Dave Lutian Russ Long Stacy Swider

Brainstorming / Hot Seat: Earning my first SBIR Grant

A Talk by Stacy Swider , Russ Long and Dave Lutian

Proudly supported by

About this Talk

Listen in as one lucky entrepreneur gets advice from SBIR advisors and grant writing experts on how to repurpose a non-defense commercial solution to fit warfighter needs.

SolarFlexes was started in 2018, when Dave Lutian invented a ground-mounted solar array that is pre-fabricated in a factory, transported in shipping containers, and rapidly deployed at a project site. The portability of this technology lends itself to military and disaster relief applications as the array can be rapidly packed away in the container and moved to a new site.

To date, SolarFlexes has received a $150K CalSEED grant from the California Clean Energy Fund and is part of a pre-accelerator program at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator. Initial prototypes are under construction, but not yet developed.

Mr. Lutian plans to discuss his experience in leveraging a military contractor background to create new products for the warfighter that utilize a similar business model, balancing a stable career with starting a new venture, and strategically seeking funding opportunities that enable founders to safely de-risk a hardware startup without losing momentum in the process.

13 March 2020, 06:15 PM

06:15 PM - 07:15 PM

About The Speakers

Stacy Swider

Stacy Swider

Director, SBIR Center of Excellence at UMass Lowell Research Institute


Russ Long

Russ Long

Chief Executive Officer, Long Capture


Dave Lutian

Dave Lutian

Founder & CEO, SolarFlexes