Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

A standing-room-only crowd of close to 100 people turned out late Wednesday afternoon for Demo Day for the five companies participating in the 12-week “The Works” accelerator hosted by the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center (KEC).

Now in its 11^th year, the summertime program featured four companies utilizing or powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and a fifth that was focused on human intelligence.

With an appetite for technology, it was appropriate that the event featured a conversation between Chris McAdoo, Chief Experience Officer at KEC, and Amir Sadovnik, Research Lead for the newly established Center for AI Security Research (CAISER) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Sadovnik reminded attendees that “AI has been around for a long time. . . since the 1940s.” It became more mainstream with deep learning and the computer visioning movement around 2012.

One of the challenges of AI is the fact that models are going to get bigger and bigger, requiring even more data. Sadovnik rhetorically asked the question that is ever present: “How do we make them smaller so they can learn with less data and less energy demand?”

Ahead of that conversation, McAdoo welcomed Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon to the stage where she said, “My job is to make Knoxville a great place for entrepreneurs,” and she showed that commitment by staying for the entire event including the five pitches from the participating companies.

The companies that participated in “The Works” all had asks of the attendees. The five were:

1. Authentrics.AI, founded by John Derrick and paired with mentors Travis Howerton and Zack Webb. We spotlighted it in this teknovation.biz article from February.
2. Flock Analytics, founded by Cody Blankenship and paired with mentors Brandon Bruce and Creed Huckaby. We spotlighted it in this teknovation.biz article from almost a year ago.
3. Human AI, founded by Preston Garland and paired with mentors Gary Jackson and Matthew Park. It will be spotlighted soon in teknovation.biz.
4. Tenant Text, founded by Rob Monday and paired with mentors Rob Cochran and Frank Ramey. We spotlighted it in this teknovation.biz article from earlier this week.
5. ThinkUp, founded by Douglas Mapp and paired with mentors Melissa Centers and John Bruck. We last spotlighted ThinkUp in this teknovation.biz article from 2022, but it will be updated soon.

Sadovnik and Katelyn Keenehan, teknovation.biz Assistant Editor, quizzed the individuals after their pitch presentations.

The pictures for the event were captured by Taryn Ferro of Aw, Snap Photography.

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