UH Innovation News

"Invention helps improve life." This motto guides Dr. M. Arifur "Arif" Rahman's work. Dr. Rahman’s first career was with the Bangladesh Navy from 2006 to 2013, where he served on several warships and facilities as a senior electrical engineer, before he retired as a lieutenant commander. Believing that scientific research is critical for his life’s mission, he came to the University of Hawai`i in 2014 to study and obtained his PhD in electrical engineering in 2018. During his journey, Dr. Rahman has proven to be an inspiring innovator and entrepreneur, with 22 publications, three pending patent applications, and co-founding Hawai`i Innovation Lab LLC (HIL), a startup company.

Dr. Rahman works closely with the Office of Innovation and Commercialization (OIC), including Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) Licensing Associate Rafael Gacel-Sinclair to disclose, protect and commercialize innovations he and his colleagues developed at UH. "Dr. Rahman is a pleasure to work with, and he is diligent, conscientious, forthcoming and actively engaged in the technology transfer process. His technologies are game-changing with real-world applications," says Gacel-Sinclair. OTT sought patent protection for three of Dr. Rahman's technologies and subsequently exclusively licensed all three technologies to HIL. Dr. Rahman and HIL also participated in the first cohort of the UH Ventures Accelerator Program in Spring 2020 and received $25,000 in startup funding from UH Ventures (UHV). OIC, OTT and UHV continue to support Dr. Rahman and HIL on their innovation and commercialization journey, including assistance for SBIR/STTR funding.

Hawai`i Innovation Lab co-founders
Dr. Arif Rahman, Dr. Kareem Elassy and Dr. Aaron Ohta

Dr. Rahman's interest in entrepreneurship started after a chance encounter with UH's Pacific Asian Center for Entrepreneurship (PACE). "I strongly believe that technology needs to evolve and be viewed from the users' perspectives. If not, it becomes irrelevant," says Rahman. In adopting this entrepreneurial mindset, Rahman is able to unleash his imagination and infuse new energy in his research. He is a "quick study in attempting to understand the significance of a problem prior to exploring the solutions," says Peter Rowan, director of PACE and one of Rahman's mentors.

Currently, the HIL team is a semifinalist in Round 4 of the American-Made Solar Prize, a $3 million competition funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to energize U.S. solar manufacturing. Current concentrated solar power (CSP) technology uses bulky, costly, and expensive glass mirrors, and while polymeric mirror film is cheaper than glass mirrors, it is expensive to manufacture.

HIL is working to develop new technologies that are less expensive: a room temperature liquid metal thin film deposition method and low-cost liquid metal coating for CSP polymeric mirrors that reduces capital expenditure by 80% and film cost by 50%. As a semifinalist, HIL has a chance to win over $100,000 in cash and prizes.

Dr. Rahman also continues his life's mission, as a recipient of the prestigious space medicine fellowship, a 2-year, $120,000 grant from the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) at the Baylor College of Medicine. Under the mentorship of Professor Aaron Ohta of the UH Mānoa College of Engineering, he is developing a space medical oxygen delivery system that can administer enough oxygen to a patient and also safely reduce the oxygen concentration after a patient exhales.

Motivated to improve human life, Rahman's enthusiasm is infectious. He continues to look at diversifying his research which could dovetail with a low-cost solar thermal desalination system to address water security. Dr. Rahman and HIL are well positioned to respond to challenges of our changing world.