

concussions and was sent back into the game after his concussions 

had healed. 

And we ended up actually passing a requirement that someone 

with training in concussion identification had to authorize a student to go back into the game. And lest anyone think that people 

complained about that being overregulation, the coaches really appreciated it because it got them off the hook. There wasn’t the pres-
77 

sure. They could say, ‘‘I can’t send you back into the game because 

I have to have this expert opinion.’’ 

But then I also wanted to follow up on the conversation about 

the troops and—that Mr. Kebschull was talking about and how do 

we make sure that our troops get the protection they need and deserve. And it reminded me of visiting Oregon Aero, which is a company in the district in northwest Oregon I’m honored to represent. 

They make seating systems for aircrafts and also make ballistic 

helmet pads and liners. 

And when I was out there touring, talking with them a while 

back, they were mentioning that the military used to buy the product but then they found something less expensive. And then they 

showed me. And in fact I was just looking at the current blog. 

There’s a nonprofit organization that was founded to help get their 

product to the troops because our military is not buying them because they found something less expensive. There are so many 

complaints. The current helmet pads—troops are complaining 

they’re stiff, they give them headaches, they don’t make the helmet 

fit properly, they get too hot, they get too cold, so they take them 

out, and then they’re at great risk. So this nonprofit was formed 

to help get the pads to the troops because they’ll leave them in. 

They can wear their helmets and protect their brains, and they’ve 

now—this nonprofit organization has now sent more than 88,000 of 

these upgrade kits to our troops overseas, so that’s not really the 

best model. 

So I guess my question maybe to the panel is when there is 

something that’s a good product like that, how do—you know, making change at the Department of Defense and the Pentagon is really not that easy. How do we make sure that our troops are getting 

what they need? And maybe NIST can start. How do we convince 

the Department of Defense if there’s a product that’s really helping? Maybe it’s a little more expensive, but taking care of brain 

damage is really—and PTSD is really expensive as well. 

Dr. FASOLKA. Well, we have talked to the Army in particular 

about this, and they are aware that the technology in the helmets 

right now for this kind of padding is out of date. I think that this 

is one of the reasons why this challenge is important, these kinds 

of challenges are important because of this broad effect that they 

can have by bringing innovations forward. And so they’re quite interested in learning about what came out of ours. 

Ms. BONAMICI. I’m glad to hear that because it was a while back 

when I was learning this from Oregon Aero. And so they’ve known 

that they’ve been out of date for a long time, so I’m just saying we 

need to have a conversation. And hopefully the work that you’re 

doing is going to help with that. 

You know, we here in Congress have an app challenge, so certainly—I have seen just from the very small scale congressional 

district high school students who submit their innovation to the 

app challenge, we know what can come from this sort of competition and prize. But one of the concerns at that level I always think, 

‘‘Oh my gosh, who’s going to judge this?’’ How do you—in a prize 

competition like this, how do you set up the metrics for, you know, 

clear expectations and success? And then how do you deal with 
78 

things like intellectual property rights? So I’ll let, you know, all of 

you address that as well. 

Dr. FASOLKA. So we thought a lot about this of course, and so we 

had some metrics that were real scientific metrics like you’d see in 

a grant. What’s the level of innovation? What’s the level of being 

ready to be commercialized? Then we had a lot of hard numbers 

in the competition as well. They had to take 1,200 hits without failing. They had to work at hot and cold temperatures, so to really 

think about, well, what’s the environment that these materials 

have to be in? 

In terms of intellectual property, yes, there was no interest in 

the government from our perspective in acquiring anything. This is 

their property. Our job was to spur innovation, so that’s an easy 

answer for us. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Well, as my time is expired, I just want to close 

by saying that we are a country that is proud of its innovators. And 

this type of prize and competition is certainly one step, but there’s 

a lot of other things we can be doing. 

And I know Ms. Johnson mentioned the graduate students’ tuition waiver and the tax bill. I’m happy to say that at least after 

the vote, many members who actually supported the bill have sent 

a letter now opposing the repeal of that income exclusion for tuition waiver. So we can’t inhibit our young people and our students 

from becoming innovators who may solve these next challenges. So 

I hope that whatever tax bill comes out fixes that as well. 

So thank you, Madam Chair, and I yield back. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. I thank you. And actually I recognize 

Mr. Marshall for one more minute, another question. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Sorry, I’m pretty inquisitive. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Dr. Marshall, sorry. 

Mr. MARSHALL. That’s all right. Wichita State University has a 

creation center, and they are able to use artificial intelligence to— 

in their case to say design the perfect, most structurally sound 

wing for an airplane or a jet with the least material. And I’m just 

curious if you’ve tried to use artificial intelligence to drive the perfect helmet, the perfect turf, the perfect—what we’re trying to get 

at here if you guys are using artificial intelligence in any way in 

your companies? 

Mr. KEBSCHULL. Well, it’s not quite artificial intelligence in the 

traditional sense, but we did have an optimization software and an 

optimization procedure which seeks to find the path to the right 

material. So we’re—we input—the inputs to it are the parameters 

and what ranges you’ll allow it to have, you know, between the 

stiffness of X and Y or a dimension between A and B and so on. 

And then the software will run multiple, multiple simulations in 

order to try and find the optimum solution, so it’s a way of optimization that’s a little bit different than artificial intelligence, but it’s 

maybe a little bit along those lines. 

Mr. MARSHALL. I think the shear force is especially—the artificial intelligence may be able to help us to figure out not just what 

material but how to place it. Dr. Fasolka, are you guys doing anything at NIST with it? 

Dr. FASOLKA. Yes. The place for artificial intelligence at NIST is 

really within the Materials Genome Initiative, which is—— 
79 

Mr. MARSHALL. The what, I’m sorry? 

Dr. FASOLKA. The Materials Genome Initiative. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Okay. 

Dr. FASOLKA. It’s a multiagency initiative. It’s DOD, DOE, NIST, 

NSF really aimed at accelerating materials design and deployment. 

And using these kind of techniques so that the idea of course is to 

have a design-forward sort of approach, a lot of computation, ways 

of optimizing it. Artificial intelligence is sort of a continuum from 

of modeling to something that really looks like a human brain 

thinking about things. But in the middle, you know, we’re using 

these very clever computational techniques to get to an optimum—— 

Mr. MARSHALL. Yes. 

Dr. FASOLKA. —so we are partnering as the next step in our research using Materials Genome Initiative approach with our Center of Excellence and the Center of Excellence for Hierarchical Materials Design in the Chicago area to really have a Use Case that 

can use these kind of artificial intelligence approaches to design 

materials that do exactly what you’re talking about, really optimize 

the shear response, optimize while keeping that compression response. So yes. So that’s what we’re embarking on next. 

Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. And I now recognize Mr. 

Lipinski for some additional questions. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. I thank the Chairwoman for yielding the additional 

time here. I wanted to follow up. I asked Dr. Fasolka and Dr. 

Dehgan about anything—any recommendations they had for what 

the—what federal agencies could do better in designing these challenges. So I want to ask Mr. Kebschull and Mr. Springs if they had 

any thoughts on the design and also the, you know, follow up of 

the—of challenges, if anything could be done better. So, Mr. 

Kebschull? 

Mr. KEBSCHULL. Yes, thank you. From my viewpoint it went extremely well. The one thing I would’ve probably preferred was to 

see perhaps clearer targets being set. We were given a very vague 

direction in that make your material better, make it perform well 

in linear and shear impacts, but we didn’t really know how good 

is good or what is it that—exactly that you’re looking for. And, for 

example, the shear test was not developed until pretty well into the 

process, so I kind of felt like we were playing catch-up along the 

way. But overall, I have mainly good things to say about NIST because they were really helpful in getting us the data that we needed in order to validate and use our computer simulation models. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Mr. Springs, anything that you would care to add? 

Mr. SPRINGS. Yes, to follow up a little bit on that is kind of what 

you said, Dr. Dehgan—did I say that correctly? It might have been 

a lot of tackles. Clear and measurable are the words I heard, and 

that’s kind of as a young company you want to be exact—because 

your resources are limited, you want to be exacting on what you’re 

trying to achieve, what the outcome may be from the funding, or 

what you can ask for. And I think that’s critical for any company 

just have a clear understanding of what it takes or what are the 

measurables or what you need to get to solve for, the steps you 
80 

need to solve for, and just make it clear and easy so that everyone 

can understand it. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. All right. Thank you. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Well, thank all of you. This has been a 

great hearing. I really appreciate all your expertise. Thank you for 

your testimony and the Members for their questions. 

And the record will remain open for two weeks for additional 

written comments or written questions from Members. 

And this hearing is now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:27 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 
(81) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
82 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Michael Fasolka 
83 

Can you please elaborate on what these new capabilities means to the lab and how else 

they could be used in the future? 

Answer: NIST will continue to refine the measurement methods that it created in this 

challenge and hopes to share its expertise with standards-setting organizations that are 

considering new generations of protective gear. In addition, NIST has worked with the 

University of Virginia, particularly on the new technique that NIST developed to measure 

the combined forces (compression and shear) that occur during rotational impacts. Under 

Annour also provided feedback on the test. So, some transfer of technology from NIST to 

non-governmental organizations has already occurred. 

In addition to the new capability for measuring rotational forces, NIST modified and 

improved some of its existing test capabilities for Head Health Challenge III, and 

continues to measure impact-resistant materials. Informally, NIST has talked with the 

Army Research Laboratory and the Consumer Products Safety Commission about 

integrating materials testing into evaluations of impact-resistant systems. 

NIST has also begun a use case to apply a materials genome approach to impact-resistant 

materials with the NIST-funded materials center of excellence, Center for Hierarchical 

Materials Design (CHiMaD), to develop new ways of designing and constructing 

materials that dissipate energy in ways not possible with today's materials. This effort 

will provide new and innovative approaches to impact mitigation. 

How will these new measurements change private industry's testing and setting of safety 

standards for protection products? 

Answer: As a non-regulatory federal agency, NIST does not set or enforce standards. 

NIST does, however, contribute its measurement expertise and teclmical results so that 

industry-led standards-setting bodies can make science-backed decisions by consensus. 

NIST intends to inform the community of its new measurement expertise and share data 

for rotational forces measured in non-proprietary materials. NIST experts serve on the 

ASTM International Committee on Sports Equipment and Facilities, which sets voluntary 

standards for the performance specifications and test methods for a wide variety of 

helmet types. NIST routinely meets with the Consumer Products Safety Commission to 

discuss issues related to testing protective equipment, and plans to work with the National 

Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) to assist with the 

continued improvements to the test methods and performance requirements for football 

and other helmets. 

Page 2 of5 
84 

Can you think of other science prize competitions NIST could sponsor that would spur 

this type of innovation both within NIST and the private industries competing in these 

competitions? 

Answer: NIST is continuing to explore opportunities where its programs would gain 

greatest benefit by using prize competitions. Under the leadership of the NIST Director, 

the NIST programs are seeking to identify prize topics where the competitive award of a 

prize will stimulate innovation in support of our mission. 

3. As stewards of federal tax dollars, it is essential to ensure that federal science prize 

competitions are an efficient and effective tool for spurring innovative solutions. How 

does NIST measure the impact of a prize after the competition'l What are some metrics 

that are or should be measured? How can agencies work with the prize winners to 

measure the impact of the prize after the competition? 

Answer: After the prizes are awarded, the competition enters the "Transition" phase, as 

described on the challenge.gov toolkit In 

this phase, NIST documents the results and outcomes from each competition, which are 

shared with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for its report on 

federal prize competitions. The near-te1m impacts tracked include the number of 

participants engaged and solutions generated. Other impacts to NIST include the ability 

to reach out to new communities of solvers; broadening awareness of the NIST mission 

among our stakeholders and the general public; and helping to inform NIST research 

programs, as happened >vith the Head Health Challenge III and NlST's new research 

eftcnis supporting the measurement of rotational impacts. 

Page3 of5 
85 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

"Head Health Challenge: Preventing Head Trauma from Football Field to Shop Floor to 

Battlefield" 

Dr. Michael Fasolka, Acting Director, NIST Material Measurement Lab 

Questions submitted by Ranking Member Daniel Lipinski, House Conunittcc on Science, Space, 

and Technology 

1. How can NIST continue to iterate and innovate to refine or improve the federal prize and 

challenge model? Are there additional collaborative mechanisms through which the 

agency can improve the efficiency of prizes and challenges? Are there new models for 

running prizes that can unlock greater impact, and if so what are they? 

~: NISTwill continue to use prizes and challenges as pa1t of the portfolio of tools 

that it uses to advance its mission. NIST's experience with launching its own prizes 

continues to grow and through these competitions, and continues to learn and streamline 

how the model best works for NIST. 15 U.S.C. 3719 provides a number of collaborative 

mechanisms specific to prize competitions that NIST will continue to leverage and 

expand. The expansion of these mechanisms for more substantive and meaningful publicprivate partnerships is an evolving and growing model. 

2. What ways can the innovations that come from a prize or a challenge be applied and 

brought to scale, and what is NIST's role in addressing this? How does NIST ensure that 

scale is factored into prize design? If prizes do not lead directly to the scaling of 

solutions, what organizations or tools can help complete the pipeline of innovation? 

Answer: After the prizes arc awarded, the competition enters the "Transition'' phase, as 

described on the challenge.gov toolkit \l!!.ll'!=-':YJ!~"""till!!d'.~cl>\Cl:l~l!i!.c:.!l!.!l!2ll~'U· 

NIST uses the federal community resources provided here to inform its transition plans. 

NIST documents results and outcomes from each competition, which are shared with the 

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for their report on federal prize 

competitions. NIST encourages continued research collaboration with participants from 

its competitions, as appropriate, for example by using Cooperative Research and 

Development Agreements (CRADAs). NIST's prize competitions have focused on the 

development and demonstration of new technologies and solutions to problems. To scale 

these concepts, non-federal challenge partners can present unique opportunities for future 

partnerships (i.e., Under Armour and GE in the Head Health Challenge III may work 

with participants from that challenge in developing future products). NIST provides 

opportunities for winners to meet potential customers/partners by presenting at major 

Page 4 of5 
86 

events (i.e., winners of the NIST Unmanned Aerial Systems Flight and Payload 

Challenge will be invited to demonstrate their work at the Public Safety Research 

Stakeholders Conference this June). 

3. The ecosystem or community around a prize or challenge is critical in spreading the word 

to those innovators who might be interested in competing. In fact, engaging with the right 

solver community is one of the most important tasks in operating a successful challenge. 

NIST has a history of engaging communities of innovators through challenges. What 

mechanisms are there to best cultivate communities of innovators such that they are ready 

to engage in prizes and challenges when called upon? 

Answer: Community engagement is essential and a continued challenge. NIST uses 

many mechanisms to reach its stakeholders, including social media tools and platforms, 

and traditional mechanisms such as Federal Register Notices, subscriber lists, focused 

workshops, discussions and presentations at related professional and technical society 

meetings, etc. In some topics, the community is well known to NIST because of its 

decades-long commitment in a technical area of focus. Public-private partnerships can 

greatly assist with outreach, for example the Head Health Challenge III followed two 

previous challenges that were issued by the NFL, Under Armour and GE as part of a 

larger program to build awareness and support head health. Video segments and 

interviews on news programs (both local and national) helped generate awareness of the 

Challenge and shed light on this important issue. NIST has also been able to expand its 

community of potential solvers by using administrators which are familiar with the target 

communities. Challenge.gov provides NIST a central location to post its challenges to 

make them accessible for potential solvers, and the challenge.gov team provides social 

media outreach. 

PageS of5 
87 

Responses by Mr. Scott A. Kebschull 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

"Head Health Challenge: Preventing Head Trauma from Football Field to Shop Floor to 

Battlefield" 

Mr. Scott A. Kcbschull, Vice President and Technical Director, Dynamic Research, Inc. 

Questions submitted by Chairwoman Barbara Comstock, House Committee on Science, Space, 

and Technology 

l. What are your thoughts on the website challenge.gov, which is meant to announce and 

track federal prizes? In your opinion, has the website been effective? Are the competition 

announcements reaching the right audiences? Please share any recommendations for 

improvements you may have. 

Answer: In my view, the website has limited effectiveness. Mainly I believe the reason is 

that the breadth of topics is so great that it can be difficult to find the much na!Tower 

subset that is of interest to a person. For example, I am primarily interested in topics like 

head impact, crash safety, and occupant protection, but the website contains hundreds of 

topics from invasive mussels to sensing arsenic in water that are completely outside of 

my field. 

Although the website allows the sorting of the challenges by several broad categories, it 

may be more helpful to include dozens of keywords for this purpose instead. It would be 

a substantial undertaking to develop an appropriate list of keywords, but this might help 

the website's users find the challenges that interest them. 

Another way to reach the right audiences might be to ask the challenge sponsor to 

advertise the challenge in trade publications or on websites that are used by people in 

related fields. In my own experience, I often discuss the things I read with colleagues and 

share articles with them if I think they might iind them useful. Ultimately, word of mouth 

is very etlective. and advertising the challenges can stimulate those '·word of mouth" 

discussions. 
88 

Responses by Dr. Alex O. Dehgan 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

"Head Health Challenge: Preventing Head Trauma from Football Field to Shop Floor to 

Battlefield" 

Dr. Alex 0. Dehgan, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Conservation X Labs 

Questions submitted by Chairwoman Barbara Comstock. House Committee on Science, Space. 

and Technology 

I. What are your thoughts on the website challem!e. aov, which is meant to announce and 

track federal prizes'' In your opinion, has the website been effective? Are the competition 

announcements reaching the 1ight audiences? Please share any recommendations for 

improvements you may have. 

Answer: Challenge.gov does a good job of announcing and promoting new challenges to 

its existing network. It is also a convenient platform for all agencies running competitions 

to use as a portal for those interested in and participating in the challenges. It is fairly 

user-friendly in that potential solvers can search by topics and digest the challenges in 

short easy to read card-like snapshots. 

However, Challenge.gov is a victim of its success. There are too many challenges listed 

on the site, including challenges with expired links. There were challenges on the front 

page of the site that were no longer accepting applications, and the challenges themselves 

suffered from inconsistent design and format, and sometimes lacked effective agency 

data. 

We propose a few recommendations to the challenge.gov site: 

(1) Developing Algorithms for Promotion to the Front Page. Following the 

crowdfunding model, challenge.gov should use the intensity of interaction and 

engagement with a challenge to move challenges to the front page as a default setting. 

The current setting focuses on the newest challenge, while users can search by a 

combination of the agency or the prize purse to identify challenges. Encouraging 

Agencies to "bring a crowd to build a crowd" pushes agencies to spend more effort on 

marketing the challenge, and helps create a live community for Challenge.gov that 

generates excitement. Agencies in this way can be rewarded for putting resources into 

engaging on the challenge. 

(2) Improving Challenge.gov's Visual Design. The value proposition ofChallenge.gov 

is it allows solvers to discover and participate in Agency challenges, yet the site is deeply 

uninspiring in its fonnat. Challenge.gov could learn much from advertisers and sites like 

Indiegogo which intend to draw people to the projects and build a community of fundcrs. 

While many of the challenges are well designed on the Agency sites, there needs to be 
89 

more done around the design of the challenges on the Challenge.gov site. Some ideas 

could include integrating the Prizewire stories with the challenges, increasing 

interactivity and engagement, and creating a more visually engaging site with greater 

representation of imagery. This will require a larger staff dedicated to operating the site. 

(3) Creating a Home Page. Challenge.gov needs a home-page, or landing page, that 

explains what Challengc.gov is clearly as well as what a user can do on the site that 

doesn't drop the user directly into the search page. 

( 4) Creating a more tailored site. While Challenge.gov allows you to select and follow 

challenges by Agency, it could also do so by subject matter or technology. The site could 

be "smatter" allowing it to suggest challenges for you based on your expertise, or 

knowledge, or sector, as well as based on other challenges you have taken on before. The 

site could borrow from algorithms used by Netflix or Hulu to propose potential 

challenges that would interest participants. 

(5) Create a marketplace of successful solutions. We don't know what has happened to 

previous challenges, in the absence of a story on the site or prize wire, yet such stories 

and data could be valuable to investors, future solvers, and other agencies. We 

recommend creating opportunities for people to find out more about winners and losers, 

to help with the acceleration and scale up, as well as provide credibility to the challenges 

that encourages newcomers to engage? Challenge.gov could also benefit from having a 

separate section for closed competitions and winners (instead of bunching all 800+ 

announcements in one single space). 

(6) Expanding the Community. Challenge.gov does a good job of announcing and 

promoting new challenges to its existing network, but may want to provide the tools to 

allow for reaching a broader network. The challcnge.gov twitter account is pretty active, 

but could probably be even more proactive about alerting followers to deadlines, 

announcements, winners, etc. It isn't clear how many users regularly check the website, 

but some of the challenges do have a relatively active discussion board to ask questions 

and post comments about the challenge. The challenge.gov audience can probably be 

expanded, but this should be the responsibility of each agency organizing challenges. 

Democratizing Challenge Design. The model behind prizes and challenges is to expand 

the pool of potential problem-solvers beyond the Federal Agencies. These prizes and 

challenges should be of shared interest by the public as the U.S. Government is a 

representative democracy where the public pays taxes in exchange tor environmental 

protection, defense, education, infrastmcture and social services. However the current 

model of prizes and challenges only allows for Federal Agencies to describe the problem, 

which becomes a prize or a challenge, and request solutions to that problem from the 

Page 2 of8 
90 

public. This is a one-way flow in the ecosystem of problems and solutions. The public are 

oftentimes the closest to some of the problems that federal agencies are tasked with 

managing, not just the source of the solutions. Chal\enge.gov could include an option for 

the public to propose challenges for consideration by the challenge.gov community. 

Problems that rise to the top could then be suggested to Federal Agencies, which could be 

encouraged to refine them into a prize or challenge statement and posted on 

Challenge.gov. 

Page 3 of8 
91 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

"Head Health Challenge: Preventing Head Trauma from Football Field to Shop Floor to 

Battlefield'' 

Dr. Alex 0. Dehgan, ChiefExeeutive Officer and Founder, Conservation X Labs 

Questions submitted by Ranking Member Daniel Lipinski, House Committee on Science, Space, 

and Technology 

1. How can we iterate and innovate to refine or improve the federal prize and challenge 

model? Are there collaborative mechanisms through which we can improve the 

et1iciency of prizes and challenges? Are there new models for running prizes that can 

unlock greater impact, and if so what are they? 

Answer: When done correctly, prizes and challenges are significant tools for disruption 

and innovation, and can provide substantial cost savings to the government. However, 

many prizes and challenges fail to reach their full potential. We offer the following 

suggestions on how to improve on the execution of prizes and challenges. 

A. Advancing The Science of Innovation In Government 

There is a science of innovation, and in some ways, institutions like OSTP and GSA need 

to be not only helping with the execution of prizes and challenges, but studying them to 

understand how to make them better, in partnership with academic organizations. There 

is existing academic research around the process of innovation that across multiple 

disciplines, including within areas of study such as human-computer interactions, 

behavioral sciences, economics, marketing, and psychology. The goal is to harness 

learning and input from these disciplines, understand how they influence the execution of 

prizes and challenges, and iterate on the model. 

There arc countless iterations that could be done on the prize model, and not all prizes 

need to look the same. Congress should encourage the experimentation with different 

forn1s of prizes and challenges (competitive processes) as well as collaborative open 

innovation mechanisms, with the goal of advancing innovation the improves the speed, 

efficacy, cost, and sustainability of solutions to the challenges facing our nation. 

B. Mass Collaboration 

The federal prize and challenge model encourages competition, but the model can expand 

to around mass collaboration. Mass collaboration allows solvers to build off of each other 

and ultimately the intellectual property doesn't belong to one or a few solvers. This open 

innovation model may allow for greater impact and scalability because the barriers 

Pagc4 of8 
92 

associated with intellectual property do not exist, so that, given the materials and 

resources, multiple entities can mass produce and develop the solution. The real-world 

example is Open Source Drug Discovery, where mass collaboration by pharmacologists 

and scientists led to the creation of improved drugs for neglected tropical diseases. 

Moreover, the ability and value of prizes to induce innovation is observed not only in the 

winning entry but many of the other applicants (''the losers"). Prizes and challenges can 

be extremely wasteful in terms of their innovation power because 99% of the applicants 

are unsuccessful, but may have ideas or components of ideas, that if brought together, 

could be even more impactful than the "winners." Being able to harness the full 

innovation impact of prizes and challenges is critical to our success. 

Conservation X Labs has created a mass collaboration site- called the Digital 

Makerspacc that uses mass collaboration in combination with 

prizes & challenges (including ones we host on the site) to advance new innovations 

(including both open and closed Intellectual Property, IP), and then bring the best of 

those ideas to scale. We arc integrating our prizes and challenges with this mass 

collaboration site to capture the "losers'' of prize and challenge competitions, thereby 

increasing their overall efficiency by supporting many more potential ideas to get to 

scale. This can be a model or platform for the federal community. 

C. Acceleration, Equity, and Unlocking Private Investment 

Prizes and challenges are powerful mechanisms that advance and accelerate solutions at 

low cost, however, these innovation tools are not well integrated into the work of 

Agencies. Most solutions are not integrated into the Agency's core programming and 

work, despite the success of prizes and challenges, and the breakthrough nature of the 

innovations. There is a need to ensure those Agencies running competitions think and act 

beyond the prize and challenge competitions. However, given the short tenn political 

attention span of government agencies, they may not be able to do so. 

Potential solutions arc then to pmtner with the private sector, which can use a prize or 

challenge mechanism to take equity, ensuring an interest in the scaling of solutions, as well 

as providing acceleration support for winning ideas. Under a public-private model, federal 

dollars can be invested in running the challenge process, providing first loss guarantees on 

private sector equity investments, and funding and supporting acceleration processes. 

D. Prizes for Behavior Change and Social Science Solutions 

Another new frontier in the evolution of prizes is an attempt to break away from the 

notion that prizes are only effective for technological breakthroughs. Many prize 

designers are attempting to develop new models that will lead to behavioral changes and 

new social paradigms. Can we develop prizes that will can address addictions without 

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drugs, or encourage behavior changes that reduce traffic fatalities, improve energy uses, 

or improve health and longevity outcomes') 

E. Increasing Demand for Innovation 

Organizations running and implementing prizes tend to consider them as single one-off 

events, meant to capture the public imagination around a topic, and gain publicity and 

recognition for the agency for their innovativeness. As a result, most prizes don't 

generate new innovations that have been developed from scratch as much as they tend to 

encourage the novel applications of existing innovations to new sectors. However, when 

prizes and challenges are repeated (such as USAIIYs Saving Lives at Birth), this 

repetition creates a market signal that can induce innovators to create breakthroughs for a 

challenge. Other variations include taking a sequential approach to breakthroughs 

through multiple additive challenges, or creating tiered structures based on venture 

capital models of staged investment based on success (similar to the structure of 

USA!D's Grand Challenges, or the Development Innovation Ventures) that help 

encourage sealing products. 

F. Creating an Open Door for Innovation. 

An alternative to a prize or challenge is to have an open door to a government Agency for 

new breakthrough innovations that are not driven by a particular topic (other than the 

areas where an agency works). USAID used this model with the Development Innovation 

Ventures, which allowed for innovations that the Agency didn't envision, and it invited 

interventions that could change millions of lives at a fraction of the usual cost to 

potentially get access for funding outside of traditional program areas or RFPs. 

2. What ways can the innovations that come from a prize or a challenge be applied and 

brought to scale? How do we ensure that scale is factored into prize design? If prizes do 

not lead directly to the scaling of solutions, what organizations or tools can help complete 

the pipeline of innovation? 

Answer: Scale is critical to the success of prizes and challenges, and must be considered 

at the beginning of any prize process, and into the prize design itself. It is insufficient to 

run a challenge without some understanding of what happens after the competition. 

Agencies should think systematically in terms of the ecosystem (who will buy the 

solutions, who will mass produce the solutions, who is willing to pay for the solutions), 

their business models (franchising, licensing, acquisition, or direct distribution), the 

scaling model (through the private sector, public sector, open source), potential barriers 

to market entry (regulatory barriers, societal or cultural barriers), and acceleration support 

(understanding their optimal value proposition, availability of mentors, overcoming 

technical baniers, access to investors and industries). 

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Scale can be part of the actual competition itself: It can manifest itself in terms of the 

design criteria for the innovation (ensuring the efficacy in the communities for which it is 

being used), through making part of the competition's requirement about reaching scale 

(e.g, production of I 00,000 metric tons of fish-free feed), or ensuring the scale or 

adoption of the innovation as part of the prize of the competition, such as through an 

Advanced Market Commitment, a contract that goes into force guaranteeing a quantity of 

purchases if a set of performance criteria is met, or requiring acceleration as part of the 

prize (a great model for such programs includes the I-Corps program at NSF). 

3. The ecosystem or community around a prize or challenge is critical in spreading the word 

to those innovators who might be interested in competing. In fact, engaging with the right 

solver community is one of the most important tasks in operating a successful challenge. 

What mechanisms are there to cultivate communities of innovators such that they are 

ready to engage in prizes and challenges when called upon? 

Answer: A robust solver community is actually a community of communities. Ensuring 

the reach of a challenge to new disciplines and solvers, as well as inviting experts and 

non-experts, is critical to innovation. Prizes must engage innovators who otherwise 

would be unlikely to tackle the problems that the prize is designed to address. Prizes must 

be designed to attract new people entering fields with nontrivial approaches, using new 

resources and collaborating in unique ways. 

Specifically: 

( l) Prizes require a diversity of partners. Prizes that arc organized by institutions 

without a broad community of support are unlikely to reach across to new disciplines 

or sectors. Diversifying the partners allows for the ability to reach novel communities, 

mitigate the risks, and given the rarity of such collaboration, increase the uniqueness 

of the competition. This is especially true for prizes that can cross multiple disciplines 

or sectors. Such pm1ners are not just branding for challenges, but have to participate 

in the design of the challenge itself Innovation tends to happen at the boundary of 

fields, so breaking out of the tyranny of your experts is critical to success. 

(2) Language is the signal. The language of prizes and challenges has to signal an 

openness to new ideas, new solvers and communities. Prizes and challenges tend to 

undetmine their own goals because they are trapped by their procurement processes, 

or by the culture of their agency or field. The prize language and call to action have to 

be clear, simple, and focused on the barrier that the prize seeks to overcome, without 

seeming to dictate a specific approach or solution, or using overly-technical language. 

(3) Invest as much into the engagement as the prize. Many agencies tend to put all 

their resources into the prize purse, without investing personnel or resources into the 

launch, amplification, engagement with the diverse communities that you want to 

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attract to the prize. There is a tendency to believe that if you build a prize, the 

innovators will come. In today's crowded environment of prizes and challenges. such 

approaches are unlikely to generate success. 

( 4) Prizes must capture the imagination. A prize or challenge crystallizes and 

articulates an issue in a way that is easily described and that engages the creative 

spirit of those who would participate. They are intended to move the needle in tenns 

of potential solutions, demonstrate a breakthrough, literally showing that the 

impossible is now possible. A well-designed prize provides a motivating, meaningful 

target for interested teams, encourages creativity and inspiration, and can draw in new 

people into a field. 

(5) Think creativity about the Award. Prizes and challenges inspire people for reasons 

that go beyond a financial purse, but also monetary prizes can help spur private sector 

action by offering a lump sum to winners of contests. Prizes may utilize other types of 

incentives and structures beyond monetary prizes, including recognition, advanced 

market commitments, media attention, and credibility. 

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Responses by Mr. Shawn Springs 

Æ 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

"Head Health Challenge: Preventing Head Trauma from Football Field to Shop Floor to 

Battlefield" 

Mr. Shawn Springs, Chief Executive Ot1icer, Windpact 

Questions submitted by Chairwoman Barbara Comstock House Committee on Science Space. 

and Technology 

l. What are your thoughts on the website fhallenge.i!ov, which is meant to announce and 

track federal prizes? In your opinion, has the website been effective? Are the competition 

announcements reaching the right audiences? Please share any recommendations for 

improvements you may have. 

Answer: Until I participated in this hearing, I had no prior experience with 

challenge.gov. I did go in and try to register for an account but since I am not a federal 

government employee or a contractor with a valid govemment email address, I was 

having a difficult time registering. The registration process was confusing. In my mind, 

the website needs to be more user friendly. The idea of this site is appealing but I'm not 

sure that the way its set up cun·ently allows for maximum exposure. In the future, I can 

see that this site might be valuable and I would like to !cam more about relevant federal 

prizes that would be good for Windpact.