Program Seeks To Accelerate Innovators And Disruptive Technology Concepts

Sikorsky Innovations has announced it has launched its 6th Entrepreneurial Challenge, adding targeted focus areas and a cash prize to the competition. Now in its third year, the Entrepreneurial Challenge seeks to accelerate innovators and disruptive technology concepts with applications in the vertical flight market.

As part of the Front End of Innovation 2015, Sikorsky unveiled the next generation of the competition as part of its continuing evolution to seek out the best ideas within the global entrepreneurial community. The new structure features four technical focus areas: (1) Ruggedized, wireless sensing, (2) Real-time augmented reality for complex systems, (3) Aerospace quality additive manufacturing and (4) High energy density and high power performance energy storage. As well, new to the 6th Entrepreneurial Challenge is the addition of a cash prize for the winning team.

"These four focus areas represent technology needs that we have today, right now, for production aircraft and processes," said Jonathan Hartman, Entrepreneurial Challenge Lead. "A great example is wireless sensing. We have immediate needs to deploy capabilities on our fleets of thousands of aircraft if someone can or has solved the issue of reliability in high vibration and tough environmental conditions."

"The cash prize confirms how serious we are about finding aligned, disruptive technologies," added Simon Gharibian, Senior Manager, Sikorsky Innovations. "As a global leader in rotorcraft, Sikorsky is not looking for distractions. It is looking for serious enterprises that are ready to test their product or concept and win the opportunity to work closely with us. A company will have to be truly outstanding to win the prize, but we know that those companies are out there."

To provide even more insight into the focus areas, Sikorsky will host a public webinar in June with the company's top experts. Potential applicants can gain additional insight and ask questions of the panel. Details of the webinar and the cash prize will be available on the Entrepreneurial Challenge website in June and July.

"We are searching for leaders across all technology domains, who can leverage the resources and network of a Fortune 500 company to create value across multiple industries. We are looking for the technology intersections between industries as different as biomedical and aerospace," said Chris Van Buiten, Vice President of Sikorsky Innovations. "What we want entrepreneurs and innovators to look for is that win-win application of emerging technology that was not originally envisioned for the Sikorsky rotorcraft space but directly addresses one of our focus areas."

Applications are due to Sikorsky Innovations by 5 p.m. EDT on Friday, Oct. 16th.

FMI: http://www.sikorsky.com/EChallenge