Bashayer Aldakkan, a member of the Green Technology Innovation Fellows Program (GTIF), has been
evaluating market demand for her startup Nanosurf. This idea conceptualizes a liquid formulation that
cleans oil on land.
Through the GTIF program, Bashayer and the Nanosurf team were able to connect and speak with
numerous experts in the soil remediation field. Through research, the team discovered this application
which was intended for water oil spills, would actually be more effective on land, as aquatic spills are dealt with as emergency situations in most cases.
“When it gets to the soil, that’s where it gets complicated. The guidance that we had through the program, through accountability boards that we do each month, and then talking one-on-one with Greg Ray and other professors connected us with other agencies and experts,” said Bashayer. “We pivoted until we reached to our target customer, which is in the solid remediation space, and that took a lot of iterations, like how can we reach these people?”
The GTIF program provided Bashayer and her partners the opportunity to connect and collaborate with a
wide range of customer segments, such as government agencies, real estate developers, and
environmental consultants. This extensive market research, along with conversations from others in the
program, was extremely valuable in the Nanosurf consumer journey.
“The fellowship was really different than anything I’ve been through. The structure, to me, of being in a
group of different people of different backgrounds, bringing different ideas… They don’t agree with you
most of the time. It helped me explore my technology from a different perspective.
