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    EnterpriseWorks News Recognition & Awards Research Park

    HabiTerre’s Guan Honored as Innovator of the Year

    Dr. Kaiyu Guan, co-founder of EnterpriseWorks startup HabiTerre and the Blue Waters associate professor in ecohydrology and remote sensing, was honored as the Illinois Innovation Network’s Innovator of the Year in the Computing & Data category. The awards recognize individuals from the IIN’s 15 hubs who have made key advances in research, technology commercialization and education. HabiTerre provides 360° in-depth intelligence for every plot of farmland across the globe, together with unprecedented field-scale insights for businesses in the broader agricultural industry. The Illinois Innovation Network (IIN) announced recipients of its second-annual innovation awards Wednesday at the Illinois State Fair’s Tech Prairie STEAM Expo. The awards were presented to faculty, staff or scientists from IIN hubs in four of the IIN’s key subject areas: computing and data, environment and water, food and agriculture, and health and wellness. The IIN also presented awards for an open category of innovation and to a student innovator from IIN hubs. “It is our honor to celebrate these innovators and their discoveries,” said Jay Walsh, vice president for economic development and innovation for the University of Illinois System, which coordinates the IIN. “They all are shining examples of the fantastic research and discovery happening across our state.” For more on this honor, see the full story HERE. 

    HabiTerre’s Guan Honored as Innovator of the Year Read Post »

    Events News Research Park

    Illinois AgTech Accelerator Seeks Early-Stage Startups for Fall gBeta Cohort

    Applications are now open for the Fall 2022 gBETA AgTech program, run by the Research Park-based Illinois AgTech Accelerator. gBETA AgTech is a seven-week accelerator for early-stage AgTech and Agriculture startups. Each gBETA AgTech program is capped at five teams innovating in AgTech and Agriculture. While the Illinois AgTech Accelerator recruits globally, the Fall 2022 gBETA AgTech will be a hybrid program with some in-person components. Illinois-based teams are strongly encouraged to apply. The Illinois AgTech Accelerator is operated by the nationally-ranked startup accelerator gener8tor and powered by Champaign-based Serra Ventures. The benefits of the gbeta AgTech program include: Individualized coaching and mentorship from the team of nationally-ranked accelerator gener8tor on company growth and investor readiness Facilitate introductions to over 50 mentors and investors $1M+ in deals and perks from vendors like IBM Cloud, Rackspace, Amazon, Paypal, Zendesk, Hubspot and Microsoft This program is completely free for the startup; there are no fees and no equity is taken. gBETA AgTech takes a broad view of food and agriculture technologies and is committed to supporting early-stage companies. With this in mind, its selection process will consider the following: The Illinois AgTech Accelerator works with startups across the Ag and food sectors, favoring enterprise solutions over consumer products gBETA AgTech recruits internationally but heavily favors Illinois-based startups While an MVP/Beta is definitely helpful, there are no revenue/traction requirements. We just need to know that you are committed to building a high-growth company. Key Dates: Applications Due: September 9 Kickoff: September 23rd Program Conclusion: November 11 Got questions? Contact Illinois AgTech Accelerator Managing Director Jack Marck at jack@gener8tor.com, or sign up for office hours via this link. There will be in-person office hours at EnterpriseWorks on Aug. 23.

    Illinois AgTech Accelerator Seeks Early-Stage Startups for Fall gBeta Cohort Read Post »

    Internships News Recognition & Awards Research Park

    Excellence Recognized at 2022 Research Park Intern Awards

    The Research Park celebrated its 16th annual Intern Awards Ceremony and Picnic to honor and recognize the outstanding work done by the student interns across the Park’s 120+ companies. The ceremony was held on Thursday, July 28, National Intern Day, which gave us all the more reason to host a celebration for the 800+ interns working throughout Research Park. This was the first year the ceremony was held in person since 2019. The students recognized as finalists and winners are comprised of a variety of disciplines, majors, and colleges from across the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, representing the type of cross-curricular work that takes place at Research Park companies. These interns were able to make connections with their peers, co-workers, and supervisors that will last a lifetime, and they have sharpened skills that will aid them for years to come, in both their personal and professional lives. They have impacted the faces of our companies and the fabric of the Research Park through their hard work and innovation. Thank you to the managers and supervisors who nominated their interns, and an additional thank you to the panel of professionals who determined the honorees. This year, there were six awards presented.  Award Categories: Best Entrepreneurial Leadership in a Startup Best Technical Innovation Best Business Innovation Most Outstanding Undergraduate Student Intern Most Outstanding Graduate Student Intern Most Competent and Collaborative Team Best Entrepreneurial Leadership in a Startup Winner: Shivam Tailor – Natrion Laboratory Assistant Undergraduate in Material Science and Engineering | Grainger College of Engineering “Shivam has an eagerness to learn as much as possible and apply it towards the success of the company. Shivam was the only intern to have his own project, and not only did he take charge of every aspect of it, but he excelled rapidly. Within two months on the job, Shiv produced single-crystal NMC and artificial graphite tapes that are viable for commercial use, a process that is extremely long and arduous that requires painstaking optimization. Shivam is very meticulous. He has excellent attention to detail that was critical in his success in the project.” Finalists: Sarah Hashim – TipTek Engineering Intern Undergraduate in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering | College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Tianshu Wei – LifeFoundry Embedded Systems Intern Undergraduate in Computer Science | Grainger College of Engineering   Best Technical Innovation Winner: Teja Gupta – Corteva Agriscience Remote Sensing Scientist Graduate in Computer Engineering “Teja worked on cloud masking, an important and emerging technique that is a valuable addition to our organization and the global agriculture community. He created a classifier tool and later a software package inspired by the original cloud masks. This is an extraordinary feat considering the complexity of the situation. During this project, Teja demonstrated outstanding innovation, perseverance and humility resulting in a solution that addressed an existing problem. He also demonstrated a great deal of perseverance when creating a new dataset since it took a lot of trial and error to succeed in this task.” Finalists: Elizabeth Atkinson – Starfire Industries Electrical Engineering Intern Undergraduate in Electrical Engineering | Grainger College of Engineering Ved Shah – COUNTRY Financial DigitaLab Software Developer Intern Undergraduate in Computer Science | Grainger College of Engineering Best Business Innovation Winner: Cindy Phung – Cargill UX/UI Design Intern Undergraduate in Graphic Design | College of Fine & Applied Arts “Cindy is the sole designer on a 3-person intern team that is working on a Cargill Protein North America project tied to our Factory of the Future Initiative, a tool that leverages data to make predictions about potential safety risks on the factory floor that day. Cindy’s role has been to discover, design and prototype the views of that data and the ways the various fabrication floor managers log the response they plan to take. Cindy has set the bar high given the thoroughness of her research, professionalism of her designs, technical acumen behind her designs also being feasible and communication skills to socialize and persuade others on her ideas.” Finalists: Eric Goff – ADM Modeling Intern Undergraduate in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering | College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Ethan Rasmussen – AbbVie Business Analyst Intern Undergraduate in Information Systems | Gies College of Business Most Outstanding Undergraduate Student Intern Winner: David An – Ameren Data Science Intern Undergraduate in Mathematics | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences “This summer, David was a key player in many initiatives on our data science team at the Ameren Innovation Center. David was Project Lead on their Electric Vehicle Analysis project where he took complex business needs and transformed them into actionable results. All summer, David was the first intern to show up at the office every day and he was laser-focused on his projects. He was hungry to gain experience leading people. He wanted to improve himself, both technically and as a leader. Seeing such humility and desire to grow out of an intern is impressive. Along with his drive and work ethic, he added so much to the in-person intern experience with his jokes and levity. David is such an outstanding intern that he makes me a better manager.” Finalists: Ben Avila – State Farm Actuarial Intern Undergraduate in Actuarial Science | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Madison Park – Cargill UX/UI Design Intern Undergraduate in Information Science | School of Information Sciences Most Outstanding Graduate Student Intern Winner: Natalie Xiong – Riverbed Data Science Intern Graduate in Psychology | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences “If Natalie has a goal in mind, she will absolutely accomplish it. Natalie is super collaborative – she listens to the opinions of others, and she is considerate and respectful to all colleagues around her. For her summer internship she essentially acted as a data science consultant where her work has helped improve a complex AI/ML product that aims to automatically find and fix IT problems for Riverbed’s customers, many of whom are fortune 500 companies. Natalie is very investigative, which ultimately led to her internship success because she learned technical concepts very quickly.” Finalists: Brendan Brasch – AbbVie Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Developer Intern Graduate in Bioengineering | Grainger College of Engineering Mengfei Lan – Corteva

    Excellence Recognized at 2022 Research Park Intern Awards Read Post »

    EnterpriseWorks News Recognition & Awards Research Park

    Oak Ridge National Lab Selects Agriwater’s Bianca Bailey for Innovation Crossroads Cohort

    Oak Ridge National Laboratory Innovation Crossroads program has selected was Dr. S. Bianca Bailey, founder of EnterpriseWorks startup, Agriwater Corporation, for its next cohort of science and technology innovators advancing technologies they aim to commercialize. As a part of the ORNL cohort, she will work with ORNL experts, gain access to the facility’s unique assets (including the world’s fastest supercomputer), and join a mentoring network to develop business strategies. The latest group of Innovation Crossroads scientific entrepreneurs is the first to be onboarded in person and on campus since 2020. Each startup is focused on clean energy technologies. The fellows were chosen in a competitive merit-based process with applicants from across the country. Bailey has developed an electro coagulator, a device that purifies livestock wastewater for agricultural use. This system helps reduce expensive farmer discharge fines, produces clean water for multiple uses, and assists in preventing pollution. Congratulations to Dr. Bailey on this honor. Learn more about the program here.

    Oak Ridge National Lab Selects Agriwater’s Bianca Bailey for Innovation Crossroads Cohort Read Post »

    Community News Research Park

    New First Street Shared Use Path Eases Commute to Research Park

    The Village of Savoy’s shared use path has undergone construction and will be complete by August 2022. The path is located along the west side of First Street between Curtis Road and Windsor Road. Upon its completion, the Research Park community will have an accessible walking/biking pathway from the village to the park. This path will not only allow for faster commuting for Research Park employees and interns, but provide safety from the dangers of vehicular traffic. This construction project is funded through a $1.2 million award from the Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program (ITEP), a program of the Illinois Department of Transportation. This new pathway along with the recent expansion of the MTD bus route and improvements to St. Mary’s Road will improve the accessibility of Research Park while introducing new opportunities to those at the university.

    New First Street Shared Use Path Eases Commute to Research Park Read Post »

    Community EnterpriseWorks Features Media Mentions News Recognition & Awards Research Park

    “Best Tech Startups in Champaign” List Dominated by EnterpriseWorks

    Tech Tribune’s list of the Top 10 tech startups in Champaign is dominated by EnterpriseWorks tenants and graduates. All but one of the online publication’s choices have formal ties with EnterpriseWorks, the University’s tech incubator. There are a total of 11 startups on the list, the majority of which are tenants of Research Park’s EnterpriseWorks, or have since graduated from the tech incubator.  The top three ranked startups are SimBioSys, PhotoniCare, and Inprentus. SimBioSys was founded in 2018 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and remains a tenant at EnterpriseWorks in Research Park. The company’s mission is to deploy computational oncology to transform patient experience in cancer care by making it virtual. PhotoniCare, an EnterpriseWorks graduate, works to help primary care physicians identify and diagnose middle ear issues using tools that increase accuracy and efficiency. The company’s first product, OtoSight, was launched in 2019 and is designed to allow physicians to see through the eardrum and visualize the middle ear, including the presence of fluid and its density. Inprentus is another graduate of EnterpriseWorks and was founded by University of Illinois professor Peter Abbamonte  in 2012. Inprentus executes advanced manufacturing of precision optics for x-ray applications. The list proceeds in categorizing several other companies under the “best tech startups in Champaign” such as EarthSense, Ascent Integrated Tech, Psyonic, and Yummy Future. To qualify for consideration, companies must be independent, privately owned, and have received a minimum of one round of funding. The staff’s research was centered around the following four factors: revenue potential, leadership team, brand/product traction, and competitive landscape. See the full list of startups here.

    “Best Tech Startups in Champaign” List Dominated by EnterpriseWorks Read Post »

    Community Events News Recognition & Awards Research Park

    The Return of the Research Park Table Tennis Tournament: Yahoo! Reclaims the Golden Paddle

    After a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, the Research Park Table Tennis Tournament returned and celebrated the 11th annual event. The event was a huge success filled with impressive players and enthusiastic spectators. This year, the tournament field included 64 participants and split into two days of competition.  The first day consisted of round-robin games where the participants of each bracket played four rounds of one individual game. The results of day one were used to seed participants for the single-elimination tournament played on the second day. After two evenings full of intense competition, showcased skills, and lots of fun and excitement, the tournament came to a close and the winners earned their titles. Yahoo reclaimed the Golden Paddle from AbbVie, this being Yahoo’s 10th year of earning the most points for their company. Here is the set of winners from each bracket: Beginner Mohammed Malik – Country Financial Edward Tomlins – Ameren Rohan Simha – AviatrixMohit Mayank – Aviatrix Intermediate Nikhil Shenoy – Motorola Solutions Mingzhe Zhao – Yahoo! Danny Koch – SynchronyVed Shah – Country Financial Advanced Anh Nguyen – Yahoo! Asim Chitre – Synchrony Fei Deng – Yahoo!Rishabh Tripathi – Country Financial You can find the full final bracket standings on our Research Park Table Tennis webpage.

    The Return of the Research Park Table Tennis Tournament: Yahoo! Reclaims the Golden Paddle Read Post »

    News Research Park

    Aviatrix Opens New Hub: “Champaign is an ideal office location”

    Aviatrix, a fast-growing, global cloud network platform company, has opened a hub at the University of Illinois Research Park. The unicorn startup, which originated in California, opened in Champaign largely to build up its team of full-time software engineers. It has also established an internship program to tap into young talent from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “As we continue growing, we are expanding our teams of the best and brightest software engineers and solutions architects to help build what today’s enterprises need to stay competitive and innovative in the cloud era,” the company wrote in a blog post announcing the new office. The 4,000 square foot office is dedicated entirely to Aviatrix software engineering initiatives. It employs nearly a dozen software engineers. With space for up to 30 employees, the company is actively recruiting new team members at this location. “Aviatrix and the University of Illinois Research Park are a great match as they both value innovation, creativity and collaboration. We are excited to have this thriving company build a hub here and look forward to working together in mutually beneficial ways,” said Dr. Susan Martinis, Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The Champaign office is the company’s third in the United States. The growing pre-IPO startup launched in Santa Clara, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Earlier this year, it announced it would be opening an international headquarters in Dallas. “Champaign-Urbana is a great community to live and innovate. The University attracts people from all over the world who push the state of the art in many ways—from developing the transistor and the first web browser to whipped cream in a can. With the constant influx of innovative people, you may meet a world class opera singer or a world expert in bioengineering while chatting with a parent at your kid’s soccer game. I have had the privilege to work with many great groups in Champaign-Urbana over the years. The cloud is changing all the ground rules we have assumed for the past couple of decades. With Aviatrix, we are creating technology that takes advantage of the new ground rules and setting the stage for the future,” said Susan Hinrichs, Chief Scientist. The company has operations in Europe and Canada, and expects to open additional sites in the future.

    Aviatrix Opens New Hub: “Champaign is an ideal office location” Read Post »

    Features Media Mentions News Research Park

    Innovation and Success in the Illinois AgTech Accelerator

    SoyInnovator profiled the current Illinois AgTech Accelerator startup cohort in its recent article, “5 AgTech Startups You Should Know.” The article highlights the various benefits that the Accelerator manages to provide for AgTech startups. The Accelerator is a 12-week program that recruits five AgTech companies and gives them numerous opportunities to network with customers, investors, mentors, and other established AgTech companies. The Accelerator manages to give these companies a learning experience that will help them to be more successful in the future. Mentorship is one of the most important aspects of the Accelerator, which is based at the University of Illinois Research Park. “Mentorship is a major ‘unfair advantage’ for the companies that go through our program because they can discuss their technologies and business models with a range of ag professionals to really sharpen their market fit,” says Managing Director Jack Marck. The article also mentions five up-and-coming AgTech companies that are breaking barriers in the industry: AQUAOSO is a climate finance technology company that uses software to provide analytics for loan processes, improve risk management functions, and easily report on climate-related risks. Greener Crop is a data-driven hydroponic farm management company that helps clients to set up their farms efficiently. The company also helps clients plan daily farm operation strategies, supplies them with equipment, and develops effective crop strategies for higher success rates. Kray Technologies is a company that develops and produces drones for crop protection.  This reduces application costs by 90% in comparison to existing solutions. SenseGrass is a soil intelligence company. It uses soil sensors to deliver soil health analyses that help with nutrient management. This helps to reduce synthetic fertilizer use, increase crop health and grow crops using sustainable methods. Shepherd is a company that is tackling the agricultural labor shortage. The company uses a task management-based approach to ensure that workers know their responsibilities and the most efficient way to perform. This helps to reduce waste and boost operational effectiveness. This spring’s accelerator program is hybrid. Most of the teams have spent some time on-site in Champaign-Urbana; all will be in town for the OnRamp Agriculture Conference in Champaign, July 25-26. SoyInnovator is an online resource published by the Illinois Soybean Association (ISA).

    Innovation and Success in the Illinois AgTech Accelerator Read Post »

    Community Events Features News Recognition & Awards Research Park

    Cozad 2022 Winners: Nephra, Ferritiva, and Haylon Technologies Showcase Success on “Innovations” Research Park Podcast

    The newest episode of the Innovations @ Research Park Podcast features the top 3 finishers from the Cozad New Venture Challenge, a University of Illinois event where student teams can compete to win funding for their startups. Tanmay Shaw first speaks with Jonathan Politzki, CEO of EnterpriseWorks startup Nephra, whose team won $20,000 worth of funding and the I-Start prize at Cozad. Nephra is revolutionizing kidney dialysis by engineering a software embedded in ECGs. This allows patients to monitor potassium levels through fingerprints. When reflecting on his success, Politzki offers up his own advice to those inspired by his company’s success, “I encourage everyone out there to just give it a shot, try new things, learn a lot, spend a lot of time and focused effort, and you will make changes.” The future of Nephra involves investing in hardware that will facilitate more deep learning, allowing Nephra to accelerate its developments and continue to bring groundbreaking technology to the medical world.  Next in the podcast, Shaw brings on Jeffrey Lu, co-founder of Ferritiva, a startup that is developing a noninvasive method to detect iron deficiency. At Cozad, Ferritiva won more than $45,000 in funding as a second place winner. The creation of Ferritiva started from Lu’s observations as a cross country coach, leading him to attend Carle Illinois College of Medicine and ultimately work on bringing his idea to life. Lu shares how the Cozad New Venture Challenge played a role in his startup’s journey, “Cozad reminded me how difficult entrepreneurship is…but once things got rolling and we had some data to report, it was just very fun to share our story and share our vision with people.” Finally, Shaw introduces Namin Shah, founder of Haylon Technologies, the startup that won the grand prize at Cozad, the I-Start prize, and acceptance into multiple accelerators. Haylon Technologies’ goal is to improve battery life and functioning for various businesses that rely heavily on battery usage.  As someone who competed in Cozad multiple times, Shah highlights the most consistent and helpful aspects of the process. “Cozad does a really good job of highlighting the importance of doing proper customer discovery before you even engage in anything.” To listen to more of the conversations that Tanmay Shaw had with Jonathan Politzki, Jeffrey Lu, and Namin Shah about their experiences at Cozad, tune in to the Innovations @ Research Park Podcast. To listen to the podcast, visit iTunes Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you prefer to download your podcasts. Is there something you want to know about Research Park? Do you have an idea for a guest for the show, or a story we should pursue? Do you want to provide other feedback? Contact Laura Bleill (lwbleill@illinois.edu).

    Cozad 2022 Winners: Nephra, Ferritiva, and Haylon Technologies Showcase Success on “Innovations” Research Park Podcast Read Post »

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