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I'm Doug. I remove obstacles so others can excel.

I trained as a physicist and raised seed funding for my first venture days before defending my dissertation. Since then I've helped build three companies. One won an Edison Award and three rounds of Department of Energy funding but couldn't raise its Series B. One merged with another coatings company. One was bootstrapped into a profitable business. I bring that range of outcomes to everything I do.

Today I lead Delta Solar as its CEO, direct the ARA Academy at the Arkansas Research Alliance, and advise researchers and founders through my consulting firm, Blackberry Briar.

See the workWatch the AI series
14aInventing14bFounding14cAdvocating14dConnecting14eAdvising14fTeaching14gTinkering
FIG. 1A beam of curiosity (10) enters a prism (12) and spreads into seven kinds of work (14a to 14g).
  1. 14a Inventing
  2. 14b Founding
  3. 14c Advocating
  4. 14d Connecting
  5. 14e Advising
  6. 14f Teaching
  7. 14g Tinkering

What I work on

The seven kinds of work from FIG. 1, from the red end of the spectrum to the violet. Each keeps its color here.

Inventing

My Ph.D. is in microelectronics-photonics: how light and electrons behave in semiconductors. Most of what I've invented turns that physics into something a factory can actually use.

Co-inventor

Picasolar's process

A process that uses atomic hydrogen to improve the efficiency of n-type silicon solar cells. Cells work best with heavy doping under their metal lines and light doping between them. The usual ways to get that add masking and alignment steps; this process uses the cell's own metal lines as the mask. It is complementary to many existing manufacturing processes, and in lab tests it raised cell efficiency by more than 10% (relative) while using a third fewer silver lines.

n-type siliconHHHHHHH20222426
FIG. 2A Picasolar's process. Gentle heat moves hydrogen (H) from the coating (22) into the boron-doped silicon (24) between the metal lines (20), where it switches off part of the boron near the surface (26), so the cell turns more of the light that lands there into current. The lines block the hydrogen, so the boron under them stays active and current flows easily into the lines.
Technical contributions

WattGlass's coatings

A water-based coating of silica nanoparticles, developed by Corey Thompson in his doctoral research at the University of Arkansas. Bare solar glass reflects more than 4% of the light that hits it; the coating cuts that loss, so more light reaches solar cells or leaves LED lights. Its water-loving surface spreads water into a thin sheet, so it resists fogging and lets rain carry dust away. I co-authored the 2017 IEEE paper that measured it: up to 3.1% more light through solar glass than bare glass, ahead of traditional coatings.

Bare glassCoated
FIG. 2B WattGlass's anti-reflective coating. Bare glass throws back part of the light that hits it (left). The coating lets more of that light through (right).

Inventors Digest named me one of the nation's top new inventors.

Founding companies

Three companies I helped build turned out three different ways.

Couldn't raise its Series B

Picasolar

The company behind the hydrogen process above. I co-founded it, ran it as CEO and led its fundraising. As a University of Arkansas student team that I mentored, it won more than $300,000 in business plan competitions in 2013, including the MIT Clean Energy Prize. It went on to win a 2015 Edison Award and three straight rounds of the Department of Energy's SunShot funding for high-risk, high-reward solar technology. With Yingli Solar it took the process from lab cells to production-line cells, but it couldn't raise the Series B it needed to scale manufacturing.

A sheet cake decorated as a solar farm, with rows of icing solar panels, the Picasolar logo, its partners' logos and a SunShot logo marked X3
Our team's cake for Picasolar's third straight SunShot award, marked X3, with the logos of three of its partners: the Dutch research center ECN, the Swiss equipment maker Meyer Burger and the panel maker Yingli Solar.
Merged with Pellucere

WattGlass

The company behind the coatings above. I chaired it from 2014 to 2017 and supported its fundraising. In those years it won research grants from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy's SunShot program and raised a Series A led by DSM Venturing. It added customers in the U.S., Europe and China, and in 2022 it merged with Pellucere Technologies.

Four glass panes over a printed SunShot logo: the two bare panes on the left look hazy with reflected light, and the two coated panes on the right look dark and clear
Bare glass (left) and glass with the WattGlass coating (right), over the same printed logo. The coating cuts reflections, so the logo shows through clearly.
Bootstrapped and profitable

Delta Solar

I co-founded it in 2017 and lead it as CEO. It handles project development, economic analysis, financing, construction and long-term maintenance for solar projects, mostly build-to-own systems for farms, businesses and nonprofits.

Aerial view of a Delta Solar array beside grain bins on an Arkansas farm
A Delta Solar build-to-own array on an Arkansas farm.

In 2015, as Picasolar's CEO, I was one of 50 entrepreneurs invited to the first White House Demo Day.

Advocating for energy policy

Intelligent policy can enable and expand innovation and entrepreneurship. I work with local leaders for energy policy that gives Arkansans real choices.

Founding board member

Arkansas Advanced Energy Association

The business voice for advanced energy in Arkansas, from efficiency and solar to wind and electric vehicles. I was on the steering committee that launched it, and within five years it had 90 member companies. It backed the Solar Access Act of 2019, which I argued for in Arkansas Money & Politics.

The signing of Arkansas's Solar Access Act in 2019, with Douglas Hutchings among the advocates standing behind the desk
At the signing of the Solar Access Act in 2019, which let Arkansans lease solar systems and let schools, cities and nonprofits go solar without owning the panels.
Founding board member, later chair

Arkansas Advanced Energy Foundation

The Association's educational affiliate. It researches Arkansas's advanced energy economy, explains it to the public and lawmakers, and helps build its workforce. A study it commissioned estimated that advanced energy supported about 25,300 Arkansas jobs in 2014.

Connecting Arkansas's researchers and founders

I'm an advocate for STEM education and entrepreneurship as a way to expand economic opportunity for Arkansans and the broader Heartland. I've directly supported more than 50 startups.

Arkansas Research Alliance

Founded on the belief that research matters. It began by recruiting and keeping world-class research talent, and now helps innovators and inventors reach the resources they need to expand their impact.

AR-NETWORK

An EPSCoR-funded research network, supported through the Arkansas Research Alliance, that builds collaboration across Arkansas institutions and connects them with national partners.

Science Venture Studio

Hands-on help for science founders applying for federal commercialization funding, a source Arkansas has historically underused.

ARise

The Arkansas Economic Development Commission's statewide program for tech and tech-enabled startups, which now carries on the work of Innovate Arkansas. I'm one of its subject matter experts, helping founders take technology from the lab to commercial production and find funding and partners.

Advising through Blackberry Briar

Blackberry Briar is my consulting firm. It sits between federal research funding, university innovation and early-stage commercialization: grant strategy for NSF, DOE and EDA programs, innovation program design, impact reports, and AI tools that make research easier to find.

Resource Compass

AI search that points early-stage entrepreneurs to the right programs, funding sources and support organizations.

Arkansas Biosciences Institute impact report

Twenty-four years of appropriations, awards and publications turned into a report anyone can explore, with every figure traced to a public source.

Research talent and equipment search

Searchable directories of university research expertise and shared research instruments, built so startups and small businesses can find them.

Visit Blackberry Briar

Teaching researchers to work with AI

Many researchers use AI chat in a browser and miss what an AI agent can do in their own files. AI for Research Efficiency is a series of short films that walks through it, from the first command to real projects. Windows first, with the Mac alongside.

Start with episode 1Why the command line (3:55)
  1. 1
  2. 2.0
  3. 2.12.22.3
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 11
  13. 12
  14. 13

Watch in order. At step 2 you install one tool, so pick the episode for yours.

See all 16 episodes

Building things for fun

Not every project needs a business case. These are small experiments, each built to try out an idea, and each with a sense of humor about academic life.

Reviewer 2: Sweet, Sweet Revenge

A physics sandbox: launch peer-reviewed books at Reviewer 2's fortress of objections, then build your own towers of academic injustice.

Grant Jargon Generator

Mad Libs for academics. Fill in the blanks and get an absurd but eerily realistic grant abstract. Please do not submit it to NSF.

Econ Dev Bingo

A bingo card of economic development buzzwords for surviving your next Zoom call.

PersonaLens

Upload a screenshot of a video call and get AI observations about what the background says. That strategically placed award? Noticed.

Douglas Hutchings leaning on a white railing, smiling
FIG. 3 The inventor, at rest.

About

Abstract

My original career goal was to be a high-performing individual contributor, but somewhere along the way I found out that my passion was removing obstacles for others to excel. That has proven valuable in several entrepreneurial endeavors, consulting arrangements, and in my service to help build the regional venture ecosystem. I treat most things in life as a series of experiments to make more informed decisions. I hope I get to learn about what you are passionate about.

What is claimed

My background, written the way I learned to describe an invention.

  1. A person who removes obstacles so that others can excel, comprising:
    1. a diploma from the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences, and the Arts;
    2. a double major in mathematics and physics from Hendrix College;
    3. an M.S. and a Ph.D. in microelectronics-photonics from the University of Arkansas; and
    4. a graduate certificate in entrepreneurship from the Walton College of Business.
  2. The person of claim 1, wherein seed funding for a first venture was raised days before the dissertation defense.
  3. The person of claim 2, wherein the first venture won Arkansas's first Department of Energy SunShot Incubator award.
  4. The person of claim 1, having led Picasolar's fundraising, supported WattGlass's, and helped other founders raise money through consulting.
  5. The person of claim 1, recognized as one of the nation's top new inventors by Inventors Digest, one of Arkansas Business's 40 Under 40, and with early career awards from the University of Arkansas and Hendrix College.
  6. The person of claim 1, wherein most things in life are treated as a series of experiments.
  7. The person of claim 1, having made many mistakes and learned from all of them.
  8. The person of claim 1, wherein the ability to resist coffee is approximately 11 percent.

References cited

Douglas brings a rare combination of in-depth education, technical savvy, humility, emotional intelligence, and business acumen. He is already a prolific innovator and entrepreneur with three ventures underway. I fully expect Douglas to move mountains as he creates and builds great businesses in Arkansas.

Jeff Amerine

In addition to his obvious technical strength, Douglas is a very credible public spokesman. He is very open to input from a variety of sources, and he is quick to digest that input and adjust his outlook accordingly.

Tom Benton

Douglas turns vision into action and does so with skill. His insightful, purpose-driven entrepreneurship and great nature make him a pleasure to work with. He is a great resource for the Arkansas startup and technology community, and we are proud to have him. Investors and fellow entrepreneurs should seek him out.

Jamie Fugitt
FIG. 4 A second prism, turned over, gathers the seven wavelengths back into one beam, as Newton showed with two prisms.

Let's talk it through.

If you're working on a hard problem that meets a real need (and has a budget), I'd like to hear about it. Consulting engagements run through Blackberry Briar, my firm.

doug@douglashutchings.com

Email DougVisit Blackberry Briar