Technical prowess meets business acumen for startup growth

The thread connecting research and entrepreneurship is exceedingly clear, and each plays a crucial role in support of emerging energy technologies and solutions. 

In service of its goal to help Carnegie Mellon’s energy and clean tech startup community thrive, the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation supported a 2026 summer internship offered through CMU’s Center for Technology Transfer and Enterprise Creation (CTTEC), where graduate student Avinash Biju worked on a commercialization and go-to-market strategy for Wavon Ceramics, a CMU startup looking to make the ceramic manufacturing process more efficient, cost effective, and less carbon-intensive thanks to microwaves. Microwaves are less power-intensive than furnaces and promote the homogeneous, even heating of ceramics products. This innovation has the potential to reduce manufacturing costs and errors and offers the added benefit of reducing the time it takes to microwave ceramics, shifting notably from a matter of hours to a matter of minutes. 

Wavon Ceramics is a nascent company that was born out of the technical expertise and rigorous academic research of Scott Institute faculty fellow Reeja Jayan and PhD student Bashu Aman, who studies in Jayan’s home department of mechanical engineering. 

Aman noted that so far on the journey of establishing a company, much of the small team’s time and resources have centered on technical developments and problem-solving. Biju’s contributions as an enterprise creation intern through CTTEC marked a shift in focus, accounting for market evaluation, customer discovery, and the path to commercialization.

“As someone who is interested in the commercialization problem of cleantech ventures, I was fascinated by Wavon,” said Biju, a graduate student of chemical engineering and the Engineering & Technology Innovation Management (ETIM) program. 

Many revolutionary innovations in climate tech are not realized because of strategy, policy and market failures even when the technology is mature and deployable.

Avinash Biju, Graduate student, Chemical Engineering, ETIM

“Many revolutionary innovations in climate tech are not realized because of strategy, policy and market failures even when the technology is mature and deployable. Applying innovation management frameworks to researching a hard-tech market and viewing it through the lens of my previous industrial experience made it a real-world challenge and not an academic thought experiment.” 

The main focus of Biju’s analysis was of semiconductor ceramic substrate packaging markets. The combination of business acumen and technical prowess is promising for the startup’s continued growth. 

“Avinash helped us develop ideal customer profiles and understand markets that are easier to penetrate,” said Aman. “We look forward to refining the technical side of Wavon’s development based on the feedback from manufacturing company representatives and entrepreneurs-in-residence whom we engaged with over the course of the internship.” 

Wavon Ceramics’ founders, Jayan and Aman, have also received the Scott Institute Entrepreneurship Award for additional resources and support in navigating the path from lab to market.