Thanks to $798K in funding from the Wabash Heartland Innovation Network (WHIN) Regional Cultivation Fund (RCF), the ten-county WHIN region is getting a big assist in its efforts to boost entrepreneurship and support local businesses in rural communities.

“From the pandemic to a rapidly changing technological and economic environment, small and medium sized businesses in our rural areas have felt a lot of stress over the past few years,” says Johnny Park, CEO of WHIN. “But the forces that are challenging local businesses also present new opportunities to refresh business plans, find new markets, and better serve existing customers with online platforms.  As well, the time is right for new business startups. WHIN’s Rural Entrepreneurship (RE) initiative will help.”

According to Vice President for Engagement Pat Corey, WHIN has several goals for the RE initiative. 

“The purpose of WHIN’s RE program is to help start-ups in rural communities through those difficult early stages as well as to give small and “Main Street” businesses a disciplined process for exploring new possibilities,” says Corey. “Consistent with WHIN’s overall focus on technology, the program will also help small and rural manufacturers create business plans around retooling, and assist businesses as they make the pivot to conducting more business online.”

There are specific skills that entrepreneurs and business owners need, according to Corey.

“Entrepreneurial thinking at any stage of a business, online and digital proficiency, and networking connections can all provide traction for ideas to take off,” she says.

But consistent with WHIN’s own core value of leveraging existing resources and assets, the RE program had to be delivered in a way that would help rural communities find and develop their own capacity to nurture startups and existing businesses.

WHIN sought a community partner who could implement RE as it was envisioned, and found in Lafayette’s MatchBOX the right mix of well-tested programming, a platform for delivering that programming across the region, and, most importantly, a commitment to developing an infrastructure of expertise throughout the region.

“We already have relationships with other coworking studios and entrepreneurship partners in the region, including Iron Block, Fusion 54, RuralUrban Center, Benton 4 Business, OCRA, and WEGA,” says Amanda Findlay, Managing Director and Acceleration Lead for MatchBOX. “What we will be able to provide is a mentor-supported curriculum that addresses topics that we know from experience to be game-changing for both startups and existing businesses.”

According to Juliana Casavan, Director of Operations for MatchBOX, the program will invest in local communities by funding local mentors when possible and paying for memberships to local coworking studios. 

“Our goal is to distribute our expertise in a way that embeds it throughout the region and to increase participation in local programs,” says Casavan.

Corey says that what impressed the WHIN team besides MatchBOX’s commitment to regionalism was its record of success for both startups and existing businesses, in all types of businesses.

“That diversity was crucial to WHIN,” says Corey. “A coffee shop or general market might mean the difference between viability and decline in a small town.  Yes, we’d love to see that town produce the next Steve Jobs, but in the meantime, keeping the economic fabric of the community strong is just as important.”

Another plus for MatchBOX is that it has been awarded funding from the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) that it will also use for the program.

“Our region is very fortunate to have homegrown and highly successful programs like MatchBOX,” says Corey. “We are grateful that they were willing to step up and share what they have learned and accomplished with the entire region.”

The Elevate Nexus Conference is Indiana’s largest annual gathering of educators, students, and entrepreneurial support organizations coming together to innovate, share, and test ideas that will drive the future of venture creation. With over 30 higher-education institutions represented, attendees will have unprecedented access to educators, growth-minded students, and investors freely sharing best practices while workshopping new approaches.

Conference Details

Thursday, June 9, 2022
Innovation 1 at 16Tech | 1210 Whitewater Blvd, Indianapolis, IN 46202
Click to learn more!

Time-saving features provide confidence in in-season recommendations

Intelinair, the maker of AGMRI®, announced the launch of AGMRI Enterprise today, a new service that has been designed specifically with ag retail customers in mind. AGMRI Enterprise provides a current, aggregated view of what is happening in customer fields with regularly scheduled flights throughout the season. In addition, the platform provides retailers the potential to see what is happening in a retailer’s overall geographic area.

“Through AGMRI Enterprise, we are honing in on real-time alerts to save retailers time, but also provide them the confidence they need in making recommendations to their customers,” says Kevin Krieg, Director of Product Marketing for Intelinair. “Our retail customers will be able to elevate their management recommendations with a clear understanding of what is happening in individual fields, earlier than ever before, and gain aggregate insights for their region throughout the growing season.”

Available via Webapp and iPhone app, new features included with the AGMRI Enterprise services are a Dashboard and a Virtual Scout.

“We provide the ability for retailers to know big-picture what is happening in a field and then narrow down specific locations within that field to scout if an area raises an alert through a flight,” says Krieg. “It’s the ‘trust but verify’ situation. Retailers are the agronomy experts; we are giving them a tool to increase their ability to detect issues and provide direct communication to their customers about what they are seeing or not seeing within a field.”

The AGMRI and AGMRI Enterprise platforms work with either in-season satellite imagery or aerial imagery. Satellite imagery is offered in the U.S. and Canada, while aerial imagery is offered in select counties in Illinois and Indiana, with expansion planned for future growing seasons. To learn more about AGMRI and how it helps retailers and farmers elevate their management decisions, visit www.AGMRI.com.

Applications for Elevate Nexus Regional Pitch Competitions are open through April 18, 2022. Elevate Ventures will invest a total of $660,000 in 15 early-stage startups throughout Indiana.

Competitions are open to innovative, Indiana-based startups, in two stages: pre-seed and seed. A total of nine $20,000 pre-seed and six $80,000 seed investments will be made across three competitions. In addition to receiving funding, each company joins Elevate Ventures’ portfolio and will have access to Elevate’s network of resources.

Pitch Competition dates and locations include:

“We are excited to continue our support of early-stage businesses in Indiana with the Elevate Nexus Regional Pitch Competitions,” said Landon Young, executive director of entrepreneurial programming and entrepreneur-in-residence. “These competitions provide early-stage startups with a unique opportunity to showcase their businesses in their regions and compete for investments from Elevate Ventures.”

Additional details and eligibility requirements can be found here. Applications for the Elevate Nexus Regional Pitch Competition will close at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on April 18, 2022. To request an application, please click here.

Elevate Nexus is funded by a grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration and the Indiana 21st Century Research and Technology Fund (21 Fund). Several grant and investment programs managed by Elevate Ventures, including Elevate Nexus, are supported by the 21 Fund under the Indiana Economic Development Corp.

A new tech platform is giving artisan food entrepreneurs the opportunity to manage their business in one place – from website creation all the way to order fulfillment. This week, Mitch Frazier talks with Mark Josephson, founder and CEO of Castiron. 

They dive into Mark’s idea for the platform during a High Alpha Innovation Sprint Week, creating opportunity for entrepreneurs and how established systems of success will grow the artisan food industry. 

Listen here:

Intelinair announced today an expansion to its collaboration with Jacobs for AgTech markets beginning in 2022 and extending through the end of 2024.

Through this three-year agreement, Jacobs will provide scalable, high-grade multispectral sensor systems and aerial imagery services, while Intelinair provides its artificial intelligence (AI) powered crop analytics AGMRI® platform to deliver a complete view of every acre, every field from planting to harvest.

“Our goal is to deliver agronomic insights that achieve yield and productivity improvements, and we do this through our automated digital platform, AGMRI,” said Tim Hassinger, CEO & President of Intelinair. “In one scalable, digital platform, we are able to provide actionable field intelligence so farmers can take action before issues become problems all the way from planting to harvest.”

Pairing the hi-res image capabilities captured by Jacobs and the analytics of Intelinair provides farmers, crop consultants and agricultural retailers a bird’s-eye view of their fields. With these tools, they can see issues developing in fields from their smartphone, tablet or computer, which can save them significant time during busy seasons.

For example, after planting farmers actively monitor emergence in fields, scouting for subpar results or even failure, flagging the opportunity for replant. This process can be time-consuming; however, AGMRI automates and simplifies the replant process. AGMRI also generates a Smart Alert for each field or part of a field affected by poor emergence and in need of replant and also generates a replant prescription which can be synced wirelessly to the farmers’ precision agriculture equipment in the field.

“We welcome the opportunity to continue our work with Intelinair to provide digital solutions to the agricultural market,” said Jacobs Executive Vice President and President of Critical Mission Solutions Steve Arnette. “Our cutting-edge GeoPod™ sensors are flown over farm fields 13 times during the growing season to conduct high-resolution digital mapping. The multispectral imagery our sensors produce is then used by Intelinair to create timely agronomic insights that aid farmers in making real-time management decisions.”

Intelinair chose Jacobs as a supplier of imagery services due to its demonstrated technical and operational advantages. Its sensors offer market-leading real-world resolution, radiometric sensitivity, and accuracy. Its unique processing approach enables rapid turnaround and extreme scalability, while its operational excellence ensures high delivery reliability that is required by agriculture customers. The pair also plans to explore emerging opportunities to use technology for verification of sustainable farming practices. “We are exploring opportunities where the technology can be used in the area of sustainability,” added Hassinger.

 

Today, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo announced that the Department’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) is awarding a $1.7 million CARES Act Recovery Assistance grant to Northwest Central Indiana Community Partnerships, Inc., West Lafayette, Indiana, to expand broadband access in Central Indiana in support of the region’s manufacturing, agricultural and technology industries.

This project will help create and retain jobs by providing the cutting-edge technology necessary for these industries to remain competitive, while making the rural 7-county region more resilient to future economic disruptions. The EDA investment will be matched with $426,000 in local funds and is expected to create 75 jobs, retain 150 jobs and generate $10 million in private investment.

“President Biden is committed to leveraging the full power of the federal government to ensure our nation not only recovers from this pandemic but that all communities have the tools they need to succeed in our increasingly digital economy,” said Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo. “This EDA investment will serve as a down-payment for the further broadband investments coming from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law by providing cost-effective and reliable broadband service in Central Indiana that will build resiliency in the region’s manufacturing, agricultural and technology sectors for decades to come.

“The Economic Development Administration supports community-led strategies to accelerate economic recovery from the pandemic,” said Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development Alejandra Y. Castillo. “This EDA investment will help to ensure a bright future for this rural Indiana region by providing the broadband services local industries need to grow, thrive and create jobs.”

This project is funded under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act (Public Law 116-136 PDF), which provided EDA with $1.5 billion for economic assistance programs to help communities prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus. EDA CARES Act Recovery Assistance, which is being administered under the authority of the bureau’s flexible Economic Adjustment Assistance (EAA) (PDF) program, provides a wide-range of financial assistance to eligible communities and regions as they respond to and recover from the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

The new robotic device scans field ecosystems providing detailed real-time data

Solinftec, a global leader in agricultural digitalization, has today announced that it will expand upon its partnership with GROWMARK, Inc., one of North America’s largest agricultural cooperatives, with a collaborative project focused on a new cutting-edge AgTech robotic device.

With more than 15 years of experience developing digital ag solutions throughout various geographies and crops around the world, Solinftec’s new robot is state-of-the-art technology built to scan and monitor fields. This, connected with Solinftec’s ALICE platform, works together to orchestrate machine operations. Programmed with a neurological network featuring a complex detection algorithm, the new in-field robotic device has the ability not only to scan for crop health and nutrition, insects, and weeds, but is built to monitor the entire field ecosystem and provide real-time insights.

The goal is to provide farmers and agronomists a new level of information to increase yields, improve inputs usage, lowering environmental impact.

GROWMARK will collaborate with Solinftec to run the robot throughout the entire 2022 season where it will fine-tune the technology of agriculture operations in North America from planting to harvesting.

Over almost 100 years, GROWMARK has developed trusted relationships and expertise within its vast system, which provides tremendous value for technology startups and ultimately benefit our respective customers. This is a natural evolution of GROWMARK’s AgValidity trial and testing program, along with its new omnichannel platforms that deliver custom solutions for GROWMARK/FS customers whenever, wherever, and however they choose to do business, from the cab of a tractor to their home offices.

“GROWMARK and our System of FS Cooperative members are recognized as cutting-edge partners by the Farmer of the Future,” says GROWMARK Innovation Director Heather Thompson. “We believe in leading the market with products and technologies customers didn’t know they needed but can’t imagine their operation without.”

“We are looking at the future of farming,” adds Lance Ruppert, GROWMARK’s director of agronomy marketing technology. “We have been working with and utilizing Solinftec’s leading agricultural technologies for over three years and are excited to partner on a project with the potential to change farm practices for the better of the industry and environment.”

The goal is to have the robot commercially available for the 2023 season.

“We’re taking our robot directly to the fields for practical implications,” said Daniel Padrão, Solinftec’s chief operating officer. “This cutting- edge technology will help develop agricultural solutions and support sustainable farm practices. We are honored to have such a progressive partner as GROWMARK to move forward with this first launch as we continue to work together to support farmers on seizing the opportunities in agriculture.”

With the launch of its new AgTech robot and current ALICE technologies, Solinftec continues to be committed to protecting and respecting its users’ privacy, abiding by core data privacy principles to protect data. Farmers and users maintain ownership of their data and may choose to share results at their discretion.

“I’m proud to see our company leading the evolution of new agriculture technology,” said Britaldo Hernandez, Solinftec’s chief executive officer. “For the past 15 years, we’ve been dedicated to evolving agriculture practices hand-in-hand with farmers. There has always been a pull between ag operations and the field’s ecosystem, but we are excited to build new technologies that orchestrate bringing these together and democratize the knowledges.”

A technology company built exclusively for agriculture, Solinftec continues to invest and research industry advances. In 2018, the company introduced ALICE, a first of its kind artificial intelligence data science assistant specifically designed to work with production farmers to integrate and process data from machinery, people, climate and relevant external inputs. ALICE calculates producers’ ultimate needs/objectives and delivers real-time actionable recommendations.

The American Farm Bureau Federation, in partnership with Farm Credit, is seeking entrepreneurs to apply online for the 2023 Farm Bureau Ag Innovation Challenge. Now in its ninth year, this national business competition showcases U.S. startup companies developing innovative solutions to challenges faced by America’s farmers, ranchers and rural communities.

Farm Bureau is offering $165,000 in startup funds throughout the course of the competition, which will culminate in the top 10 semi-finalists competing in a live pitch competition in front of Farm Bureau members, investors and industry representatives at the AFBF Convention in January 2023 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

“Innovation is at the heart of everything farmers and ranchers do,” said AFBF President Zippy Duvall. “The Ag Innovation Challenge is an outstanding avenue for identifying and supporting startup businesses striving to solve the problems facing rural America. I look forward to seeing the innovative, resourceful and creative solutions that Challenge applicants submit.”

Applications remain open through April 29, and the 10 semi-finalist teams will be announced Sept. 13. Each of the semi-finalist teams will be awarded $10,000 and a chance to compete to advance to the final round where four teams will receive an additional $5,000 each. The final four teams will compete to win:

Prior to the live pitch competition, the top 10 semi-finalist teams will participate in pitch training and mentorship from Cornell University’s SC Johnson College of Business faculty, and network with representatives from the Agriculture Department’s Rural Business Investment Companies.

Recent winners of the Ag Innovation Challenge include Grain Weevil Corporation, a grain bin safety and management robot that improves farmer well-being by controlling risks and costs (2022 Ag Innovation Challenge Winner) and Harvust, a software platform that helps farmers successfully hire, train and communicate with employees (2021 Ag Innovation Challenge Winner). Other examples of successful Ag Innovation Challenge participants, as well as detailed eligibility guidelines and the competition timeline can be found at fb.org/challenge.

Entrepreneurs must be members of a county or parish Farm Bureau within their state of residence to qualify as top 10 semi-finalists. Applicants who are not Farm Bureau members can visit https://www.fb.org/about/join to learn about becoming a member.

Applications must be received by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on April 29, 2022.

16 Tech Community Corporation, the nonprofit organization responsible for the programmatic and physical development of the 16 Tech Innovation District, has announced Emily Krueger as its next President and CEO. Krueger will lead the organization effective June 1, succeeding Bob Coy, who announced his retirement last year.

Krueger joined 16 Tech in May 2018 as Chief Operating Officer. As the organization’s second employee, Krueger spearheads key organizational initiatives vital to 16 Tech’s progress and success, including the design and construction of public infrastructure projects most notably the international RFP, design and community engagement process for the 16 Tech bridge, an iconic piece of multi-modal infrastructure connecting 16 Tech to the 10th Street medical corridor over Fall Creek; the delivery of innovation services through the flexible office space, makerspace and artisan marketplace in Tech’s innovation hub; and regional coalition building with partners including the City of Indianapolis’ Build Back Better initiative.

Born in Indiana, Krueger spent her early career working for former U.S. Senator Richard G. Lugar in a variety of Capitol Hill and campaign positions. Prior to joining 16 Tech, she worked at LDI, one of Indiana’s largest private companies, as chief of staff and vice president of administration.

Krueger is an active community leader, lending her fundraising and communications expertise to a number of local nonprofit organizations focused on health and education. She is past Board Chair of Timmy Global Health, and has also served on committees for the Riverside Adventure Park, Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, Christel House International, the Lacy School of Business at Butler University, and The Mind Trust. Krueger is a graduate of Valparaiso University and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where she earned her MBA.

The selection follows an extensive search led by Jorgenson Consulting beginning Fall 2021.

“Emily has already played an essential role over the past few years in the remarkable transformation of 16 Tech from a promising idea into an exciting reality, and now she is in a great position to do even more,” said David L. Johnson, president and CEO of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership, an anchor 16 Tech tenant, and 16 Tech Community Corporation Board chair. “She has proven her vision, capacity for collaboration and leadership to move the 16 Tech Innovation District forward over the pivotal years ahead. Emily has the board’s full confidence and support.”

As president and CEO, Krueger will continue to elevate 16 Tech as a place of innovation and economic opportunity. She will evolve the overall mission and vision; facilitate the physical development; constantly involve and engage neighboring communities; and serve as a regional and statewide leader for the advancement of an essential asset for Indiana’s future of inclusive growth.

Since 2018, more than $130 million has been invested in buildings and infrastructure in the district. In 2021, the district solidified a fast-growing network of dynamic spaces, tenants, partners, and programs, welcoming more than 50 companies and 500 employees. Home to startups, venture studios, key anchor institutions in the life sciences, data analytics and advanced manufacturing sectors, six universities and 21 restaurants and retail establishments. In 2022, 16 Tech celebrated a total of $1.3 million in funding to resident-supported projects in nearby neighborhoods through its Community Investment Fund.

“It’s been a privilege to watch 16 Tech go from an aspirational to an active place over the last several years,” said Krueger, current COO and incoming president & CEO of 16 Tech Community Corporation. “Under Bob’s leadership, 16 Tech has opened its first three buildings as well as attracted key anchors in life sciences, advanced manufacturing and technology. I’m excited to build on this proof of concept and to lead 16 Tech into the future, ensuring we that we have not just the physical spaces, but also clear programs to support innovation, entrepreneurship and talent throughout Central Indiana, especially for our closest neighbors.”

Tune in to learn more about what’s happening at 16 Tech Innovation District during a quarterly virtual community meeting this Friday, March 18 from 9-10 a.m. Register here.

Category
Filter—Categories
Apply
Connect With Us
Connect With Us