From the lab
Spotlight
Ideas, people and moments shaping Ortelan.
TalkPrevious work
Imagining what comes next
Before a new technology becomes part of everyday life, someone has to imagine how we might use it. In this TEDx talk, given before Ortelan was founded, Kyle Nel explores the role of science fiction in retail innovation.
Watch on YouTubeThe Ortelan connection
Imagination gives the work a direction.
Science fiction lets us ask what a different future might feel like for the people living in it. For an applied AI lab, that is a useful starting question: what could become possible, and what would make it useful?
At Ortelan, that question meets the work of building. We develop products, build and operate AI systems for organizations, and invest in early-stage companies. Ideas become things people can use, test and improve.
The talk and the stories below are previous work from Kyle’s roles before Ortelan. They show a perspective he brings to the lab today: imagining new possibilities, then exploring how to make them real.
About OrtelanPrevious work from our leadership
Writing and projects from roles our leadership held before Ortelan was founded.
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ArticleHarvard Business Review, 2019
When Your Moon Shots Don’t Take Off
Nathan Furr, Kyle Nel and Jeff Dyer on four ways to move past incremental ideas, starting with science fiction. January–February 2019.
Read at HBR -
PressSpace.com, 2015
The first hardware store in space
In 2015, Lowe’s and Made In Space announced a commercial 3D printer for the International Space Station. Kyle Nel, then executive director of Lowe’s Innovation Labs, called it “the first hardware store in space.”
The talks, articles and projects on this page are previous work from Ortelan’s leadership, from roles held before Ortelan was founded. They are shared for context and are not Ortelan projects. Ortelan is not affiliated with or endorsed by TEDx, Harvard Business Review, Lowe’s, Made In Space, Space.com or NASA. All names and trademarks belong to their owners. NASA photographs are used under NASA’s media usage guidelines and do not imply NASA endorsement.