I-Corps: Maintenance Dredging Innovations for Coastal Flooding Prevention

University Of Hawaii, Honolulu

Investigators

Abstract

Current dredging technologies cause extensive environmental damage, resulting in high project costs for the Army Corps of Engineers, State Departments of Natural Resources, and dredging contractors. As such, this team has designed the "Microdredger" and has been continually conducting customer discovery research, to ensure that its innovations align with the real pains in the marketplace. The "Microdredger" is like the Roomba for waterways. It's an intelligent, robotic system that can continuously and autonomously remove sediment with less environmental disturbance and human involvement. Instead of a root canal once every 10 years, the Microdredger? offers its customers a more regular solution, like brushing your teeth every day. The core values the proposed team offers its customers are reduced environmental impact, including a 90% reduction in fossil fuel consumption and a 50-80% reduction of overall project costs by reducing equipment mobilization and operation costs. As a result, the "Microdredger" has the potential to expand the existing $2.7 billion maintenance dredging market to include waterways that cannot be serviced with traditional dredging technologies obviously helping both the contractors servicing the waterways and the commercial or recreational activity in the waterbody. This I-Corps team has developed proof-of-concept prototypes to validate various aspects of its technological operations; the team is currently finishing up the development of its beta prototype. At the end of the project, the team expects to be able to present a sound, validated business model from which it can move forward with, in its path to commercialization. The proposed activities, centered around customer discovery and feasibility research, will allow the team the valuable opportunity to explore and test different distribution channels and revenue models, among other aspects, while also connecting to key resources and partners. These activities, guided by expert mentors, give the team the confidence that they will be able to demonstrate a feasible business model and commercialization plan at the close of the project.