Last Tuesday, March 19th, the Catalyst Accelerator team launched the Space Domain Awareness (#CASDA2) cohort and welcomed the participant companies to Colorado Springs. It was a busy kick-off week, but the team couldn’t be more excited to get to know these amazing small businesses better!
On the morning of the 19th, the cohort companies had the chance to meet each other before getting an official welcome from the Catalyst Accelerator and Catalyst Campus teams. Dawn Conley, Senior Executive Director of Catalyst Campus, began by welcoming the group and giving a brief overview of the history and mission of the Campus. Afterwards, Shae Thomas, Program Manager for the Catalyst Accelerator, held an expectation setting session where she set the stage for the next three months and addressed the companies’ pain points.
The remainder of Tuesday was spent with Mo Kanwischer, President of Momentum Business Consulting. Mo has been with the Catalyst Accelerator team since the program’s inception and is an expert in commercialization and business growth. During her allotted time with the companies, Mo discussed ABC statements, customer discovery, and deliverables. “One of the first, and most important, topics we tackle is asking each participating company to create a positioning statement so they can introduce themselves succinctly. We worked on these statements so each company can announce who they are, what they do and why should the audience care. It’s a great method for delivering pertinent info in a concise manner,” Mo shared.
The group celebrated the end of the first day of the program with a cohort dinner at COATI, a trendy local cafeteria-style restaurant in downtown Colorado Springs.
Wednesday morning programming began with a pitch and Q&A session, where each cohort member gave a five-minute pitch about their company and technology and answered questions from their fellow cohort members. This exercise allowed the companies to get to know each other better and helped open the door to potential collaboration. The Accelerator team is excited to see what kinds of partnerships will come out of this group!
The cohort enjoyed a catered dinner and listened to a market research presentation focused on Space Domain Awareness on Wednesday evening. For this cohort, the Accelerator team is thrilled to have the support of a UCCS Bachelor of Innovation (BI) team who put together the market research report and presentation for the cohort companies. This UCCS BI team will also meet with each of the companies and craft separate curated reports focused on their individual needs.
Six subject matter experts donated their time to speak with the cohort during week one. The companies had the pleasure of hearing from Ross Morrell, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at M2 Ventures, who gave an engaging presentation on navigating national security; Retired Lt Col Rob Atkins with Buck Consulting walked us through the important aspects of how the Space Force is set up; Skyler Hart, Agile Software Portfolio Lead at Space CAMP, presented an engaging briefing on Space CAMP and how their team specializes in developing custom technology solutions for the US Space Force; and Michael Young, Vice President of Business Development at NSTXL (National Security Technology Accelerator), briefed the cohort on the NSTXL and SpEC OTA.
On Thursday, the Catalyst Accelerator team took the cohort companies off-site to participate in the Front Range Innovation Forum. The event, coordinated by RISE, was focused on Space Domain Awareness and involved an engaging panel in the morning with representatives from the Catalyst Accelerator, NSIN, the SDA TAP Lab, and more! Later in the afternoon, the cohort members had the chance to participate in engaging breakout sessions and connect with thought leaders and other innovators in the defense and space industry.
The group enjoyed a lively Happy Hour on Thursday night that was generously sponsored by Maxar Intelligence. There were approximately 80-90 attendees at this event and leaders from both Government and Industry had the chance to network with the cohort and create pertinent connections. Lisa Henke, USG Account Executive Army & Space Force Programs at Maxar Intelligence, also spoke to the attendees and shared about Maxar’s role within the Space Domain Awareness sector. This happy hour was incredibly successful and helped set the tone for the rest of the program!
Week one programming wrapped up with an outstanding presentation from Maj Sean Allen, Chief of the SDA TAP Lab. Maj Allen spoke to the cohort on how the problem statement was curated and how the cohort companies might be able to participate in the SDA TAP Lab. The Catalyst Accelerator is incredibly grateful for this partnership and looks forward to more engagement opportunities for the cohort companies in the future.
At the end of the week, Shae Thomas, Program Manager for the Catalyst Accelerator, summarized kick-off week by sharing, “I am thrilled to welcome this new cohort to the Catalyst Accelerator! The first week was full of experts, lots of networking, and collaboration between the cohort members. I am so excited to see what this cohort will accomplish!”
Thank you to each of the subject matter experts who donated their time to speak with the #CASDA2 cohort and answer their questions. The Catalyst Accelerator team is looking forward to week two with this incredible group of companies!
