The Z Files: Learn How the FLC Helps Member Labs Get Deals Done

We all know that technology transfer depends on deals. That’s why the FLC’s structure includes an entire team of staff and volunteers working to connect federal labs with the right partners to make deals happen. We’ve found numerous ways to showcase federal labs and what they bring to a partnership. Your lab could be next!  

As many of you know, the FLC and its committees are built upon three organizational “pillars” focused on the themes of Promote, Educate and Facilitate. Promote involves communicating information about the FLC, federal tech transfer and its value. Educate involves training for the T2 professional, which many of you experienced at the recent National Meeting in Cleveland.  

But Facilitate is all about your mission to get deals done, creating opportunities for connections between labs and potential partners. Paige George of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Panama City Division, is now our new Facilitate Committee Chair after nearly four years as the Southeast Regional Coordinator. There are a lot of interesting things going on in this area! 

Many of the deal-making opportunities created by the Facilitate pillar are focused on specific technology sectors, based on research and funding trends and feedback from our member labs about their needs and priorities. The next such event is the Green Energy Innovation Expo. This event is being held in partnership with the US Patent and Trademark Office and AUTM on May 17 at the USPTO main office in Alexandria, VA. The goal is to bring together lab licensees and licensors in this field and will include a pitch competition, senior experts in this space, and of course the opportunity to network. 

For a completely different technology focus, our next in-person event will be the Animal Health Partnering Forum in Kansas City, MO, August 29-30. Save those dates and stay tuned for more details on registration and programming.

In addition to in-person events, we generally schedule several virtual events during the year that are focused on specific technology sectors. These are planned as online events in response to the demand for virtual events that has surged in recent years. We recently held the first in a series of online meetings around underwater uncrewed systems.  

We offer other types of opportunities as well. Lab Showcases, which are online events, are a great opportunity to just talk about the mission and opportunities at your lab. The idea is simple enough, but very effective.  

In this Digest, you may see updates on Member Connect events. These short online events highlight specific federal programs or areas of research that are of interest to the T2 community.  (Member Connect events are similar to FLC webinars, the distinction being that FLC webinars are designed for professional development rather than networking.) The next Member Connect, on May 3, will showcase Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Artificial Intelligence Innovation Incubator (AI3).

The FLC also facilitates connections between federal labs and partners when we attend events hosted by others. Some upcoming examples include the Hypersonic Innovation Conference in Dayton, OH, May 2-4, and the TechConnect World Innovation Conference in Washington, DC, June 19-20. The Small Business Administration (SBA) has recently announced it is restarting the SBIR Road Tour and has invited the FLC to highlight T2 activities to interested small businesses as part of that tour. 

We are introducing a new type of opportunity this year at the BIO International Convention, which will be June 5-8 in Boston, MA. The FLC has sponsored a large exhibit space where we will create a federal lab pavilion, within which individual federal labs have “subleased” exhibit space.  This significantly reduces the cost to individual labs to participate in this big annual event and emphasizes the collaborative nature of the FLC community.   

As you can see, there are multiple ways the FLC can work with you to showcase your lab and expand your partnership opportunities. Please let us know if you would like to hold a Member Connect on a topic of interest to your lab, be highlighted in a Lab Showcase, or participate in a session at a tech-themed event. We’ll be helping you achieve your lab’s mission, and you’ll be helping the FLC Facilitate team achieve ours.