IEDC to host entrepreneurs, industry leaders from around the world to experience Indiana, Hoosier innovation
The Global Entrepreneurship Network (GEN) today announced that Indiana will host the Global Entrepreneurship Congress (GEC) for the first time in 2025, welcoming entrepreneurs, policymakers, investors and startup ecosystem builders from around the world to Indiana and its capital city. Indianapolis will be the second U.S. location to host the annual convention since its inaugural event in 2009.
“Indiana has a strong and storied history with entrepreneurship at the center, and we are thrilled to showcase our state and our innovative ecosystem during the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in 2025,” said Governor Eric J. Holcomb. “With the help of Hoosier entrepreneurs, Indiana’s economy is thriving – pushing forward new innovations, attracting top talent, and creating countless opportunities for current and future residents to prosper. Hosting this global convention is a testament to our state’s commitment, past and future, to cultivating a vibrant ecosystem that supports dreamers, innovators, entrepreneurs and thought leaders.”
Event organizers announced Indiana’s selection today onstage at GEC 2023 in Melbourne, Australia, previewing the 2025 event that will be held June 1-5, 2025, at the Indiana Convention Center and passing the torch to planners in Indianapolis representing the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC), key ecosystem partners and Indiana-based entrepreneurs. This year’s event, being held Sept. 19-22, is expected to draw roughly 2,500 attendees from nearly 200 countries.
The Global Entrepreneurship Congress is hosted in a different rising entrepreneurial city each year, presenting four days of actionable intelligence, collaboration and collective action. Its goal is to bring together thousands of voices to participate in creating one inclusive global ecosystem by networking, learning and sharing. Since its inception in 2009 at the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, GEC has created opportunities for founders to share new business models and connect with mentors and investors, and has hosted notable thought leaders challenging the status quo, policymakers focus on incentivizing entrepreneurs and removing barriers to growth, and academics exploring new ways of working and new sources of data.
“We are thrilled to bring the Global Entrepreneurship Congress back to the United States for the first time since it started,” said Jonathan Ortmans, founder and president of GEN. “Indiana is home to thriving, resilient and collaborative communities driven by creative and innovative entrepreneurs who are transforming our world.”
GEC Indiana will serve as a unique opportunity for Hoosier founders and entrepreneurs to connect with global resources, while providing a platform to showcase Indiana innovation and the state’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Indiana was named the No. 1 state to start a business by Forbes and has been recognized as a top 40 global emerging destination for entrepreneurship by GEN and its partners at Startup Genome, while Indianapolis has been named the No. 3 city in the Midwest for startups for the second year in a row.In June, the IEDC launched ConnectIND, a digital portal available in 11 languages that is designed to increase support for entrepreneurs and founders, powering Indiana’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
“Visit Indy is proud to partner with the state of Indiana to host the Global Entrepreneurship Congress, a sought-after conference bringing in thought leaders while also showcasing our city’s thriving small business economy,” said Chris Gahl, executive vice president & chief marketing officer with Visit Indy. “Indy’s entire tourism industry stands ready to welcome GEC’s global visitors to Indy, a city built to host conventions with unmatched hospitality.”
Indianapolis is a well-known host city for major global events, with accolades including being named USA Today’s no. 1 Convention City in the U.S. and Best Airport in North America for 12 years straight. In 2022, Indianapolis hosted more than 500 conventions and major events, drawing more than 30 million visitors while generating more than $5.8 billion in economic impact to the state. Indianapolis also serves as host to the IEDC’s Indiana Global Economic Summit, first held in 2022 and slated again to occur in May 2024.
For more information about the Global Entrepreneurship Congress, please visit genglobal.org.
Companies, students, startups, academics and innovators to compete for $25,000 grand prize; Registration ends September 30
AgriNovus Indiana, a non-profit focused on growing Indiana’s agbioscience economy, launched a challenge today to inspire innovation that creates new revenue streams from current on-farm processes to increase efficiency and return on investment for producers’ operations.
In partnership with the Indiana Corn Marketing Council and Indiana Soybean Alliance, the Producer-Led Innovation Challenge is a seven-week accelerator that creates an opportunity for companies, entrepreneurs, students and innovators to compete for a $25,000 grand prize by developing technology to create and access new sources of on-farm profitability rooted in existing workflows.
“Farmers are entrepreneurs by definition,” said Mitch Frazier, president and CEO of AgriNovus. “The Producer-Led Innovation Challenge provides a unique opportunity for farmers and tech innovators to come together, identify a challenge and work together to create a solution that ultimately drives value on the farm.”
The 2023 Producer-Led Innovation Challenge will largely focus on digital innovation in the following areas:
Trackability and traceability for premium products
Accessing and leveraging sustainability and environmental practices
Developing supply chains for byproduct and waste products
Operational enhancement and risk mitigation
“The most successful innovations start with the problem you’re aiming to solve,” said Courtney Kingery, CEO of Indiana Corn Marketing Council and Indiana Soybean Alliance. “New technologies that allow farmers to tap into additional revenue streams by monetizing their current practices is key for family-owned farms’ success allowing them to feed and fuel a growing world.”
The Producer-Led Innovation Challenge has enabled entrepreneurial companies to thrive. Most recently, the 2022 winner was acquired by Indiana-based agtech company Intelinair. In the announcement of the acquisition, Intelinair cited Aker Technologies’ victory in the Producer-Led Innovation Challenge. Since its launch, every company that has won the Challenge has either received follow-on funding or been acquired.
In addition to the $25,000 grand prize, a $4,000 from DIAL Ventures is available to the top participating student team from Purdue University. Companies, individuals and entrepreneurs who want to participate in the Challenge can access technical information, Challenge objectives, rules and register to participate here. The deadline to register is September 30 at 11:59 p.m.
From her days as a dance major at Indiana University to the possibility of opening up her own aerial yoga studio, creativity and an entrepreneurial spirit runs through Rachel Klein’s veins. This week, the co-founder and CEO of Revival Food Company, joins us to walk through her journey as a food entrepreneur, how the company has grown and scaled to date and what it’s like to be an Indiana startup.
Rachel also talks about her gut check moment of choosing to grow Revival Food Company instead of staying small, the challenges of being a female founder and connecting with Walmart to get her products into 1,000 stores in 2020. Revival is focused on bringing new energy to the market, so what’s next? Rachel talks about the future of her company and what consumers can expect as she continues to grow (hint: it’s well beyond nut butters).
Revival Food Company was a finalist for the Rally Innovation Conference In-Prize Pitch Competition. To learn more, click here.
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Survey participation could help major sectors maintain nationally prominent positions
The Central Indiana Corporate Partnership (CICP) today launched a survey across key industry sectors of Indiana’s economy seeking to capture insights about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and related digital tools. Information gleaned from the survey will be used to inform, educate and help Hoosier businesses to thrive in the digital economy.
“For Indiana to continue to lead in its most important economic sectors, we must work collaboratively to determine at what rate and how our employers are using AI. In addition, we are assessing what kinds of support they need to understand and productively use technology to push their operations forward,” said CICP CEO Melina Kennedy.
CICP’s branded initiatives Ascend Indiana, AgriNovus Indiana, BioCrossroads, Conexus Indiana and TechPoint will work directly with leaders in agbioscience, life sciences and healthcare, advanced manufacturing and logistics, and technology sectors to encourage robust participation. All data will be anonymized and aggregated prior to being made publicly available. Companies that fall outside of the initiatives’ focus areas are welcome to take the survey as well, Kennedy said.
Information from the survey will establish benchmarks and help CICP and its branded initiatives determine the next steps in helping companies and workers better understand how adoption of advanced technologies drive growth of Indiana’s economy. While many Hoosier companies have acknowledged that they are adopting advanced technology, including the use of AI, a comprehensive collection of data across Indiana’s advanced industry sectors does not yet exist.
“We’re excited to build on the work we have been doing for the past few years to measure advanced manufacturing and logistics (AML) companies’ adoption of digital technologies, including AI, and to better understand how all key industries are using this emerging technology,” said Conexus President and CEO Fred Cartwright. “Data from our 2022 technology adoption study showed that 26 percent of AML companies expect to implement AI in the next five years and 37 percent expect to implement machine learning – up from 18 percent and 22 percent in 2020, respectively.”
CICP initiatives Conexus and TechPoint have been raising awareness about the need for Hoosier companies to adopt Industry 4.0 technologies for several years and will lead the data-gathering and analysis effort. Conexus encourages digital transformation in the state’s advanced manufacturing and logistics sectors. This work includes support to the Indiana Economic Development Corporation’s Manufacturing Readiness Grants Program, which assists companies with technology investments. TechPoint is also driving specific economic growth opportunities for Indiana through putting technology to work under a Digital 4.0 framework.
“Technology adoption is the biggest productivity increase and economic growth lever for Indiana, particularly for the advanced sectors,” TechPoint President and CEO Ting Gootee said. “This survey is timely, as AI application and impact on the workforce are gaining market momentum.”
CICP and its branded initiatives have long pursued economic growth in Indiana’s advanced and other key industries, most recently, that work has focused on driving adoption of digital technologies to enhance competitiveness in a fast-moving economy.
Ascend’s work connecting Hoosiers to careers is informed by the impacts of technological development on the labor market. AgriNovus, BioCrossroads, Conexus and TechPoint have recently published separate reports on this topic. A recent Brookings Institution study spotlighted AnalytiXIN, an initiative incubated by BioCrossroads.
Survey questions are inspired by McKinsey & Company’s Global Survey on AI which has been used by economists and community leaders across the world to track progress of tech adoption and use that information to establish supportive policy.
Artificial intelligence, machine learning, autonomy, edge computing … all new disciplines of science that are transforming the future. And, they are as close as the nearest farm field thanks to today’s guest and his team of engineers and technologists. Aaron Wetzel, John Deere’s Vice President, Production and Precision Ag Production Systems, joins us to talk about his journey through the agbiosciences, tech transforming the industry and the company’s recent acquisition in Indiana.
How does John Deere balance the creation of their own tech versus acquisition? Aaron gets into how they walk that line, marrying strengths and how Smart Apply came to be a part of their portfolio. How will this next chapter of innovation unfold? Aaron leans into the discussion of a growing population and less land creating challenges for the farmer – and John Deere’s readiness to answer that call across the globe to enable farmers to be more efficient to grow more food with less resources than ever before.
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CoLab Tech is a start-up engagement program focused on accelerating companies that address key R&D topics and priority areas for Mondelēz International
Applications were open to early-stage businesses in North America and Europe
The 9 participants selected represent alternative ingredient, food safety, improved manufacturing and regenerative agriculture technologies
Mondelēz International, Inc. recently announced the 9 companies chosen to participate in CoLab Tech, an accelerator program led by the company’s research and development team to collaborate with start-ups in addressing technology-driven food production and sustainability challenges.
CoLab Tech sought early-stage businesses with disruptive solutions that can help accelerate growth and innovation in chocolate, biscuit and baked snacks, while enhancing the global snacking leader’s technological priorities, including reducing carbon footprints, enhancing sensory experiences, improving nutrition profiles and modernizing production processes.
The program, selected entrepreneurs in North America and Europe, received applications from all over the world.
“One of the most exciting parts of this process was learning about the creative and clever solutions being developed across the globe to solve the food industry’s most pressing ingredient, process and sustainability challenges,” said Ian Noble, Vice President for Global Ingredient Research & Development at Mondelēz International. “We are eager to start learning from and collaborating with these cutting-edge entrepreneurs who will introduce us to new capabilities and also learn from our expertise.”
The nine companies are:
Captic: The Belgium-based start-up delivers secure and reliable AI-vision solutions that can integrate into a company’s current production processes to provide actionable insights to optimize production efficiency.
Computomics: The Germany-based company’s platform uses machine learning and metagenomics analysis to monitor different types of pathogens in real time, from the early soil stages to manufacturing facilities.
Cultivated Biosciences: The Switzerland-based start-up uses fermentation technology to create a sustainable dairy-free, creamy fat ingredient that can substitute for animal-based ingredients in multiple functions and formulas.
Eggmented Reality: The Israel-based company uses material sciences and precision fermentation to develop customized ingredient functionality solutions.
Epogee: The U.S.-based ingredient business produces a modified plant-based oil that cuts up to 92 percent of calories, total fat and saturated fat compared to traditional fats and oils, while maintaining mouthfeel, satiety and texture.
Prote-in: The Italy-based company produces carbon negative, farm-free proteins using a proprietary continuous CO2 fermentation technology that offsets 1.8kg of captured CO2 for every 1kg of single cell protein.
SoilTech Wireless: The U.S.-based company develops wireless sensing technology and data analytics platforms to help drive optimization, sustainability and traceability throughout the global agriculture supply chain.
Stephane Thermal Runs: The French-based start-up created unique sensors and software to optimize thermal profiling in baked snacks.
WNWN Food Labs: The UK-based company uses fermentation to create alternative cocoa ingredients.
The cohort will participate in a 12-week curriculum that includes hands-on experiences, virtual sessions, 1:1 mentorship and access to Mondelēz International’s global network of partners and experts.
AgriNovus Indiana-commissioned study identifies opportunity to unite state’s strengths in agbioscience, tech
AgriNovus released new research today showing Indiana as an emerging hub for agtech innovation due to its strengths in agriculture and technology.
Conducted by TEConomy Partners, the study entitled The Intersection of Agbioscience and Tech, identified the growth of tech-related positions across the broader Indiana economy and in agbioscience, including identifying the occupations contributing to the growth.
“The agbioscience economy is the only economy in the world that touches every person on the planet given it centers on food,” said Mitch Frazier, president and CEO of AgriNovus Indiana. “Given Indiana’s strength in agbioscience and its history of success in technology, significant opportunity exists to further unite these two industries to build the next chapter of Indiana’s economy.”
Key highlights of the study include:
Tech job postings in agbioscience saw nearly seven times growth since 2017.
Companies have posted more than 6,700 tech jobs in agbioscience since 2015.
Industrial engineering, technologies and technicians are among the leading jobs postings by agbioscience companies in Indiana.
“Indiana has many evident strengths and assets in agtech-related fields,” wrote TEConomy Partners in the research. “… there is strong evidence that Indiana’s agbioscience companies are endeavoring to significantly boost their core tech and tech reliant workforce, and if connectivity can be increased to the increasing output of students at Purdue, IU and other Indiana institutions, significant employment growth is likely to occur.”
The study follows TechPoint’s release of Putting Tech to Work in Critical Industries, which examines Indiana’s tech sector and its relationship with other advanced industries to drive economic growth. That study can be found here.
The full study, The Intersection of Agbioscience and Tech, is available at www.AgriNovusIndiana.com.
Tom Wilmer produces on-air content for Issues & Ideas airing over KCBX and is producer and host of the six-time Lowell Thomas award-winning NPR podcast Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer. Recorded live on-location across America and around the world, the podcasts feature the arts, culture, music, nature, history, science, wine & spirits, brewpubs, and the culinary arts–everything from baseball to exploring South Pacific atolls to interviewing the real Santa Claus in the Arctic.
About NPR Journeys of Discovery
NPR Journeys of Discovery airs on KCBX, the local NPR affiliate in Southern California. Tom’s segments focus on what makes a place unique, and he likes to delve into livability assets that make a place special.
Ken’s Foods received incentive approval for a 288,000 square foot expansion of their current building in the Lebanon Business Park. Currently, Ken’s Foods employs 230 people and anticipates the additional hiring of 10 additional employees after the expansion is complete. With this expansion, they anticipate a $29.4 million real property investment and a $10.3 million personal investment. The expansion is set to be completed in the third quarter of 2024.
“The expansion of Ken’s Foods and the additional job opportunities they will bring to Lebanon continues to showcase our growth in economic opportunities. It proves our ability to be a place for businesses to find value with our ease of accessibility, our community and our dedication in our partnerships with these organizations ultimately producing a positive impact on the city, county and state,” says Mayor Matthew Gentry.
“Ken’s is excited to continue our investment in our Lebanon plant which will help us to continue to grow our business and contribute to the local community. We look forward to many years of continued partnership. Says Tim Cahalane, COO of Ken’s Foods.
Ken’s Foods began construction in Lebanon in 2016 and opened in 2018 with the anticipation of hiring 150 hourly employees at an average of $23 per hour. Since locating in Boone County, Ken’s Foods has and continues to be a stellar partner in the community supporting over four-dozen organizations and non-profits including Lebanon Community Schools, Boone County Cancer Society, Shalom House, Habitat for Humanity and others. With the continued advocacy and support of the Boone County Economic Development Corporation, Ken’s Foods and other companies have the ability to grow, expand and make positive impacts directly on the economy.
Leaders from agbioscience juggernauts gathered on stage at the Rally Innovation Conference last month to talk about the growing, evolving sector and what’s ahead for the agbiosciences in terms of both challenges and opportunities. This week, we bring the panel to you. Brook Cunningham, Chief Strategy Officer at Corteva Agriscience, Audre Kapacinkskas, Principal at S2G Ventures and Jeff Simmons, CEO of Elanco, have a candid discussion on their vision for the future of food and innovating to feed a growing population.
They get into how they are approaching the challenge of feeding more people with less resources, how funding will impact new innovators entering the market and streamlining new innovation from the outside looking in (rather than internally at large companies). How do companies think about internal research and development versus acquiring innovation from the outside? Brook and Jeff break down their approach in this area, collaborating cross sector to drive new solutions into the market and doing what you’re good at (or as Brook says: fit and focus).
What innovations do Brook, Audre and Jeff see as potential game changers for the agbioscience? They discuss emerging technologies, sustainability as profitability and barriers that exist that keep innovation from the farm gate.
