Dayton Soin Award winner has innovation in its sights

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“It’s a glow stick that you can write with and is reusable,” Nicholas Ripplinger, company co-founder, said in the statement “When you write with the MARC IR, you’re leaving a very thin layer of wax that’s not visible. There’s a series of microcapsules that break when you write with them. The chemicals inside react with the chemicals in the wax, and that’s what causes the glowing reaction.”

Using a chemical that emits infrared, the idea is to create writing visible exclusively to military, law enforcement and emergency management agencies using night vision.

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“It’s invisible to the enemy who’s walking around, but when you have your night vision goggles on, it glows. So what really benefits the soldiers is they can now write words or symbols, so visually, everybody now knows what’s going on in that environment,” Ripplinger said.

The technology came to him through the Technology Acceleration Project, which is the Entrepreneur Center’s push to transfer technology from research to market. The program connects technological advances discovered by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) with for-profit teams equipped to commercialize the ideas.

Ripplinger is a former U.S. Army soldier and non-commissioned officer with command experience. He holds a B.S. in technical management as well as an M.B.A.

Battle Sight’s connection with AFRL and other business supporters in the Dayton region has been beneficial to getting the business off the ground, said Ripplinger.

“Dayton has been a huge part of our success,” he said. “We wanted to rally the community behind us. We’re involved with several non-profits including the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce and the Entrepreneurs Center. We’re trying to be the best community stewards that we can be. In return, we gained a lot of support for what we were doing.”

The Soin Award for Innovation panel of judges, made up of area business leaders and representatives from small business supporters, were impressed with the many applications for Battle Sight’s technology and the company’s strategy for bringing it to the market, focusing first on the defense applications, the chamber said.

Battle Sight Technologies’ win earns a $25,000 prize and various marketing opportunities thanks to support from Soin LLC, Cox Digital Marketing and CareWorks.

The Soin Award for Innovation began on the chamber’s 100th anniversary as a way to honor innovative area businesses. The Raj Soin family has been the benefactor of the award since its inception.

Learn more about Battle Sight Technologies and the MARC IR at www.battlesighttech.com.