Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

From Emory University:

The next RAISE Forum hosted by the Goizueta School of Business will be held on November 10, and applications are now being accepted from those interested in pitching.

The event is for those companies that have a proven business model and are ready to scale up to a new level of volume or service. To be considered, the RAISE Forum requires that applicants are a post-revenue company, or that they are imminently in-revenue and need $500,000 to $5 million in funding to execute their plan to grow. 

“The RAISE Forum community has a healthcare bias, as well as seeking innovative technology,” according to the website. “However, companies in every growth category are encouraged to fill out our simple screening form for consideration.”

Application deadline is September 28. To apply, click here.

From the Georgia Institute of Technology:

• The Atlanta-based university has launched The Women’s Innovation Lab, a virtual, four-day certificate program designed for emerging women entrepreneurs and innovators who want guidance on navigating the tenets of entrepreneurship. Through the online sessions and optional in-person networking, participants will be able to connect with other entrepreneurial-minded women and expand their network. Over the four days (October 2, 4, 9, and 11), enrollees will spend their mornings participating in synchronous instruction and their afternoons on asynchronous assignments. There is also a final capstone project that requires about 20 hours. More information can be found here.
• The master-planned Science Square District, an initiative by Georgia Tech and its development partners that’s been in the works for more than a decade, has announced the topping out of its first building and its first official lessee. Science Square Labs, Phase one’s 13-story Class A lab and office tower, is a 368,000-square foot bemouth. Chicago-based Portal Innovations, a venture capital firm that helps life sciences companies grow with lab space, seed capital, and management support, has leased the full 10^th floor of the labs building, taking 33,136 square feet. Click here to learn more about the latest developments.

From North Carolina State University (NC State):

A new study by researchers at NC State finds that “connected” vehicles, which share data with each other wirelessly, significantly improve travel time through intersections – but automated vehicles can actually slow down travel time through intersections if they are not connected to each other. The culprit? Safety.

“There are two significant reasons that people are interested in automated vehicles – improving passenger safety and reducing travel time,” says Ali Hajbabaie, first author of a paper on the work and an Associate Professor of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering.

“There is a lot of research showing that automated vehicles can improve safety,” he says. “But our research here – which relies on computational modeling – suggests that if we want to also improve travel time, an increase in automated vehicles isn’t enough; we need vehicles that are capable of communicating with each other and with the traffic-control systems that manage traffic flow at intersections.”

Click here for more information.

From Indiana University:

Julie Heath, a leader in launching innovative public-private initiatives and social impact organizations and the architect of Indiana’s first entrepreneurship ecosystem strategy, will oversee a new Indiana University (IU) initiative to support students and faculty university-wide in the creation and growth of start-up ventures.

Heath, who most recently served as Vice President of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems for the Indiana Economic Development Corp., previously was Chief Executive Officer of Speak Easy, a homegrown nonprofit co-working space in Indianapolis and the first shared space in Indiana to serve entrepreneurs. Now, she has been selected as the inaugural Executive Director of the IU Innovates Hub, which will launch this fall and provide a focal point for university efforts to accelerate entrepreneurship and innovation. Heath starts her role on September 18.

The IU Innovates initiative will be based on IU’s Bloomington campus but assist students and faculty across the university statewide. More information can be found here.

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