Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

From the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:

On November 12, Innovate Carolina hosted its seventh annual Carolina Innovators Connect Meet and Greet at the new Carolina Junction. This event fosters relationships between University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students and start-ups in the Research Triangle Park (RTP) area. The event bridges a critical gap between students eager for experiential learning and small businesses in need of support.

Anise Robinson, the Student Engagement and Events Program Manager for Innovate Carolina, said the idea for this meet and greet came about seven years ago, when the organization recognized that smaller start-ups often struggle to gain visibility at large fairs. Small businesses are high-growth and rich in potential, yet they may have limited resources that make participation in typical career fairs challenging.

Innovate Carolina sought to address this issue by creating a space where start-ups can connect directly with students, providing a mutually beneficial environment in the heart of Chapel Hill. The event is not a typical career fair– no suits or resumes were required. Instead, Innovate Carolina fosters a casual and inviting atmosphere, where students and startups can engage in meaningful conversations without the pressure of most recruitment settings.

From the University of Chicago:

The Polsky Center’s newest accelerator program, Resurgence, has just accepted its second cohort of start-ups. Led in partnership with the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, Resurgence connects innovative new ventures with resources to drive meaningful change in the cleantech ecosystem.

The nine-month hybrid program is designed to support start-ups focused on four specific areas of the cleantech industry: energy storage and infrastructure; next-generation nuclear solutions; hydrogen and alternative fuels; and materials refinement and process intensification­. The five new companies are:

• AGC Carbon, an early stage, deep tech start-up focused on carbon capture and grid energy storage technologies.
• Air Energy that is driving the future of zero-emission transportation with solid-state lithium-air batteries, enabling electrification across the most energy-intensive sector, including aviation.
• Inertial that uses turbomachinery to capture carbon emitted from fossil fuel-fired power plants.
• Materium Technologies, a materials science company developing complex materials, assisted by machine learning techniques.
• Tanda Biotech that is developing essential tools to enable scalable, cost-efficient, and eco-friendly bioproduction for a more sustainable world.

From Miami University of Ohio:

Since 1992, the Farmer School of Business Entrepreneurship program and the John W. Altman Institute for Entrepreneurship have emphasized strong academic research and immersive, real-world learning opportunities in the areas of startup and venture capital, social entrepreneurship, corporate venturing, technology commercialization, and creativity and innovation.

Offering a co-major and a minor, the entrepreneurship program engages more than 3,200 students annually from more than 110 different majors from across Miami University’s campus. The vast majority of students who take entrepreneurship classes never actually start their own business, choosing to use the knowledge and experience gained to help their careers in other ways. But more than 40 businesses have been started by Miami students while still in college.

The Entrepreneurship program won the 2024 Model Entrepreneurship Program Award from the U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship and the NASDAQ Center of Entrepreneurial Excellence Award in 2020. The Princeton Review has ranked it among the top 10 public universities for entrepreneurship for 16 consecutive years.

From Jacksonville University:

A team of Jacksonville University (JU) faculty reached the finals of an international technology innovation competition during the Rhodes Annual Forum on Technology and Society, hosted at Rhodes House in Oxford, England. The team presented on lexperience™, an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven, immersive learning experience based on a video game platform that promises to revolutionize the teaching and application of legal skills.

The Kevin Xu Innovation Challenge asked innovators from around the world to propose ways that AI can foster empowerment and meaningful human development. Members of the Rhodes and Equitech networks were encouraged to submit ideas that support a future in which AI promotes inclusivity, equity and lifelong learning.

“Lexperience™ advances these purposes by using AI to fill a gap in legal education,” said Scott DeVito, a Professor in JU’s College of Law and a lead developer of the project. “The kind of reiterative practice and instant feedback that you can achieve with AI hasn’t been possible in traditional educational settings. This will increase the access to legal training and decrease the costs associated with that training.”

The JU team’s AI-powered immersive learning platform incorporates reiterative game modules  that simulate trial scenarios and adapt to the user’s experience. Using this advanced technology, students and practitioners can prepare for law practice through adaptive and variable repetition. The lexperience™ project is led by Nicholas Allard, Dean of JU’s College of Law, a Rhodes Scholar alumnus, and current Rhodes Scholar Aimee Clesi.

From Arizona State University:

Idealab Arizona, a partner of Idealab Studio based in Pasadena, CA, has announced the launch of a start-up studio that will work with Arizona State University (ASU)-affiliated tech start-ups focused on climate, medical, artificial intelligence, and advanced manufacturing to drive sustainable solutions for a healthier planet and humankind.

Allen Morgan, who has over 40 years of investing in successful Silicon Valley start-ups and is a member of the Idealab Studio board of directors, will serve as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company. Bill Gross, entrepreneur and Founder and CEO of Idealab Studio, will join the Idealab Arizona board of directors.

ASU and Gross previously collaborated in ventures, including CarbonCapture, an Idealab Studio-founded company working with ASU to build a regional direct air capture (DAC) hub with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy. And in June, CarbonCapture signed a lease in Mesa, AZ for the world’s first DAC manufacturing facility.

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