IUPUI student team GreenBasket selected from 18 teams aiming to connect food supply with food demand using technology

 

AgriNovus Indiana, an initiative to grow the state’s agbioscience economy, today announced Indianapolis-based GreenBasket has won the HungerTech Innovation Challenge, securing the company $25,000 to help advance its tech-enabled food security product.

Presented by Elevance Health, the HungerTech Innovation Challenge is a four-week accelerator supporting entrepreneurs to create tech-enabled businesses that connect food-insecure populations to for-profit and not-for-profit food networks.

“HungerTech is a powerful experience for innovators that unites entrepreneurship and business to inspire the creation of technologies to serve those in need,” said Mitch Frazier, president and CEO of AgriNovus Indiana. “We look forward to working with the GreenBasket team to realize their vision of using technology to connect food supply with those that need it most.”

GreenBasket developed CropSpots, a click-and-collect model that delivers farmer’s market goods to areas of frequent community engagement instead of homes. With delivery costs not being covered by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), participants can opt-in for group deliveries that allow that cost to be divided and much more manageable. GreenBasket’s team is comprised of IUPUI students Shreyas Patel, Drishti Dinesh Jogadia, Nisarg Hiteshkumar Rajpura and Aditya Suresh Nair.

“Food insecurity is one of the most pressing issues of our time,” said Drishti Dinesh from Team GreenBasket. “Working on the HungerTech Innovation Challenge to create a technology that can create positive change in this space is rewarding, and we look forward to working with AgriNovus to continue accelerating our solution.”

South Bend, Ind.-based Cultivate Food Rescue received a runner-up prize of $5,000 co-sponsored by AT&T and TechPoint. Their platform, ShelfLife, is a customer-facing software solution intended to connect the upstream food supplier and donor in the value chain with a Food Hub central organizer that can easily connect to downstream distribution centers (food pantries) and ultimately the pantry end-user. The company’s model is already in use and has helped to expand the amount of food rescued and distributed to over 2 million pounds per month. Cultivate Food Rescue’s team includes Jim Conklin and Maxxamillion Hamm.

Food Box, a student-led team from IUPUI, received an honorable mention for their solution. Comprised of students Sreemayi Reddy Rapolu, Ritu Harish Salian, Kshitij Patil and Ikshitha Reddy, the Food Box team developed a smart dispenser with healthy meals and snacks placed in food deserts to provide access to food and better nutrition. Items can be ordered on-site or pre-ordered via mobile app and picked up at any Food Box location.

In addition to Elevance Health, leaders from AT&T, Gleaners, Parkview Mirro Center for Research and Innovation, Shipt and TechPoint supported the challenge.

The HungerTech Innovation Challenge was informed by an AgriNovus study commissioned by the Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability at Purdue University. Tackling and Solving Food Insecurity with Private Sector Innovations identified the need for new technologies to drive connectivity between food access and populations experiencing food insecurity. Learn more about AgriNovus Indiana’s work on combatting food insecurity here.

Sustainability investments have gained headlines and attracted support and ire of many across the country and around the world. However, one of the leading global animal health companies is proving that innovation is making it possible for sustainability and profitability to coexist. Today we are joined by Katie Cook, Vice President of Farm Animal Global Innovation and Marketing at Elanco. From growing up on a Michigan farm to launching her Elanco career out of college, she talks leading farm animal innovation strategy, what the company is doing today and looking ahead to the future of animal health. Katie talks about Elanco’s growth into pet health, the opportunity for innovation in farm animal to create a positive sustainable impact and the industry’s shift from treating farm animals to preventing disease. 

The conversation also dives into sustainability and profitability going hand-in-hand, especially during a time of high input prices for the farmer and examining the “must-haves” versus the “would be nice to haves” when it comes to innovation and remaining profitable. What’s on the horizon for animal health? Katie gets into Elanco’s investment into sustainability across species, providing farmers and ranchers the data tools to make more informed decisions and changing the conversation around food animal production and environmental impact.  

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Patrick Wolfe, Purdue provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and diversity, at Friday’s (June 9) Board of Trustees meeting announced Bernie Engel as the next Glenn W. Sample Dean of Agriculture, effective July 15.

Engel, chosen following an extensive national search, has served Purdue most recently as senior associate dean of agricultural research and graduate education in the College of Agriculture for the past four years and succeeds Karen Plaut, who earlier this year became Purdue’s executive vice president for research. Agricultural Economics Professor Ken Foster has served as interim dean since January.

Introducing Engel at the meeting, Wolfe said, “Professor Engel is exactly the right leader to take our strong College of Agriculture to even greater heights of research and academic excellence, while also serving our state’s 92 counties better than ever before through Purdue Extension. Having built and sustained a number-1-ranked department at Purdue for more than a dozen years, and then driving graduate student enrollment, scholarly impact and intellectual innovation across the college as senior associate dean, he has proved time and again his ability not only to impact the farms and fields of our state and world, but also to drive Purdue’s continuing excellence at scale. I am extremely grateful to our search advisory committee and to all who contributed to this excellent search and outcome.”

Engel, who has been a Purdue faculty member for 35 years, shared the vision and commitment he brings to the position.

“As dean I will be dedicated to fostering excellence and driving impactful initiatives that align with our mission as a leading public research university and land-grant institution,” Engel said. “I will seek to elevate our reputation as a leading global agricultural college, where groundbreaking research, innovation, student education and stakeholder engagement converge to shape the future of agriculture. I am confident we can attain these goals because of the incredible commitment and talent of our faculty, staff and students.”

Prior to serving as senior associate dean in the college, Engel was department head of Agricultural and Biological Engineering from 2005-2019. Under his leadership, ABE undergraduate and graduate programs were repeatedly ranked the country’s No. 1 biological/agricultural engineering program by U.S. News and World Report. During that time, the number of both undergraduate and graduate students in the department doubled and research expenditures more than tripled.

During Engel’s tenure as senior associate dean, the college has received over $85 million in external research funding for two consecutive years. This year the college rose in the QS rankings to No. 3 in the United States and No. 5 in the world. Engel also provided leadership in the area of the college’s entrepreneurship and intellectual property commercialization efforts. In the last fiscal year, the College of Agriculture had a record number of intellectual property disclosures (70), patent applications (87) and license/option agreements (31).

After earning his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of Illinois and his PhD in agricultural engineering from Purdue, Engel joined the faculty in 1988.

He has received numerous recognitions from the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ASABE) over the course of his career, including: Outstanding Young Researcher Award, 1999; ASABE Fellow, 2014; Gilley Academic Leadership Award, 2016; and the Hancor Soil and Water Conservation Engineering Award, 2019. He was also honored as the Purdue College of Agriculture’s Outstanding Researcher and Outstanding Graduate Educator, University Scholar and received Engineering’s Best Teacher Award. He has authored over 330 peer-reviewed papers. To date, he has served as major professor for 54 graduate students (27 MS and 27 PhD).

Engel is a leading global expert in the development and application of water quality models and environmental decision support systems. The models address agricultural, rural, urban and mixed land-use watersheds and a range of constituents including nutrients, pesticides and soil erosion.

Engel led the development of the web GIS technology that forms the basis of a national registry to protect crops from pesticide spray drift (www.fieldwatch.com). FieldWatch, a nonprofit launched in 2010, currently operates in 24 states and one province. The technology is credited with greatly reducing unintended drift damage to sensitive crops. Engel serves on the FieldWatch Board of Directors.

Unlocking the power of data science is a relatively new endeavor for many across the economy. However, one industry was literally built on the concept generations ago; gleaning insights from troves of data, using it to calculate and project risk is the very underpinning of insurance and today’s guest is a veteran of that industry and brings his data-centered approach to agbioscience. Wes Sprinkle, CEO of Indiana Farmers Insurance, joins us today as the premiere sponsor of the podcast to dive into data informing decisions and creating opportunities for the innovation economy to solve the biggest challenges farmers face regularly. He also talks on-farm trends backed by data, technology’s role in making farms safer and how collaboration can help manage risk in the future. 

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Nominations are now being accepted for the 2023 AgriVision Award, the highest agricultural honor presented by the State of Indiana. This award, now in its 17th year, was established by the Lt. Governor and the Indiana State Department of Agriculture to recognize Indiana’s agricultural leaders who are ensuring Indiana is, and remains, a global center for food and agricultural innovation and commercialization.

The AgriVision Award is open to any Indiana resident and all sectors of the agriculture industry—from bioenergy to livestock to the agbiosciences. Any person or organization may submit a nomination through July 1, 2023.

“It is my honor to serve as Indiana’s Secretary of Agriculture and to work alongside some of the best and brightest leaders in the state,” said Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, Secretary of Agriculture and Rural Development. “This award is a way to recognize those who are ensuring agriculture continues to be a driving force in our state.”

Previous AgriVision Award winners have included individuals who have made significant contributions to the agriculture industry, whether it’s developing a new technology, managing an agribusiness or organization, or working to address a global issue.

“Indiana is a supercenter for agricultural production thanks to leaders across the state,” said Don Lamb, director of the State Department of Agriculture. “I look forward to honoring this year’s award recipients for their leadership and commitment in August.”

Award nominations will be accepted beginning June 1 and close on July 1. To nominate an individual, you must complete a form found on the ISDA website and email it to the department. Once a winner has been selected, the award will be presented by Lt. Gov. Crouch and ISDA Director Lamb during the Celebration of Agriculture at the 2023 Indiana State Fair.

Pervious AgriVision Award winners include:

Click here or visit ISDA.IN.GOV  to learn more about the award.

The Mill, Bloomington’s nonprofit center for entrepreneurship, today announced the winners of the Spring 2023 Crossroads Pitch Competition. Indianapolis company Everewear won the pre-seed competition for its AI-powered platform for resale clothing. Indianapolis-based ReproHealth Technologies, the winner of the seed competition, uses biomedical engineering and embryology to improve in vitro fertilization (IVF). Everewear will receive a $10,000 investment from Flywheel Fund. ReproHealth Technologies will receive a $20,000 investment.

“I am absolutely thrilled and honored to accept the Crossroads pre-seed award,” said Everewear founder Anna Dorris. “The support from The Mill and Flywheel Fund for Indiana startups has been incredible to witness, and I am so glad to now be a part of the ecosystem. The cash prize allows for Everewear to further our pre-seed raise and gets us one step closer to moving sustainable fashion forward. The fashion industry is the second most polluting industry, and we will not be able to reach circularity until we solve the discoverability problem that is inherent with secondhand clothes. I am very grateful to have Crossroads’ support in our mission.”

Everewear addresses a core problem in the secondhand clothing market: each item has a quantity of one, and there are 200 million potentially unique items. Everewear’s B2B2C platform increases discoverability by using technologies uncommon in the market. API pulls inventory from other existing resale sites, and artificial intelligence matches users with items relevant to their style, size, and budget efficiently. Everewear has no listing fees, no inventory, and no fulfillment. It earns revenue by taking a percentage of each sale. CEO Dorris says her platform’s technology decreases customer shopping time by 60% and increases conversion by 25%.

In her winning pitch, Dorris noted that the resale market is expected to grow 16 times faster than the broader retail market, reaching 82 billion dollars in total addressable market by 2026. In college Dorris ran a paid pilot and currently has over 600 customers on a wait list. An IU grad with a degree in finance, Dorris has raised $45,000 to date and is currently raising pre-seed funds to build a custom website and API.

The pre-seed finals were judged by Doug Applegate, Associate Director of Incubator at Purdue Research Foundation; David Bolling, Executive Director of Launch Fishers and the Indiana IoT Lab; Erik Coyne, Chancellor of Ivy Tech Community College Bloomington; Titi Obasanya, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Elevate Ventures; and Audrey Wessel, attorney at Gutwein Law.

Seed winner ReproHealth Technologies solves technical problems in in vitro fertilization (IVF) that have high human and business costs. Founded by a human fertility doctor and embryologist, a biomedical engineer, and a large animal reproductive veterinarian, ReproHealth creates devices to improve assisted reproductive technology in veterinary and human medicine and holds nonprovisional patents in the US and Brazil.

In cow IVF, founder and CEO Dr. James Donahue explained in his winning pitch, less than 25% of eggs produce a viable embryo. This inefficiency creates a loss of over $1.2 billion across the industry. In response, ReproHealth Technologies has created the world’s first bovine intravaginal embryo culture device, which Donahue says will change cattle production, a $66 billion industry.

“The team at ReproHealth Technologies is proud to have been selected as winners of the Crossroads competition,” said Donahue. “We are honored to be part of a diverse group of startup companies, all bringing novel innovation to the state of Indiana. We are especially happy that The Mill will be part of our company going forward with its investment.”

ReproHealth has also created a specialized embryo culture dish that improves human IVF. Donahue noted that while incubator technology has changed, culture media hasn’t, resulting in significant financial loss and emotional impact when IVF fails. Donahue estimates the total addressable market for his culture dish at $23 billion.

The seed finals were judged by Amanda Findlay, Managing Director and Acceleration Lead at MatchBOX Coworking Studio; Jane Martin, Village Ventures, US VP, retired venture capitalist; Jacob Schpok, Partner, Elevate Ventures; Roger Shuman Director of Engagement at TechPoint; and Angie Stocklin, Lecturer of Entrepreneurship at Purdue University.

“We had a record number of applicants to Crossroads this spring,” said Andy Lehman, Head of Accelerator Programming, who noted that 55 startups from 17 different cities applied. “Almost 40% of those startups have BIPOC founders or at least one woman founder,” Lehman added. “This kind of diversity is exactly what our ecosystem needs to thrive. It’s an honor to support all the founders and connect them to opportunity.”

The two winning startups also receive priority consideration to pitch at Elevate Ventures’ Nexus Regional Pitch Competition, where they could win an additional $20,000 or $80,000 investment.

Crossroads Pitch Competition is open to any Indiana-based startup with less than $250,000 in annual recurring revenue. A panel of over 50 entrepreneurs, investors, and business experts selected four finalists for each of the two tracks. The other pre-seed finalists were Bar Bands (out of Carmel, pitched by Andrew Dimond);  Dynamic House (Dyer, Eva Rivera); and Soloist (Bloomington, Parker Busick). The other seed finalists were Bilingual Bridges (Indianapolis, Kelly Minks); DiversiFind (Indianapolis, Lesley Crane); and Practical Products (Bloomington, Aaron Farrer).

Visit https://www.crossroadspitch.com/ to learn more about the competition or to download the Spring 2023 Crossroads Lookbook of all startup competitors.

The innovation economy and the broader global economy runs on capital and the underlying banking system has experienced significant challenge of late. Since March 2023, three regional banks have failed; most notable: Silicon Valley Bank (a bank with deep connections to venture capital and tech companies). Today we are joined by Aaron Gillum, Senior Vice President at 50 South Capital, to help us make sense of what’s happening and what it means for the future of agbioscience. He gives us an understanding on how the banking system functions and what broke to put us in the position we are in today. Aaron also talks about bank collapses being more common than we realize, the ripple effects of one collapse paving the way for more instability and what is ahead for the macro economy (and venture capital).  

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Intelinair today announced that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with NVision Ag, a data analytics company focused on nitrogen management. Under the terms of the agreement, Intelinair will license NVision Ag’s nitrogen management technology and make it available on its digital platform, AGMRI®.

The technology will help corn growers decide whether they need more nitrogen fertilizer by showing specific degrees of nitrogen loss within a field. From the aerial images yield-loss maps, total yield-loss estimates, and N-rate control files are generated. A grower can tell which areas within a field need nitrogen applied and which do not.

“By combining our imagery and data analytics with NVision Ag’s proprietary nitrogen management technology, we will expand our in-season offering in nitrogen management in the 2023 crop season,” said Tim Hassinger, CEO and President, of Intelinair. “Through this collaboration, our common goal is to provide timely information on where in a field nitrogen is most needed for the corn crop.”

The agreement is further evidence of Intelinair’s commitment to providing real-time actionable insights to ag retailers and growers to support data-driven decisions.

Peter Scharf, President of NVision Ag, says, “Intelinair is a perfect company for us to work with. They’re out there every day looking at what is really going on in farm fields. And one of the things that shows up in their images is the nitrogen status of the crop. With Intelinair’s imagery and our algorithms, we can support farmers in making the right decisions with nitrogen, whether that’s fine-tuning planned in-season nitrogen, or making the right decision when rain may have caused nitrogen loss. When nitrogen is needed, we can deliver prescriptions at scale through AGMRI to put the nitrogen in exactly the right place and in the right amounts.”

Scharf has studied nitrogen for more than 30 years and is the author of “Managing Nitrogen in Crop Production,” published by the American Society of Agronomy.

Other terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Batesville-based Hillenbrand Inc. on Wednesday announced plans to acquire the Missouri-based Food and Performance Materials business, or FPM, from Schenck Process in a $730 million deal. FPM designs, manufactures, and services a variety of industrial food processing equipment and employs 1,300 people globally.

When the deal is completed, Hillenbrand said FPM will join its Advanced Process Solutions segment, and the company expects FPM to generate $540 million in revenue in 2023.

During a conference call Wednesday morning, CEO Kim Ryan said the acquisition creates a more robust portfolio of processing technologies for Hillenbrand.

“FPM brings leading weighing, feeding and filtration capabilities, among others, that will allow us to expand and optimize the comprehensive solutions we provide,” Ryan said. “FPM is a leading provider of pet food processing systems in North America, and expands our presence across a number of other key customer applications, including baked goods and other processed foods, as well as chemicals and engineering plastics.”

Read the full story on Inside INdiana Business here.

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