Recently, RMI changed its structure in order to be better prepared to capture several major opportunities. You’ve heard us talk about these opportunities before. Buildings, utilities, and vehicles have been three of the big ones (and RMI’s structure reflected those programmatic areas), but in the past year we’ve focused more closely on particular targets. Deepening our impact in certain areas while keeping our work broadly applicable is the goal with the reorganization of our Breakthrough Design Team (BDT). Formerly, BDT worked on everything from “greening” a chip fab to designing a new type of fleet vehicle to devising ways for cities to implement and sustain “green” programs and initiatives.
Now that we understand the commercial, environmental, and popular potential of a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, we’ve assigned several of our automotive engineers to concentrate on that effort alone. And because vehicles represent such an energy and environmental challenge, we’ve established another team, MOVE , to tackle other transportation-efficiency questions currently not addressed by most other groups. We are also strengthening and integrating the innovation process that’s at the core of every Team’s work.
Thus our research and consulting practice areas are now the Energy & Resources Team, the Built Environment Team, the MOVE Team, and the Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle Team. They are pushing forward with the kind of leading-edge work RMI’s undertaken for decades, and are now more sharply focused on specific challenges whose solution will make the world better and safer. RMI has always had unusual power to convene the right players, the technical know-how to realize smart design, the ability to scrutinize the entire system, a savvy business approach, and the desire to drive transformation. Today, with our new structure, we believe we’ll be able to deepen our impact more than ever.
