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Upcoming Friday Programs

All meetings occur from 7:30-8:30 a.m. in the UT Outreach Center unless otherwise noted.

September 6 - Jonaaron Jones, Volunteer Aerospace

September 13 - Chancellor Donde Plowman, UT

September 20 - LaToya Myles, NOAA Air Resources Laboratory

September 27 - Board of Directors

Events

Sep 8 - Knoxville Maker City Summit
Sep 10 - TS117: TedxOakRidge

Sep 10 - TSBDC: Negotiating Subcontract Agreements
Sep 10-12 - National Cleanup Workshop
Sep 11 - House Nuclear Cleanup Caucus

Sep 11 - TSBDC: Gov't Contracting- 101-102 What’s Next?
Sep 12 - TSBDC: Social Media Marketing
Sep 19 - GEM Technologies, Inc. Celebrating 25 YEARS
Sep 20 - TSBDC: Small Business Start-Up Seminar
Sep 23 - DOE/NNSA Hiring Event
Sep 23-27 - Innov865 Week 2019

Sep 24 - Innov865: Start-Up Day 2019

Oct 1-2 - 2019 Tennessee Sustainable Transportation Forum & Expo
Oct 8-10 - ETEBA: Business Opportunities and Technical Conference
Oct 8-10 - GRIDSMART: INTERSECT Conference
Oct 16 - TSBDC: How to do Business with the Government
Oct 17 - TSBDC: Marketing on a Shoestring
Oct 24-25 - Governor’s Conference: Economic & Community Dev.

News

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Trump Administration’s Plan to Usher in ‘Second Bold Era’ of S&T

As the 2019 fiscal year nears its end, the Trump administration is looking to the future with the release of a set of budget priorities to focus the government’s science and technology research efforts. The government allocates just shy of $120 billion a year for R&D, split between civilian and defense agencies. The administration issued a memo to all federal agencies stating the research and development goals and budget priorities for fiscal 2021. Included is advanced manufacturing through industrial robotics, “especially systems enabled by the industrial internet of things, machine learning, and AI,” as well as “investments in bio-based manufacturing to ensure domestic access to needed medicines.”

ORNL-VA Collaboration Targets Veteran Suicide Epidemic

More than 6,000 veterans died by suicide in 2016, and from 2005 to 2016, the rate of veteran suicides in the U.S. increased by more than 25%. Suicide prevention is the U.S. Deprt. of Veterans Affairs‘ highest priority-so much so the VA has started using predictive models and advanced informatics to identify at-risk veterans. One such model, called the medication possession ratio algorithm, creates individualized summaries of veterans’ medication patterns. In a collaborative project with the VA, a team at DOE’s ORNL has taken the model and engineered the expanded version of it to run 300 times faster, gaining an unprecedented speedup that might have a profound effect on the VA’s ability to reach susceptible veterans quickly.

More Than 10,000 Samples Guide Cleanup at ETTP

Cleaning up East Tennessee Technology Park encompasses more than emptying and demolishing old, contaminated buildings. Another phase involves sampling, for EM teams to identify and remove contaminated slabs and soils. Since 2015, workers have collected more than 10,000 samples at the former uranium enrichment complex to map all remaining remedial actions needed to complete cleanup and transfer land to the community for development. Nearly half of those samples were collected in fiscal 2019 as the sampling initiative nears completion. In addition to identifying areas requiring remediation, the DOE OREM uses the sampling results to determine how crews can safely excavate and manage the waste.

Ollie 2.0 is Here and This Time it’s 80% 3D Printed

The first Olli made its debut in 2016 and represented the first real and practical application for a mostly 3D printed and co-created vehicle produced by Local Motors. Now the time has come for its new and improved successor: Olli 2.0 Local Motors was founded in 2007 and made headlines for a series of almost entirely 3D printed cars in the early 2010s, including the very first Strati, which was chosen among several designs submitted to Local Motors’ co-creation online platform.

TBR Honors ORNL, ORAU, for Supporting Pellissippi and Roane State Community Colleges

Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Oak Ridge Associated Universities were honored recently with Tennessee Board of Regents awards for their support of Pellissippi State and Roane State community colleges. The Regents Award for Excellence in Philanthropy recognizes organizations and individuals who have been “very generous” to one or more of TBR’s 40 community and technical colleges.

Inside the Lab where Bill Gates’ TerraPower is Inventing the Future of Nuclear Energy

A decade-old startup founded by Bill Gates is running tests aimed at building the next generation of nuclear reactors. You’ll find no more than a smidgen of radioactive material at the privately funded venture, known as TerraPower. But if Microsoft’s co-founder and TerraPower’s other leaders have their way, the technologies being pioneered at the 10,000-square-foot lab could boost electrical grids around the world.