Two of the newest members of AdventGX’s Innovation Underground business and technology incubator have been selected to receive free technical assistance from the Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program (SATOP). Global Hawk, an agricultural technology company founded by Justin Houck, and Tuurny Automation Solutions established by Sina Ghashghaei have both been selected to receive support through a capstone project in partnership with Texas A&M University College of Engineering. These longer-term and more intensive projects engage faculty and students in identifying solutions to technical problems the inventors and entrepreneurs face as they work to bring innovation to the marketplace.

AdventGX is collaborating with the SATOP program and Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership to identify candidates for the technical assistance program. Qualifying businesses may be served through one of the two SATOP programs:

  • 40-Hour Technical Assistance Program: Eligible entrepreneurs and small businesses located in Texas can be provided with up to 40 hours of free technical assistance. Requests must have a distinct and identifiable engineering challenge that appears solvable in the 40-hour limit. 
  • Texas A&M University Engineering Capstone Design Program: he Capstone program is designed for projects that require extensive technical assistance. In the program, teams composed of four to six senior engineering students, under the guidance of a faculty member, spend one to two semesters designing solutions and developing academic prototypes for entrepreneurs and small business owners.

To qualify for the program, companies must meet the following SATOP guidelines:

  • The requesting entity must be a small business (under 500 employees), owned and operated in Texas.
  • The requesting business must have been unable to solve the challenge with the resources available to them.
  • The requesting business must be prepared to provide drawings, prototypes, provisional patents, or samples as needed, and must be available to communicate with an Alliance Partner engineer.
  • Please note that SATOP cannot work on IT (Information Technology) solutions.

The SATOP program provides assistance across a broad range of industries, from aerospace, oil and gas, boat manufacturing, skincare, and consumer products, to sports and the healthcare industry. SATOP provides support requiring, but not limited to, one of the following engineering disciplines:

  • Mechanical
  • Electrical
  • Electronics
  • Manufacturing
  • Chemical
  • Materials
  • Environmental
  • Industrial
  • Structural

To learn more about the program, visit https://bit.ly/AGX-SATOP . For examples of SATOP success stories visit https://bit.ly/AGX-SATOP-cases and read how others have benefitted from the program. You can also contact one of our AdventGX team members to help assess if your business is a good candidate for the SATOP program.