Introducing the Space Tech Catalyst Prize Competition

Lynn Van Deventer

Denna Lambert

Danielle McCulloch

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

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NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

www.nasa.gov

NASA Flight Opportunities

Session will start at 10 a.m. PT – Please mute your microphone and turn off your camera

Community of Practice Webinar Series – October 4, 2023

Denna Lambert, NASA’s Early Stage Innovations and Partnerships

Lynn Van Deventer, NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation

Introducing the Space Tech Catalyst Prize Competition

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NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

Welcome to the Community of Practice Webinar Series!

First, a bit of housekeeping...

• Please mute your microphone and turn off your camera

• Today’s session will be recorded

• Recordings for this and all future sessions will be posted on the Flight 

Opportunities website

• Please engage!

• Use the chat throughout the session to ask questions

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Introducing the Space Tech Catalyst Prize Competition

Lynn Van Deventer

Denna Lambert

Danielle McCulloch

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

2

NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

Welcome to the Community of Practice Webinar Series!

Flight Opportunities hopes these webinars will enable researchers, 

program staff, and flight providers to connect informally and share 

information

• Designed to distill and share the most important lessons learned to:

• Increase the impact of suborbital flight tests

• Transfer best practices

• Optimize the experience of current and prospective program participants

• Part of a broad effort to capture, organize, and communicate lessons learned 

by suborbital researchers

• An opportunity to hear from subject matter experts on best practices for 

preparing for suborbital flight tests

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NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

Join us for future Community of Practice webinars!

Subscribe to our newsletter for 

updates on future webinars!

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/fli

ghtopportunities/newsletter

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Future webinars

• Webinars are held 1st Wednesday of each 

month at 10 a.m. PT

• Topics will be announced in the Flight 

Opportunities newsletter and website

• Session recordings will be posted on the 

Flight Opportunities website

• Let us know session topics you would like 

to see covered

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Introducing the Space Tech Catalyst Prize Competition

Lynn Van Deventer

Denna Lambert

Danielle McCulloch

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

3

NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

Now open:

Inspiring the next generation of explorers

• Open to U.S. students in grades 6-12

• Challenge to design, build, and launch science and technology experiments

• 60 winning teams will receive $1,500 to build their payloads, plus access to a 

suborbital flight test on a high-altitude balloon or rocket-powered lander

• To participate, visit: futureengineers.org/nasatechrise

• Entries due: October 20, 2023 5

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NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

Today’s Speakers

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Lynn Van Deventer

Open Innovation Advisor

NASA’s Center of Excellence for 

Collaborative Innovation

Denna Lambert

Inclusive Innovation Team Lead

NASA’s Early Stage Innovations and 

Partnerships

Danielle McCulloch

Program Manager

NASA Flight Opportunities Program

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Introducing the Space Tech Catalyst Prize Competition

Lynn Van Deventer

Denna Lambert

Danielle McCulloch

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

4

NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

www.nasa.gov

NASA Flight Opportunities

Community of Practice

October 2023 | Lynn Van Deventer

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The Power of the Crowd

Using NASA’s Open Innovation Tools to 

Supercharge Research and Development

Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing (PCC) Program

NASA Tournament Lab

Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation

Lynn Van Deventer lynn.vandeventer@nasa.gov

Trade names, trademarks, and logos are used in this report for identification only. Their usage does not constitute an official endorsement, either expressed or implied, by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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Introducing the Space Tech Catalyst Prize Competition

Lynn Van Deventer

Denna Lambert

Danielle McCulloch

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

5

NASA’s Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI)

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CoECI works across NASA and other U.S. Federal 

Government Agencies to assist organizations in 

understanding and using open innovation tools.

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Hard to Find Skills and 

Expertise

The Rate of Change for Knowledge 

and Technology is Increasing 

High Risk to Remaining 

Competitive/Relevant

Hard to Keep Up with 

Tech Advances

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Introducing the Space Tech Catalyst Prize Competition

Lynn Van Deventer

Denna Lambert

Danielle McCulloch

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

6

“Open Innovation” is an Effective Tool to Keep 

Pace with Accelerating Change

Open Innovation or crowdsourcing platforms 

are bringing together and curating large 

numbers of people from all over the world with 

all types of backgrounds, skills, and expertise to 

provide valuable products and services. 

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“Most of the bright people don’t work for 

you – no matter who you are.”

- Bill Joy, Co-Founder of Sun Microsystems

People

Level of Expertise/Skills

General 

Population

Our

Organization Actual Relative Size

High Value 

Expertise/Skills

Crowds Provide Access to High Value Expertise/Skills

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Curated 

Community

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Introducing the Space Tech Catalyst Prize Competition

Lynn Van Deventer

Denna Lambert

Danielle McCulloch

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

7

Crowds Cut Across a Broad Set of Technical Disciplines

Physics/Mech Eng

Biotech/Genom

Materials/Nano

Electrical Eng

Math/Data Science/ML

Multispectral Sensing

Computing

Automation

Power Gen/Storage

... 13

Solutions many times 

come from knowledge, 

perspectives or 

technologies from other 

technical domains

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Depth/Complexity

Breadth of Domain Expertise and Technologies

Using Crowds to Solve Problems

Used by permission: Crowd Resources Consulting

Domain-Discipline-Industry

But HOW Can You Find the 

“Right” Expert or the Existing 

Solution from Some Other 

Domain Using the Crowd?

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Introducing the Space Tech Catalyst Prize Competition

Lynn Van Deventer

Denna Lambert

Danielle McCulloch

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

8

Access to 40 

Open 

Innovation 

Firms & 

Communities

The NASA Tournament Lab “Toolkit”

Curated Crowds Available for NASA Challenges & Tasks

Center of Excellence 

for Collaborative 

Innovation

Trade names, trademarks, and logos are used in this report for identification only. Their usage does not constitute an official endorsement, either expressed or implied, by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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Representing 

over 100 

Million 

People 

Worldwide

Representing 

over 120

Million 

People 

Worldwide

Access to 

50+ Open 

Innovation 

Firms & 

Communities

13 New Platforms

NOIS2 Contract Ceiling Raised 

from $24.9M to $175M

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Ideas Conceptual 

Designs

System 

Designs

Demos/ 

Prototypes

Engineering 

Models Software Algorithms/ Data Science Graphics Video Crowd Prog Engagement

Technology 

Search

Technology 

Catalyst

130 120 17 5 28 60 45 50 25 59 98 16

PCC

Open Innovation (OI) Products and Services

Center of Excellence 

for Collaborative 

Innovation

Products and Services Provided by: 

Crowd-Based Prize Competitions/Challenges | Freelance Experts/Workers | Micro-Tasking | OI Program Support

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Technical Solutions Multimedia

Includes challenges in formulation and in progress but success & cost statistics does not include Centennial Challenges.

650+ 

Projects

94% Were

Successful

77% Have Cost 

Savings

53% Average 

Cost Savings

$70M+ Estimated 

Cost Savings

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Introducing the Space Tech Catalyst Prize Competition

Lynn Van Deventer

Denna Lambert

Danielle McCulloch

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

9

Crowds, gig-workers, freelancers are a rapidly growing 

resource with increasing capabilities

Curated communities are attracting passion and 

building expertise and skills

Open methods are extremely effective for 

accessing valuable innovations 

Those that fail to innovate will be left behind

“OPEN” is the Future and 

“INNOVATION” is No Longer Optional

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Significant Technical Challenges to NASA’s Mission

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If we are serious 

about leading in 

Space Exploration, 

we must use new 

tools if we hope to 

access the 

necessary 

technologies, ideas, 

and innovations we 

require.

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Introducing the Space Tech Catalyst Prize Competition

Lynn Van Deventer

Denna Lambert

Danielle McCulloch

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

10

@NASASolve

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NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

www.nasa.gov

NASA Flight Opportunities

Community of Practice

October 2023 | Denna Lambert

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Introducing the Space Tech Catalyst Prize Competition

Lynn Van Deventer

Denna Lambert

Danielle McCulloch

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

11

An ESIP Inclusive Innovation 

Strategy 

www.spacetechcatalystprize.org

Registration: September 28, 2023 – February 8, 

2024

Submission Deadline: February 22, 2024

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Introducing the Space Tech Catalyst Prize Competition

Lynn Van Deventer

Denna Lambert

Danielle McCulloch

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

12

Inclusive Innovation

A key pillar to ESIP’s mission is the belief that innovation is meant to be inclusive. For those 

with the desire, interest, and passion for space technology innovation, we believe there is a 

place within NASA for everyone. 

“I didn’t know 

NASA did that”

“NASA’s grant/contract 

process is too 

complicated”

“How do I even play 

the game?” 

ESIP has taken a comprehensive review of 

how we address known and perceived 

barriers that resulted in an approved and 

resourced Inclusive Innovation Roadmap: 

• We are improving how we communicate 

to and with our intended audience –

what we say

• We are identifying, reducing, and 

addressing barriers to how we do 

business – how we move

• We are inviting others outside of NASA to 

work alongside us in solving our collective 

challenges – who joins us

• We are creating and accessing multiple 

access points to NASA Space Tech – how 

we grow

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1. Recognize innovation and inclusivity by 

identifying and awarding individuals and 

organizations who serve as intermediaries that 

support diverse and emerging innovators in 

developing and commercializing space technology. 

2. Highlight best practices for engaging and 

developing the capacity and skill sets of diverse 

groups in competing for space technology research 

and development awards.

3. Enhance outreach efforts to attract a diverse pool 

of proposers, increase the number of high-quality 

proposals for ESIP funding opportunities, and 

address community barriers that fall within ESIP’s 

scope of control and influence.

4. Community Building that creates an atmosphere 

for increased collaboration and awareness of 

opportunities that exist within the NASA space tech 

pipeline. 

Primary 

Objectives

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Introducing the Space Tech Catalyst Prize Competition

Lynn Van Deventer

Denna Lambert

Danielle McCulloch

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

13

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NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

26 www.nasa.gov

Thank you! 

Flight Opportunities website: 

http://nasa.gov/flightopportunities

Contact us:

NASA-FlightOpportunities@mail.nasa.gov

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