The NASA Innovative Partnerships Program (IPP) is hereby requesting information from organizations interested in hosting NASA employees participating in the NASA Innovation Transfusion project. The goal of the Innovation Transfusion project is to increase the flow of new ideas into NASA by increasing connections between NASA employees and outside organizations that are creative leaders in areas that could benefit NASA missions.
Organizations eligible to respond to this request for information include private companies, academic and research institutions, national laboratories and other government agencies. NASA is interested in establishing Innovation Transfusion partnerships with organizations working on innovative technologies and processes, especially those outside the conventional aerospace field. The information gathered by this request will only be used as a mechanism for permitting future communication between NASA and the external organization. Actual partnerships may or may not result from this expression of interest.
The Innovation Transfusion project has two elements: Innovation Ambassadors and Innovation Scouts. The Innovation Ambassadors program will provide a temporary developmental assignment for select members of NASA’s technical workforce. These individuals would be assigned to work with a hosting external organization for up to one year. Shorter assignments of several months would also be considered. The host organization would have the benefit of the expertise of the NASA employee at no cost. The NASA employee would focus on improving their technical and management skills while learning, on a day-to-day basis, about the innovative technologies and processes used by the host organization. The Innovation Ambassador can also share ideas and approaches based on their NASA experience. Following the assignment, the NASA employee would disseminate their new knowledge within NASA and lead efforts to implement new technologies and process improvements where appropriate. An additional benefit for NASA and the host organization is the potential for the Innovation Ambassadors activity to lead to future business partnerships and other interaction.
There will be no formal contract mechanism for the Innovation Ambassador assignment however an “Agreement for Temporary Assignment” will be used to guarantee the position at the hosting organization.
The Innovation Scouts program will provide for small teams of NASA employees to participate in focused workshops with a host external organization to exchange information on specific technical innovations. NASA technical experts would visit external organizations for one to two days for these workshops. It is expected that these workshops might lead to further contacts and the potential for future partnerships.
NASA will pay the salary and travel costs of the Innovation Ambassador and Innovation Scout employees. Participating organizations will negotiate intellectual property restrictions and terms with NASA Office of General Counsel.
Organizations interested in participating in either the Innovation Ambassador or Innovation Scout elements should provide the following information:
1) Company or organization name
2) Location and mailing address
3) Name, email address and telephone number for a person from your organization who can be contacted by NASA employees to discuss potential Innovation Transfusion involvement.
4) Brief description of your organization’s work and any particularly innovative or novel aspects of your activities in 200 words or less. You can provide your website link, if helpful.
5) If you are interested in hosting an Innovation Ambassador, provide a brief description of a potential temporary assignment in 100 words or less. If you are interested in hosting an Innovation Scouts group, provide a brief description of the potential topics for a workshop in 100 words or less.
Please send all information in text files attached to an email message to andrew.j.petro@nasa.gov by June 20, 2008. If you are interested in both the Ambassador and Scout elements, please provide two separate files. Please do not include photographs or other images. Organizations should be aware that the information that they provide at this time will be shared with NASA employees and will not be confidential.
Please note: This announcement is NOT intended to solicit contractual agreements. As such, this announcement will NOT result in any contract, cooperative agreements, grants, or space-act agreements.
For more information refer to: http://www.ipp.nasa.gov/ii_transfusion.htm
PLEASE DIRECT ALL QUESTIONS TO:
Andrew Petro, NASA Headquarters, Innovative Partnerships Program, Phone (202) 358-0310, Email: andrew.j.petro@nasa.gov.
