Recognition & Awards

The 12th Annual Research Park Table Tennis Tournament took place Tuesday, June 27, and Wednesday, June 28, 2023. It was a great success, with 64 participants from 17 companies across the Research Park playing in 3 categories (beginner, intermediate, and advanced) in a competition for the coveted Golden Paddle.   Here is the full list of winners from each individual bracket:  Beginner  Intermediate  Advanced  The results of Round-Robin games on day one were used to seed participants for the single-elimination tournament played on day two. In these games, companies were awarded points based on the placing of their players. First-place winners received five points; second-place winners received three points; third-place winners received one point. Yahoo!, having received the highest number of points across all brackets, won the Golden Paddle for the 9th time.  More photos from the event can be viewed in our media gallery. Learn more about this event on the Table Tennis Tournament page.

Champaign, Illinois (March 7, 2023) — Eric Miller has been named the recipient of this year’s Glen “GB” Brandt Prize for Ag Entrepreneurism, an award that honors a grower/producer/farmer who exemplifies an entrepreneurial spirit and advances innovation through their business practices. Miller farms 400 acres in Piatt County, where he works extensively with University of Illinois researchers. “Eric is passionate about conserving and efficiently using the resources that make Illinois agriculture so productive and envied. He’s not only given University of Illinois staff access to his entire farm, but for a sufficient period that allows longitudinal studies. This scale and timeframe help identify much more predictable and repeatable ‘proof of concept’ outcomes,” said his nominator, Daniel Schaefer, Director of Nutrient Stewardship at the Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association. The award was announced at the 2023 AgTech Innovation Summit, hosted by the University of Illinois Research Park. Karl Barnhart, Chief Marketing Officer of BRANDT, presented the award to Miller. “Eric is exactly the kind of grower we envisioned that the GB Prize could support when we established it three years ago,” said Barnhart. “Just like Glen Brandt, Eric is a real entrepreneur in the field of production agriculture. On behalf of The BRANDT Foundation, congratulations, Eric.” Miller said he hopes partner with BRANDT as he deploys the award’s $10,000 prize. He recently entered an agreement to expand his farm’s facilities Miller has assisted the University of Illinois with large-scale on-farm research since 2014. During the past eight years, Miller has transitioned his Central Illinois farm into a dedicated crop production improvement site. He performs field operations and collects data per the requirements of projects that are assigned to the farm. The goal is to develop strategies that simultaneously improve yield, environmental and economic outcomes. This crop improvement site is helping to define the future of Illinois agriculture. Some examples of testing that is taking place at the site include long-term monitoring of soil carbon, greenhouse gas emissions, various soil health metrics and yield. The Glen “GB” Brandt Prize for Ag Entrepreneurism was established in 2021 in honor of Glen “GB” Brandt, a legendary figure in the field of Illinois agriculture, who passed away in late 2020. The BRANDT Foundation partnered with the University of Illinois to provide the winner a $10,000 prize. Previous Glen “GB” Brandt Prize for Ag Entrepreneurism winners include: Matt Riggs, 2022 Will Glazik, 2021 About The BRANDT Foundation  The BRANDT Foundation was established in 2012 as a philanthropic extension of BRANDT, Inc. The Brandt family has always stood with their communities and as their company grew, so did the opportunities to give back. The BRANDT Foundation offers donations, grants, and support to the charities, organizations, and communities that reside in the same area of the company; geographically and industry-related. About the AgTech Innovation Summit  The AgTech Innovation Summit is an interactive conference where participants learn and share knowledge about the current state of agtech and get a looking into the future through dynamic panels, inspiring keynote presentations, and networking opportunities. It is produced by the University of Illinois Research Park in partnership with the College of ACES and the Office of Corporate Relations. One of the premier AgTech hubs in the nation, Champaign-Urbana is uniquely positioned to bring together entrepreneurs, investors, academics, and industry for learning, networking, and advancing this sector.

A EnterpriseWorks startup is changing the way that city workers and civil engineers inspect sidewalks for safety. DeepWalk has built a scanning app that makes it easier and more inexpensive to inspect sidewalks on university campuses and municipalities. The app is innovative in that users are trained how to use the program on the device. DeepWalk comes with a wide variety of unique features, including community mapping data, 3D site visit models, self-evalutation templates and automatically generated work orders. All of these tools can help a city to generate their estimated cost for sidewalk repairs in a matter of minutes. Co-founders Brandon Yates and Anshul Shah came up with the app idea in a first-year engineering course at UIUC. Since then, they have participated in the COZAD New Venture Challenge and the iVenture Accelerator program that is sponsored by Gies College of Business. The iVenture Accelerator is a university program that provides a variety of resources and opportunities for student-led entrepreneurial endeavors. “iVenture Accelerator is a safe and helpful place to make a lot of mistakes quickly. It taught us to create a fundraising pitch before we would have on our own,” said Yates.  With the iVenture program, DeepWalk was able to formulate a simple and responsive business model that could appeal to a greater pool of clients. Since DeepWalk’s enrollment in the iVenture program, it has managed to complete a pilot program in Danville, Illinois, and it has confirmed contracts with the University of Maryland, and Western Michigan University. By May 2023, the startup will be used in 15 different cities. As cities continue to grow and the Baby Boomer generation becomes older, there is a greater need for the inspection of sidewalk safety. There is also a greater need for technology that can analyze whether walkways are compliant with American Disability Act (ADA) guidelines. DeepWalk is currently located in the EnterpriseWorks building, where it is working on expanding past its current client base. In the future, the company envisions becoming an automatic measurement company that utilizes drones to scan pathways. Learn more about DeepWalk here.

At the start of the new year, Illinois was ranked tenth in the country for women-led startups by Merchant Maverick, a small business comparison site. This bumped up the state of Illinois’ rating in comparison to previous years. This climb was due to an increase in the overall success rate of businesses and growth in venture capital investments. Research Park has made a large contribution to the creation of women-led startups in Illinois. The Incubator, particularly EnterpriseWorks, has given women that are aspiring to become entrepreneurs the tools and resources they need to transform their idea into a successful organization. Bianca Bailey, CEO and founder of the EnterpriseWorks startup Agriwater, credits much of her success as a woman entrepreneur to the resources offered to her at Research Park. Because of EnterpriseWorks, Agriwater has received funding from the Department of Energy’s Innovation Crossroads Program. “Employing more women administratively within incubators like EnterpriseWorks definitely makes a large impact on women being comfortable to even work in the space,” said Bailey. EnterpriseWorks houses a variety of informational programs and events that are of particular benefit to organizations that are just getting their start. Educational sources, mentee opportunities, as well as groups tailored to helping women entrepreneurs, are all supportive resources that are offered at the Incubator. Having programs like these can really help to encourage women and give them the skills they need to make their great idea a reality. “When you invest in a woman you invest in a community and you invest in improving the rest of the world,” Bailey said.