Hendtech Awarded Grant from National Science Foundation
News
Hendtech LLC has been awarded a U. S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant for $275K to conduct research and develop computer vision technology that will augment a person’s ability to grade harvested trees accurately.
The forest products industry employes nearly one million people and contributes hundreds of billions of dollars to the US economy each year. Yet there has been very little technological innovation in logging in recent decades. The resulting technology from this grant may increase the number of jobs available to unskilled workers in rural areas, ensure effective and efficient utilization of harvested trees, and increase revenues for thousands of small businesses in the wood supply chain.
“The logging industry has not benefitted from recent technological innovations. Receiving this grant means we will have the opportunity research the feasibility of a computer vision system to augment the skills of human-machine operators in the tasks of grading and sorting logs.
I was born into a family running a small logging company, and I know the long-term impact this will have on individual families across the United States. Our goal is to improve the industry, while changing lives.”
Andy Henderson, Hendtech CEO
About the NSF’s Small Business Programs
America’s Seed Fund powered by NSF awards $200 million annually to startups and small businesses, transforming scientific discovery into products and services with commercial and societal impact. Startups working across almost all areas of science and technology can receive up to $2 million to support research and development (R&D), helping de-risk technology for commercial success. America’s Seed Fund is congressionally mandated through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. The NSF is an independent federal agency with a budget of about $9 billion that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. For more information, visit seedfund.nsf.gov.