{"id":5721,"date":"2024-04-30T13:17:53","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T17:17:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/research\/?p=5721"},"modified":"2025-09-09T14:59:50","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T18:59:50","slug":"rhode-island-rising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.uri.edu\/momentum\/rhode-island-rising\/","title":{"rendered":"Rhode Island Rising"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rhode Island Rising<\/h1>

RISE-UP has potential to boost state\u2019s economy, create jobs and provide entrepreneurial opportunities for students<\/p><\/div><\/div>

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Written by Michael Blanding, Photos by Beau Jones<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n

A new multimillion-dollar Navy grant called the Resilient Innovative Sustainable Economies via University Partnerships (RISE-UP) is helping students create their own companies\u2014and spur the state\u2019s innovation economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Name a state with a population of about a million people, that has miles of coastlines including many islands, and has traditionally generated much of its economy based on the ocean. If you said \u201cRhode Island,\u201d you are only partly right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alaska and Hawaii also fit that description. While the states aren\u2019t traditionally lumped together, all three are part of a new $2.4 million grant from the U.S. Navy called RISE-UP to fuel ocean innovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are all ocean states, so to speak,\u201d says Peter Rumsey<\/strong>, the University of Rhode Island Research Foundation (URIRF) chief development officer, who serves as the program executive for the RISE-UP program<\/a><\/strong> in RI. \u201cAnd they are all strategically important\u2014even though you can fit like 400 Rhode Islands inside Alaska.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Pete
Peter Rumsey, Chief Business Development Officer,, URI Research Foundation, Adjunct Professor, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, URI College of Engineering and College of Business<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Navy maintains an active presence in Alaska, Hawaii, and Rhode Island. Here in Rhode Island, this presence includes the naval station and U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) in Newport. Unfortunately, all three states also have suffered brain drain from students leaving to start companies in Massachusetts, Seattle, or Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the gap that the RISE-UP grant seeks to fill by working with URI as well as the University of Alaska (UA) and the University of Hawaii (UH) to support students and help them launch dual-use entrepreneurial ventures applicable to both military and commercial purposes. This has the potential to boost the states\u2019 economies, create jobs and provide entrepreneurial opportunities for students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Importantly, says Rumsey, the Navy hasn\u2019t put any pre-limitations on the types of companies students create\u2014the intention is that by serving commercial markets, it hopes, military applications will follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you start a business purely to serve the military, you will likely struggle to launch a sustainable long-term business,\u201d Rumsey says. \u201cThe Navy has said, \u2018We want you to have a thriving business with a diverse portfolio of customers, and we want to help you grow and be vibrant and built-to-last\u2014and by the way, we\u2019d really love it if you could be in our mission-critical supply chain for a long time\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five student entrepreneurs have served as the initial cohort for the initiative (see \u201cRising Stars\u201d below), administered in Rhode Island by 401 Tech Bridge, a business unit of the URI Research Foundation. The three universities developed the program together and compared notes on ways they can collaborate in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n

The Navy has said, \u2018We want you to have a thriving business with a diverse portfolio of customers, and we want to help you grow and be vibrant and built-to-last\u2014 and by the way, we\u2019d really love it if you could be in our mission-critical supply chain for a long time\u2019.<\/blockquote>Peter Rumsey<\/cite><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s allowing our students to have a broader market view and solve problems across diverse ocean environments,\u201d Rumsey says. \u201cThey can make sure something that works in 32-degree water also works in 73-degree water.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At each university, the RISE-UP initiative has four component parts. The flagship program, Patents2Products, is a one-year fellowship program in which students are paired with a faculty sponsor and skilled and experienced industry mentors who will help them create competitive products and services, and ideally launch a successful new venture company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ancita Sherel<\/strong>, 401 Tech Bridge program manager, explains, \u201cTheir mentors make sure their product or research is competitive and staying up to date with what industry wants.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another program, Ideation Studio, offers a semester-long experience that students can repeat as many times as needed to help explore ideas for a new startup. With help from guest presenters from academia, industry, and government, students develop a business plan and eventually a minimally viable product. A third program, Faculty Fellows, gives faculty funding and support to incorporate startup methodology into their curricula.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Joe
Joe Loberti, Lead Consultant and Industry Expert, 401 Tech Bridge, RISE-UP Program<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Joe Loberti<\/strong>, URI BS \u201888 and MBA \u201890, an independent entrepreneur serving as a consultant for the initiative, says, \u201cThey\u2019ll be charged with saying, \u2018how do we take the bones of the program and make it permanent inside the curriculum\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, Pathways to Innovation and Entrepreneurship for Defense (PIE-D) is a semester-long, hacker-type course for advanced undergraduate or graduate students, who take on real-world problems presented to them by the Navy or private industry and come up with cost-effective solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the current course, for example, the Navy has challenged a group of highly motivated, cross-disciplinary URI students with redesigning uniforms for female officers and finding an efficient way to recover an incapacitated underwater vehicle (UV). At the same time, Regent Craft, a sea glider company recently relocated to Rhode Island from Massachusetts, has challenged students to develop a way to charge electric vehicles in the middle of the ocean. The student teams are crossdisciplinary and diverse. They work on one project\/ challenge, but they present to each other weekly and share learning and feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The programs are designed to naturally flow from one to another. For example, a student may take PIE-D and then develop the idea for a company in Ideation Studio that they take to market in Patents2Products, mentored by a faculty fellow. Along the way, they learn from and teach their peers to, hopefully, create an ecosystem of innovative startups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the initial grant, the Navy already has appropriated money for follow-up funding, and Rumsey hopes their financial support will continue for up to five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFundamentally, we\u2019re working on creating a baseline undercurrent of translating research into real-world companies and products,\u201d Rumsey says. \u201cThe more we can do that, the better it is for the University, the students, and the state.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rising Stars<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Christine de Silva, Juice Robotics<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Christine de Silva has been working through her Narragansett, RI based company, Juice Robotics, to enable the future of ocean exploration and defense with robust and modular marine technology components.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Christine
Christine De Silva, ’26, Ph.D. Candidate, Graduate School of Oceanography, CEO & Co-Founder, Juice Robotics<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cThe vast majority of technologies cannot access waters that are deeper than 200 meters\u2014and those that do exist are often prohibitively expensive and require huge ships to deploy,\u201d she says. Juice Robotics pots the electronics of sensors into epoxy, meaning their products do not require air filled housings making them \u201crugged, extremely pressure-tolerant, and affordable,\u201d explains de Silva, who graduated from URI\u2019s BlueMBA last spring and is a Ph.D. student at URI\u2019s Graduate School of Oceanography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through her status as a Patents2Products fellow and support from Professor Andrew Davies\u2019 Marine Ecology Technology lab at GSO, de Silva is building out Juice Robotics\u2019 existing suite of simple-to-use sensors, called Cells, that can be clicked together like LEGO pieces. She\u2019s learned many lessons from the initiative including the cohort\u2019s unofficial mantra: love the problem, not the solution. To her, it means being passionate about the problem and not so fixated on any one particular solution to the extent that you close off other possibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThey ended up putting that on a T-shirt for us,\u201d she says. \u201cThe end solution or product becomes secondary and is based on the problem, not vice versa.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kotachi Liu, MesoLink<\/h3>\n\n\n
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\"Kotachi
Kotachi Liu, \u201824, Ph.D. Candidate, Ocean Engineering, CEO, MesoLink<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Kotachi Liu is exploring new ways to communicate in undersea environments with his company, MesoLink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to accomplish tasks in the ocean,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to see, it\u2019s easy to get lost, and battery life constrains how much time there is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When deploying underwater vessels now\u2014for example, to locate a lost vehicle or for oil and gas exploration\u2014 companies send off a single vehicle at a time with its own instructions and must wait until it resurfaces or the end of the mission to debrief. A Ph.D. student in ocean engineering, Liu is developing technology that would allow vehicles to communicate with each other in real-time, taking advantage of each other\u2019s sensors to work together more efficiently, resulting in cost savings.<\/p>\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to accomplish tasks in the ocean, it\u2019s hard to see. It\u2019s easy to get lost, and battery life constrains how much time there is.<\/blockquote>Kotachi Liu<\/cite><\/div><\/section>\n\n\n

\u201cUsually within a team, there\u2019s going to be one vehicle that has better navigation than all the other ones,\u201d Liu says. \u201cIf this information is communicated to the other members of the team, the entire group\u2019s navigation can be improved beyond what was possible if they acted independently.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chan Young Koh, Mobile Technology<\/h3>\n\n\n
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\"Chan
Chan Young Koh, \u201824, Ph.D. Candidate, Research Assistant, Computer Science<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Chan Young Koh is working to engineer safer sidewalks by developing a mobile technology platform that fuses multi-sensor and machine learning algorithms to create a disability-aware sidewalk routing service and automate sidewalk surveys for better maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHigh-density cities spend 10 percent of their capital budget annually just maintaining sidewalks,\u201d says Koh, a Ph.D. student in computer science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, pedestrian mortality rates have only increased in recent years. His technology, he says, will help to locate and analyze sidewalk distress, provide safe routing to pedestrians, and prioritize maintenance in a much more cost-effective, timely manner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMultiple towns can deploy the solution mounted on a robot and should be able to do what 10 people should be doing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Koh says, as he develops the technology it could have oceanic uses as well, for example, improving biodiversity by mounting it on underwater vehicles to identify clusters of sea urchins destroying kelp forests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Charles Johnson, Nhuad Controllers<\/h3>\n\n\n
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Charles Johnson, Founder & CEO of Nhuad Controllers, has conducted extensive customer research and developed a business plan targeting the estimated 50 million gamers with physical disabilities that allowed them to only use one hand while at the same time exploring other applications such as underwater drones.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Charles Johnson was playing video games with his cousin, when he had a revelation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA few years ago I was playing video games with my cousin who was born with one arm,\u201d Johnson says. \u201cI noticed it was a challenge for him to perform certain moves while playing a game of Madden. Noticing his troubles, I asked him why he doesn\u2019t buy a single hand video game controller, he stated that he has looked for them but there aren\u2019t any good ones out on the market.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Piece
The company’s goal is to design a medical battery for cochlear implants that would be safe and long-lasting.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Sure enough, when he investigated, Johnson found that the current single-hand controllers on the market are both extremely expensive and lack the functionality of a two-handed controller. His company, Nhuad Controllers, looks to change that, by designing a cheaper and more functional controller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johnson has conducted extensive customer research and developed a business plan targeting the estimated 50 million gamers with physical disabilities that required them to only use one hand\u2014while at the same time exploring other applications such as underwater drones. As a member of Patents2Products, he is eyeing a January 2024 launch date for his product. Johnson has conducted extensive customer research and developed a business plan targeting the estimated 50 million gamers with physical disabilities that allowed them to only use one hand\u2014while at the same time exploring other applications such as underwater drones. As a member of Patents2Products, he is eyeing a January 2024 launch date for his product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Molinksi, Ideation Studio<\/h3>\n\n\n
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\"Michael
Michael Molinski, B.S. Chemical Engineering \u201919, MBA \u201923, Head of R&D,, AUDIANCE, INC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Michael Molinski has used Ideation Studio to create novel battery technology for his company Audiance. Instead of using liquid to hold a charge like most batteries, his design uses a gel polymer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat enables our batteries to display unique safety characteristics, such as non-flammability and benign failure mechanisms in the event of penetration or short-circuiting,\u201d says Molinski, who graduated with an MBA from URI last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, the company\u2019s goal is to design a medical battery for cochlear implants that would be safe and long-lasting enough so the battery could be implanted under the skin. In the meantime, he says, it could be used for many undersea applications as well because it could perform in environments with extreme pressure, temperature, and salinity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor the ocean, in remote-operated vehicle applications or deep-sea explorations, the ability to venture further is often hampered by the need to be tethered to surface ships or recharge batteries with limited lifespans,\u201d Molinski says. \u201cFor these use cases, our battery could be a viable solution.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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