Mentor Insights with William McClintock
This week, we spoke to Will McClintock, Strategy Associate at the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) and mentor on the ATI Boeing Accelerator. During these unprecedented times, Will shares his thoughts on what resilience looks like in the aerospace industry and his best practices for writing a winning ATI grant application.
Will joined the ATI in 2017, attracted by the opportunity to influence UK aerospace and drive it towards a sustainable future.
Day-to-day, Will supports the development of the ATI’s strategy and leads research into markets, the supply chain, and economics. He works with businesses to shape technology proposals and assesses their business and economic cases, looking at each through a highly strategic lens and providing advice to the Strategic Review Committee on these investment decisions.
Will’s main objective is to maximise the economic impact generated through ATI-supported activity and its technology portfolio. He is developing new market models, running advisory panels and is working hard to facilitate disruptive innovation through new mechanisms to grow start-ups within the sector.
How did you get into aerospace?
To be honest, through cars! I always had a thing for motors. My first car was a 1979 Austin Mini which I worked on with my Dad. I learned lots through this experience and was inspired by really smart design. Throughout my engineering degree, I focused on renewable energy, motorsports, and aerospace via projects including wind turbine design and Formula One aerodynamic research.
After graduating, Airbus offered me a job through their fantastic graduate development programme, which turned me to aerospace engineering and aircraft design. My Grandma was very proud, as my late Granddad had spent much of his life on pioneering in-flight refuelling technology with British Aerospace and Cobham.
What are some of the trends you’re seeing in the aerospace industry today?
There are so many things going on. We are seeing disruptive electric vertical take-off aircraft (eVTOL) chasing a utopian vision of urban air mobility. There are numerous zero-emission aircraft developments, initially looking to exploit shorter-range routes as 50% of global flights are less than 500 nautical miles. Positive changes are afoot with airworthiness regulation. This regulation has kept the skies extraordinarily safe for decades, but there is a call for improvement to allow faster innovation.
However, the current pandemic has obviously turned things upside down. The aviation industry has never seen such a swing in demand, going from its strongest period of growth to a dramatic decline in a matter of months. This has (again) revealed the exposure of the industry to disaster and status-quo disruption. Building more resilience will be critical for a prospering global economy and comes hand-in-hand with an environmentally sustainable vision for aerospace.
For many reasons, UK aviation and aerospace are strategic national assets, integral for business, innovation, productivity, response to the crisis and so on. The industries are therefore backed by the government and will sustain this period, for better or worse. After short-term survival, sustainability should be the priority issue for the industry and continue to be until technology enables zero-emission flight.
What is the best part about working with startups?
Passion and fresh thinking! Entrepreneurs bring an infectious “can do” attitude and an abundance of motivation. When you mix startups with corporates in the right way, sparks fly as big corporate inefficiencies meet agile problem solving and disruptive technology innovation. Aerospace hasn’t seen anything like this before. It has been fantastic to witness the energy and insight bouncing between the startups and corporates on a daily basis — great things are brewing.
After short-term survival, sustainability should be the priority issue for the industry and continue to be until technology enables zero-emission flight.
At the ATI Boeing Accelerator, the startups are feeling the “cohort effect” i.e. an opportunity to come together and build something. What are some of the collaborative opportunities you can see happening?
The cohort effect is real here, for sure. Each startup is in the Industry 4.0 business with clear applications in aerospace manufacturing, so we are seeing many promising synergies within the group. One example is Kraken IM, Circulor and Septillion — all of whom have complementary technologies with the potential to radically improve supply chains. Together they are working to enable provenance verification, ethical sourcing and securing inter-organisation information transfer using blockchain.
How was your mentoring experience during the programme?
I found the mentoring process very rewarding. It is a little daunting if you’ve never done it before, but you quickly get into it and enjoy the mutual learning experience. I could quickly see how my aerospace network and sector experience could unlock real opportunities for the startups. It's brilliant to watch as the connections play out and evolve into tangible success.
When you mix startups with corporates in the right way, sparks fly as big corporate inefficiencies meet agile problem solving and disruptive technology innovation.
What recommendations would you give to a business that is writing a grant application?
It’s often very useful to know about UK gov grant funding schemes well in advance, as it can take over 6 months to get through the process and secure cash. It needs to be part of a well-defined technology development plan, aligned with a clear business opportunity and it must benefit UK plc.
The ATI only fund projects progressing technologies from Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 3 to TRL6, known as the “Valley of Death” for technology innovation. The full Grant funding eligibility for ATI programmes are detailed through our website.
If you think the funding programme may be applicable, just get in touch! Any of my colleagues would be more than happy to talk through a variety of options specific to your situation. Drop us an email and someone will be in touch.
When it comes to writing an ATI grant application, my top tip 3 tips are:
- Engage us. Always talk to us before you apply, we can support meetings to provide guidance and review a draft proposal before final submission for valuable feedback.
- Be specific. Know your market and how your proposed technology benefits translate into clear business opportunities and competitive advantage. What are the specific technological and innovative step being taken, we get quickly turned off by high-level waffle and buzzwords.
- Be open. It’s abundantly clear when claims don’t stack up (we are experts)! We have exhaustive NDAs through our Framework Agreement, so no need to worry about IP. We can only effectively support applications when the facts and intentions are clearly laid out. Finally, open collaboration is key to maximise both innovation and UK economic benefit.
What is your advice for companies looking for government support during this challenging time for the industry?
The industry is going to need smart and strategic support to both ride this storm and reset us on a progressive sustainable trajectory. We should leverage the silver linings of this pandemic — such as global solidarity; new manufacturing collaborations formed to support the NHS; new technology to support virtual working and the public appreciating the true benefits of pollution reduction.
Follow the ATI on Twitter to stay up to date with their latest research, projects, and funding opportunities.
For more information about the programme, please contact the ATI Boeing Accelerator team:
Gabi Matic — gm@atiboeingaccelerator.com | linkedin.com/in/gabrielamatic
Wil Benton — wb@atiboeingaccelerator.com | linkedin.com/in/fatkidonfire
Ksenia Kurileva — kk@atiboeingaccelerator.com | linkedin.com/in/kseniakurileva
