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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

Research Park

    Recognition & Awards

    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. 

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    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

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    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.

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    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.

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    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.

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    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 »

    EnterpriseWorks Graduates News Recognition & Awards Research Park

    EnterpriseWorks Graduate Autonomic Materials Raises $3 Million

    Autonomic Materials Inc. (AMI), a deep-tech startup graduate from the EnterpriseWorks incubator, announced Monday that the company has raised $3 million in a fully subscribed financing round. The round was led by Burwell Management Company and Camino Real Capital Partners along with participation from other venture capitalists. AMI uses self-healing technology to create chemistry coatings that minimize the effects of corrosion. The company’s innovations are designed to protect metal assets, the people interacting with those assets, and the environment. AMI CEO Dr. Gerald Wilson said the funds will be used to “accelerate sales of the company’s branded high-performance and ultra-low VOC coatings portfolio.” Dr. Wilson is also an Enterpreneur-in-Residence at EnterpriseWorks, where he counsels and mentors aspiring faculty and graduate student founders. AMI continues to grow its operations in Champaign, working to improve sales of existing product as well develop new applications that eliminate corrosion in environmentally friendly ways. In 2017, AMI raised $3 million in a funding round led by Solvey. This funding was used to scale up the company’s first self-healing paint product. Read the full news release here.

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    Community EnterpriseWorks Features News Recognition & Awards Research Park

    EarthSense Co-Founder Chinmay Soman Talks AgTech Trends and Company Success in Recent “Innovations” Research Park Podcast

    The latest episode of the Innovations @ Research Park Podcast delves into the history and background of EarthSense, an agricultural robotics and AI company that is a tenant here at the Research Park. Host Tanmay Shaw facilitates a discussion with Chinmay Soman, co-founder and CEO of EarthSense. The podcast delves into the origin story of the company as well as Soman’s drive to make a difference in the agricultural industry. Soman explains that the main mission behind EarthSense came from a desire to help farmers. Soman tells the story of growing up in India and having many extended family members that made a living by farming. Around the time that Soman was finishing his Ph.D., farming in India underwent many changes that led to a larger proportion of farmers being in debt. This led to increased suicide rates for individuals in this profession, which was something Soman was motivated to change. EarthSense was founded to innovate the AgTech industry while also keeping in mind environmental sustainability. They primarily focus on creating ground-based robots that are able to collect data on crops and soil. TerraSentia, their first robot, improves the quantity, accuracy, cost, and speed of in-field plant trait data collection, specifically for under canopy plants. Tune in to hear more on Soman’s perspective on future autonomous agricultural trends, EarthSense’s recent successes, and the importance of Research Park as a resource to the startup. 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).

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    EnterpriseWorks Investments News Recognition & Awards Research Park

    EnterpriseWorks Startup Natrion Secures $2 Million in Funding from Major Backers

    Natrion, a battery research and development startup based in Research Park’s EnterpriseWorks incubator, announced Wednesday that they have secured $2 million in seed funding. Natrion is the only company in the world to commercialize a ceramic-polymer composite battery solution for electric mobility and defense applications. The funding round was led by Chicago-based TechNexus Venture Collaborative, Champaign’s Illinois Ventures, Mark Cuban of Shark Tank, and other private investors. Natrion has previously received significant funding from the U.S. Department of Defense including a STTR grant to develop its products. “Natrion’s streamlined R&D approach and business model are what really differentiate the company in the battery market. They’ve already secured major commercial traction in the automotive space and we’re looking forward to what they achieve next,” said Mark Cuban. This seed round was the company’s first major private capital raise, and with it Natrion plans to build out in-house pouch cell prototyping capabilities at its R&D center in EnterpriseWorks to allow rapid-prototyping and validation of their patented Lithium Solid Ionic Composite (LSIC). This is Natrion’s first step towards scaling up and provides potential to build out a pilot production line next year. Natrion was founded in 2018 by Alex Kosyakov, a University of Illinois undergraduate engineering student. Before founding the startup, Kosyakov was part of iVenture Accelerator and Hacking for Defense. In the past, Natrion has been awarded funding from Cozad Assessment Management and Illinois Ventures, as well as being granted SBIR funding with help from the Illinois Fast Center. Read the full news release here.

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    EnterpriseWorks Investments News Recognition & Awards Research Park

    Network Perception Secures $13 Million in Series A Funding

    Network Perception, a cybersecurity startup, recently secured a $13 million Series A funding round. The company, which graduated from the Research Park’s EnterpriseWorks incubator in 2019, translated university research into a commercial product. The funding round was led by The Westly Group with participation from Energy Impact Partners and other existing investors, including Champaign’s Serra Ventures. The Series A funding brings Network Perception’s total venture capital funds raised to $15.73 million. “The security of critical OT assets is essential to public safety and the operation of everyday services that we all rely on – from energy delivery to manufacturing and transportation,” said Robin Berthier, Network Perception CEO and Co-Founder. “This infusion of funding will allow us to take network security to a new level, bringing greater control and visibility to administrators, and eliminating potential weaknesses before they are exposed. In today’s operational technology environment, this is not only important, but imperative.” Network Perception has a long history in Champaign-Urbana. The company began receiving startup support services from EnterpriseWorks in 2012.  located at the EnterpriseWorks incubator from 2014-2019 and now resides in Chicago. During its startup journey Network Perception received I-Start funding, SBIR funding, and EIR support. Network Perception came about as a result of work conducted through the Trustworthy Cyber Infrastructure for the Power Grid project, funded from 2009-2015 by the Department of Energy with support from the Department of Homeland Security. Additional grants helped faculty co-founders David Nicol , ECE professor, and former UIUC professor William Sanders, now Dean of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon, transition the technology from academia to the marketplace. Read the full news release here.

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