National Technology Alliance Announces Formation of Two New Catalyst Communities to Propel American Innovation

June 26, 2024 – The National Technology Alliance (NTA) is excited to announce the establishment of two new catalyst communities designed to address burgeoning national interests and needs. These communities will concentrate on Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) and advanced manufacturing in space, respectively. NTA’s catalyst communities will support innovators as they tackle key technology challenges, bridging gaps between public and private sector organizations and facilitating advancements.

“These catalyst communities not only signal emerging trends and a growing commitment to advancing technological growth areas, but they also act as pivotal drivers in addressing our nation’s most pressing challenges,” said Matthew Laudon, Executive Director of NTA. “Their formation marks a significant step towards consolidating and unifying distributed solutions to achieve greater collective impact.”

The Advanced Manufacturing In Space Catalyst Community aims to cultivate a collaborative, inclusive, and sustainable ecosystem for manufacturing activities in space. This community brings together partners from diverse sectors, including additive manufacturing, biomanufacturing, and microelectronics, to propel innovation and success in both space and terrestrial applications. By aligning with U.S. national priority areas, NTA will redefine manufacturing in the final frontier.

The MOSA Catalyst Community focuses on an integrated technical and business strategy for managing and sustaining systems and fleets of systems through modular and open principles. Recognized and mandated by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) as the preferred method for implementing open systems, MOSA promotes collaboration across defense system acquisition programs, aligning S&T to a more agile system lifecycle, and ensuring rapid fielding of new capabilities by driving towards enterprise-wide objectives and ensuring components are easily removable, upgradeable, and interoperable. This community includes stakeholders from government and various industry sectors such as avionics, sensor manufacturers, communications software developers, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) experts, microelectronic device creators, and more – all dedicated to anticipating and responding to the nation’s critical innovation needs.

“Members of these catalyst communities benefit from increased focus and awareness of opportunities to engage with the federal government,” said Paul Dudley, Co-Chair of the Advanced Manufacturing In Space Catalyst Community, Executive Chair of the MOSA Catalyst Community, and Vice President of Business Development and Communications at ATI. “We offer training and webinars, discounted access to technical collaborative events, and a strategic role in steering towards solutions that will have a global impact.”

“The MOSA Catalyst Community empowers innovative solution providers by shifting the focus from long development cycles for exquisite systems to rapid fielding of capabilies directly from the supplier where the innovation emerges. Our community engages in Innovation Challenges and integration risk reduction, as demonstrated at the recent MOSA Summit, and therefore builds a robust pipeline of capability innovation for the US government. This community demonstrates how our collaborative efforts will drive advancements that meet the evolving defense needs of our nation and our multinational partners,” said John Stough, Co-Chair of the MOSA Catalyst Community and Senior Consultant at ATI.

For more information about the MOSA Catalyst Community and to join, visit this website: https://nta.org/catalystcommunity-mosa/. For more information about the Advanced Manufacturing In Space Catalyst Community and to join, visit this website: https://nta.org/catalystcommunity-space/.

About National Technology Alliance

National Technology Alliance (NTA) is the leading innovation-focused membership organization accelerating the success of America’s diverse and distributed innovators in alignment with national priorities. Connecting early-stage, dual-use innovations with curated funding opportunities, NTA provides an inclusive ecosystem and sustainable infrastructure for expediting the economic and societal impacts of government and commercial investments in innovative technologies. NTA is backed by its parent nonprofit organization, Advanced Technology International (ATI), with $100 billion in federal funding authority, and ATI’s TechConnect, which supports technology acceleration programs across every industry sector and maintains partnership programs with all U.S. funding agencies. NTA does not manage technology scouting contracts, take equity in any deal flow or directly manage government contracting. Membership is offered at no cost to applicants. For more information, visit www.nta.org.​