Seeding Innovative Ideas and Partnering with the Ecosystem

Jenn Gustetic will talk about how NASA selects ideas and collaborates with the ecosystem to develop new technologies for NASA’s portfolio. She will explain how the organization encourages collaboration, co-invests to develop ideas from lab to market, and acts as the hub-and-spoke of the ecosystem. Jenn will also discuss NASA’s journey to break silos and work horizontally across programs.

• Gathering and evaluating ideas internally and externally with diverse players – engaging communities, being the hub-and-spoke of the ecosystem, and encouraging collaboration through co-investments

• Identify the best ideas, funding ideas from maturation to hand-off with fluctuating budgets, and managing IP and tech transfer

• Balancing investments in projects that address NASA’s needs with higher risk ideas that may not have an obvious application

• Transitioning ideas to the next phase – training people and teams and ensuring ownership

• Developing a 3.0 innovation capacity strategy – disrupting silos, enabling the ecosystem to work seamlessly together, and taking people and leaders along