UCL-Energy seminar: TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER & COMMERCIALISATION AT THE WORLD'S LARGEST ENERGY LAB: LESSONS LEARNED - John 'Grizz' Deal, CEO, IX Power

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico is the largest energy and physics laboratory on the planet. In addition to non-proliferation and other national security issues, LANL has a responsibility to assist in the transfer and commercialization of energy and science innovations to the commercial sector.

LANL's efforts in tech commercialisation, now nearly 30 years on, have produced mixed results. This is due partly to the vagaries of government funding, but is also due in a large part to a misunderstanding on the part of industry in the difference between an invention and a product, and between bench scale prototypes and manufacturable goods. Add to this conflicting and often irreconcilable differences in its dual mission, and successful technology transfer and commercialisation is difficult at best.

The principals of IX Power of Los Alamos, New Mexico and London, England have spent the last 23 years commercialisation innovations from LANL. This experience has resulted in a series of “lessons learned” and techniques IX Power is not only using in their own firm, but also imparting to other organisations, both government and industry.

Using actual examples—both successful and failed—this talk will focus on the key elements necessary to successfully transfer and commercialise innovations from public sector research and development facilities to the private sector.

About the speaker

John R. (Grizz) Deal is the CEO of IX Power LLC and IX Power, Limited. He has over twenty years of experience in technology commercialization, tech-based startups, fast growing ventures, and product development. In addition to serving as CEO of IX Power, he is the managing director at Purple Mountain Ventures.

Grizz was CEO and a co-founder of Hyperion Power Generation, a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) spinout developing a Small Modular Reactor (SMR). He has also served as the chief marketing officer for Space Imaging, and was the founder and CEO of LizardTech, one of the more successful LANL spinouts. Additionally, Grizz has served as Entrepreneur in Residence for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) at Technology Ventures Corporation and as Visiting Entrepreneur at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Grizz founded seven firms based on U.S. DOE technologies and holds graduate and undergraduate science degrees in geography from Texas A&M University. He is an adjunct faculty member of the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo.

Grizz is a frequent speaker and writer on energy technology and policy, starting and growing advanced technology-based ventures, and issues in growing such ventures.

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