PROVIDENCE — Colonel Erik Brine has flown planes for the US Air Force. He has worked at the Pentagon, the State Department, as a Senate aide for Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, and at the White House. He is still an Air Force reservist and last year he became the director of 401 Tech Bridge, a five-year old innovation and tech accelerator hub based in Middletown, R.I.
Q: What is 401 Tech Bridge?
Brine: The incentive for 401 Tech Bridge was to try… to be the [convener] of innovation and entrepreneurship around dual-use technology [government and commercial], focusing on some of the things that are specialized here in Rhode Island — undersea and maritime technologies, advanced textiles and composites, and a connection between academic institutions and helping to pull technology out of them.
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[Also] military installations, defense labs in particular, like the Naval Undersea Warfare Center and others, and create greater connective tissue between all of them.
How should entrepreneurs think of their potential relationship with 401 Tech Bridge?
At the lowest end, kind of, the technology readiness scale, we do some STEM programing specifically with the Navy. In some cases, that’s helpful for some of those companies because we may be going out to look for capabilities or partners affiliated with STEM programs for K through 12 kids.
We do tech showcases…specifically trying to get technology to come out of those organizations like universities, like defense labs. That’s a great opportunity for some budding entrepreneurs and maybe some of those programs or small companies.
They can come and look for intellectual property or inventions that have already started that have the ability to be licensed and brought out of those locations that can be put into those companies.
We do things like tech acceleration programs and we usually partner with one of a variety of other partners to execute tech acceleration programs. We’ve done them with MassChallenge in the past and SeaAhead as a close partner here … So, we’ll run acceleration programs for small businesses and startups.
When you say acceleration, what do you mean exactly?
It will [mean] bring them into a program that has a defined period of time and teach them some of the things they need to be successful as a business. In our case, specifically in the blue economy and dual use economy spaces.
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So that’s going to be everything from providing them mentors and mentorship to help them refine anything from their pitch to their specific technology capability, and make sure that they’re appropriately identifying who their customer is.
We’ll teach you what type of programs, whether they’re government or civilian, may be available for you to help invest in that early stage of research and development. We’ll look for opportunities for you for incubation, maybe in our space, because that’s one of the things we do as well. But maybe in others, if it’s appropriate, we’ll look to find demonstration opportunities for you and connect you with with customers and get you ready to take that next step.
We pride ourselves on giving companies that opportunity to put things in the water, to put things in the environment, where they need to execute … We’ll bring customers so you can show them that your thing works. And that’s what events like BlueTide are about. And, like I mentioned, we do incubate in our space in Middletown, R.I., and we have space in Providence that … is going to be growing dramatically in the next 18 months.
What is 401 Tech Bridge’s role in the blue economy in Rhode Island?
The most important thing for 401 Tech Bridge is showing people where the opportunities are in the blue economy … connecting all these integrated technologies and disparate organizations that are pulling out of the bay and showing people the value and possibility of how powerful that data, once it’s aggregated, could be … Showing people that live in the Ocean State … how it impacts them, where the possibilities are for the future of the economy of Rhode Island.
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This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.
The Boston Globe’s weekly Ocean State Innovators column features a Q&A with Rhode Island innovators who are starting new businesses and nonprofits, conducting groundbreaking research, and reshaping the state’s economy. Send tips and suggestions to reporter Alexa Gagosz at alexa.gagosz@globe.com.
Omar Mohammed can be reached at omar.mohammed@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter (X) @shurufu.