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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

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    Yahoo turned 25 this week

    Since 1995, Yahoo has been connecting people to their passions and amplifying what matters most to them. Yahoo pioneered communications with Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Mail as the internet was booming.  As the company grew, Yahoo became the premier destination for content including News, Sports, and Finance. Now, Yahoo is part of Verizon Media  with over 900 million visitors from across the globe. If you would like to build products which impact millions and change the world, see below for the exciting work Yahoo does in the Research Park. Verizon Media Group’s Data Measurements and Insights team works on one of the biggest online advertising and audience data sets in the world. They are responsible for providing fast, clean, and relevant data for VMG’s advertising businesses as well as key measurements and insights about VMG users. Verizon Media is developing next generation technologies to enrich their advertiser and user experience through complex, scalable data platforms, with ever growing and interesting challenges. The Big Data Platforms team powers the most demanding Big Data applications in the industry on some of the largest Hadoop clusters ever built. Yahoo pioneered this level of scale with Hadoop, and Verizon Media continues to be a leader in this space. The team is made up of several PMCs (Program Management Committee members) and Committers in key Apache open source projects like Hadoop, Storm, and Tez, just to name a few. Leadership keeps Verizon Media at the forefront of these projects, both directionally and technically. If you want to work with Hadoop, Storm, or Spark and get a deep understanding of cloud computing, this is the team for you. Fun Fact: Did you know that Yahoo was the first tech company ever to implement emoticons ? Come see what Verizon Media Group is doing in the Silicon Prairie, in Champaign, Illinois!

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    Genective Opens Global Headquarters at University of Illinois Research Park

    Champaign, Illinois (March 6, 2020) – Genective, a joint venture established between Limagrain and KWS to develop transgenic traits for corn, opened its global headquarters today at the University of Illinois Research Park. “We have been expanding investment and team in the U.S. with the vision of growing Genective into a globally impactful contributor to agriculture through biotechnology,” said Qiaoni Linda Jing, President and CEO of Genective. “Today’s grand opening of our global headquarters is a major milestone.  When it comes to agtech, few ecosystems are more progressive than the one at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. We look forward to being part of and contributing to this vibrant community.” “This university was a foundational force in plant sciences, molecular genetics and genomics for agriculture. Those strengths were really at the core of our expansion into the engineering and technological aspects of ag research that have been so important in these past decades. So, it is exciting to have a major force in those disciplines take up a new residence,” said Robert J. Jones, Chancellor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Genective’s Champaign facility includes state-of-the-art labs as well as open office space. Its field research facility will remain in Weldon, Ill., about 30 minutes away. About Genective Genective is a 50/50 joint venture between Limagrain and KWS, two of the world’s largest seed companies. With entities and activities in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia, Genective is currently dedicated to the research, development, and commercialization of transgenic traits.  For more information, visit the Genective website.

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    AgTech Innovation Summit a Success Once Again

    The AgTech Innovation Summit was a success again this year. The 2020 AgTech Summit brought together the brightest minds in agtech for the fifth year. This year’s event included remarks from industry thought leaders including Bayer’s Senior Vice President of Open Innovation and Strategic Partnerships Allen Christian who said, “The future of agricultural innovation lies in the hands of the next generation of talented students. The AgTech Summit is a great example of how bringing people from across scientific disciplines together can help shape a more sustainable future for one of the world’s most important industries. At Bayer, we are proud to partner with the University of Illinois through our Innovation Center in the Research Park and as a sponsor the AgTech Summit.” The 2020 panels included discussions on investment, collaboration, and digital disruption in the agtech industry, including a discussion from growers and producers at the front lines of farming in a digital age. In addition to the unique mix of panel discussions, startup companies gave brief presentations on their technology, their company, and their plans for the future. The day concluded with the AgTech Showcase and Networking Event, a first for the Summit. The showcase not only allowed agtech companies to show off their technology, but it also provided the opportunity for the community to connect with Research Park companies, discover innovative technologies and network with industry leaders. The AgTech Summit is a collaboration between the University of Illinois Research Park, the University of Illinois, College of ACES, and the Office of Corporate Relations. Thank you to the generous sponsors who make this year’s event possible:  Bayer and The Climate Corporation, John Deere, Kin + Carta, Google Cloud, Corteva, COUNTRY Financial, AGCO, Land O’Lakes, and the Illinois Center for Digital Agriculture. 2020 Agenda Wednesday March 4, 2020 7:30 AM: REGISTRATION AND CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST 8:00 AM: WELCOME AND OPENING REMARKS Laura Frerichs | Executive Director, University of Illinois Research Park Chancellor Robert Jones | Chancellor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 8:10 AM: PLATINUM SPONSOR REMARKS Sam Eathington | Chief Science Officer, The Climate Corporation 8:25 AM: MORNING KEYNOTE ADDRESS Keith Narr | Vice President, Digital Labs and Data, Cargill 9:15 AM: COMPANY PRESENTATION Chinmay Soman | Co-Founder & CEO, EarthSense 9:30 AM: INVESTMENT IN AGTECH: A MATURING INDUSTRY? Moderator: Harlee Sorkin | Managing Director, Common Place Holdings Dennis Beard | Managing Partner, Serra Ventures Nancy Sullivan | CEO & Managing Partner, Illinois Ventures Dean Didato | Partner, Innova Memphis Abby Taubner | Partner, Gener8tor 10:20 AM: BREAK 10:35 AM: COMPANY PRESENTATION Rex Hess | Director of Science, Epivara 10:50 AM: COMPANY PRESENTATION Gabriel Burks | Senior Polymer Scientist, FrostDefense Envirotech 11:05 AM: DIGITAL DISRUPTION IN AGRICULTURE: MODERNIZING THE VALUE CHAIN Moderator: Vikram Adve | Co-Director, Center for Digital Agriculture Mark Moran | Director, John Deere Technology Innovation Center John Rahiya | Senior Manager, Business Development Global Fuse at AGCO Scott Hermes | Senior Director of Solution Delivery, Kin + Carta 12:00 PM: LUNCH 12:20 PM: AFTERNOON KICKOFF 12:35 PM: MOORE INNOVATION PRIZE 12:40 PM:  COMPANY PRESENTATION Kaiyu Guan | Chair, Aspiring Universe 12:55 PM: AFTERNOON FIRESIDE CHAT Moderator:  Laura Frerichs | Executive Director, University of Illinois Research Park Teddy Bekele | Chief Technology Officer, Land O’Lakes 1:30 PM: BREAK 1:45 PM: GROWERS AND PRODUCERS: PREPARING FOR THE NEXT GENERATION Moderator: Holly Spangler | Editor, Prairie Farmer Michael Ganschow | Farmer & Co-Owner, Ganschow Farms Jake Nims | Agricultural Engineer, Frank & West Environmental Engineers Leslie Cooperband | President & Co-owner, Prairie Fruits Farms & Creamery Jason Lakey | Farmer, Lakey Farms Brian Corkill | Owner, B.A. Farms Michael Haag | Past President, Illinois Pork Producers Association 2:45 PM: COMPANY PRESENTATION Daphne Preuss | Co-founder & President, BlooMD Shawn Carlson | Senior Scientist, BlooMD 3:00 PM: CORPORATIONS AND COLLABORATION: INDUSTRY LEADERS ON THE STATE OF AGRICULTURE Moderator: Dean Kim Kidwell |  Dean, University of Illinois College of ACES Allen Christian | Senior Vice President, Open Innovation and Strategic Partnerships, Bayer Crop Science Neal Gutterson | Chief Technology Officer, Corteva Agriscience Paul Bloom | Vice President of Process & Chemical Research, ADM Aaron Schacht | Vice President of Innovation Regulatory & Business Development, Elanco Animal Health 3:55 PM: CLOSING REMARKS 4:00 PM: AGTECH SHOWCASE AND NETWORKING EVENT

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    EnterpriseWorks Events News Recognition & Awards Research Park

    Aspiring Universe Corporation Awarded 2020 Edwin Moore Family Agriculture Innovation Prize

    Champaign, Illinois (March 5, 2020) – Aspiring Universe Corporation, a company that provides in-depth intelligence and cost-effective assessments of farmland, is the recipient of the 2020 Edwin Moore Family Agriculture Innovation Prize. The award, generously funded by University of Illinois alumni and their families, rewards University of Illinois entrepreneurs focusing on agricultural innovations. Ed Moore and Penny DeYoung, members of the Moore family, presented the award to Aspiring Universe Corporation founder Kaiyu Guan during the Agriculture Technology Innovation Summit on March 4 in Champaign. Aspiring Universe’s technology takes a modern approach to risk management integrating artificial intelligence, remote sensing, and financial risk models to create customized risk modeling assessments for farm-related businesses. The company occupies an office at EnterpriseWorks, the technology incubator in the Research Park. Guan is a Blue Waters Assistant Professor in ecohydrology and remote sensing in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Edwin Moore Agriculture Innovation Fund was established in 2016 with a generous gift to EnterpriseWorks, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s technology incubator. Its goal is to encourage startup companies engaged in development of new innovative technologies that may lead to increased productivity and/or efficiency in farming, or to create new agricultural opportunities, including new processes, new crops, and new food production systems. Previous winners include, TellTail (2019), EarthSense (2018) and Soil Diagnostics (2017). In addition to the prize given at the AgTech Innovation Summit, a second Edwin Moore Agriculture Innovation Fund award is at stake as part of the Cozad New Venture Competition, the university’s signature competition for student startups. It will be awarded in April. About the Edwin Moore Family Agriculture Innovation Prize The award honors the legacy of Edwin E. Moore (1924), who graduated from the University of Illinois College of Agriculture and began farming in Will County. Throughout his agricultural career, he and wife, Iva, used innovative farming practices for both crop production and livestock management. Two of their four children became farmers, Edwin and Thomas (1953, College of Agriculture), and continued use of innovative farm practices. Subsequent generations of Edwin Moore’s family have continued to pursue farming and ag related careers capturing the same innovative spirit. About the Research Park at the University of Illinois The Research Park at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a technology hub for startup companies and corporate research and development operations. Within the Research Park there are 120 companies employing students and full-time technology professionals. More information at researchpark.illinois.edu.

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    New AgTech Accelerator Launched in Champaign

    Wisconsin-based startup accelerator program gener8tor announced it’s launching two new programs in Champaign that are focused on innovation in the agriculture industry. gener8tor will bring its gBETA accelerator model to Champaign in a program called gBETA AgTech, which will offer early-stage startups a free, seven-week accelerator and a $25,000 investment. The first gBETA AgTech accelerator will begin this summer and is designed to help five young startups gain customer traction and improve their business models. gener8tor also announced it’s launching an annual gener8tor AgTech accelerator that will bring top agriculture-tech startups from across the world to Champaign for a 12-week accelerator program. The program will select five startups who will receive a $100,000 investment and connect with gener8tor’s network of mentors, corporate partners and investors. The startups will also receive office space from gener8tor. Both programs are currently accepting applications. The programs are being run in partnership with Champaign-based VC firm Serra Ventures. The accelerators are also backed by Agri-Fab, Fox Development, GEM Realty Capital, The UIUC Research Park, the University of Illinois and The Champaign County Economic Development Corporation. gener8tor, which is regularly ranked as one of the top accelerators in the U.S. by the Seed Accelerator Rankings Project, has expanded its programs to cities across the country in recent years, including Detroit, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Houston and Los Angeles. The new agtech programs represent the group’s first accelerators in the state of Illinois. “We wanted to design programs that combined the core competencies and network of our Champaign-based corporate partners with a frictionless investment model to attract the best startups from around the world,” Troy Vosseller, co-founder of gener8tor, said in a statement. Read the full article here.

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    Events Features News Research Park

    SBIR Road Tour to Make Champaign-Urbana Visit in June

    UPDATE: This event has been postponed until Thursday, October 22. More information is available on the SBIR Road Tour website https://www.sbirroadtour.com/. The U.S. Small Business Administration announced today the launch of its 17-state SBIR Road Tour, which includes a stop in Champaign-Urbana on June 3-4, hosted by University of Illinois Research Park at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. The Road Tour will connect entrepreneurs working on advanced technology to one of the country’s largest source of early stage funding – the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs. “SBA is focused on helping small businesses grow and expand. The $4 billion in federal early stage funding is often a critical piece to maturing an entrepreneur’s research idea into a product or service. The Road Tours bring the federal managers to the entrepreneur and target areas and individuals that are underrepresented when it comes to receiving federal R&D funding,” said SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza. “This tour reflects our continued commitment to ensure those innovators are aware of SBIR/STTR program resources.” This will be the sixth year of the SBIR Road Tour, led by the SBA’s Office of Investment and Innovation together with 11 participating federal agencies. More information, including a detailed agenda and registration, will be released in March. NATIONAL SBIR ROAD TOUR SCHEDULE 2020: The Midwest Tour will run from June 1-5, with stops in Omaha, Nebraska; St. Louis, Missouri; Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and Bloomington, Indiana. The Southeast Tour will run from April 13-17, with stops in Richmond, Virginia; Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina; Columbia, South Carolina; and Atlanta/Athens, Georgia. The Rockies Tour will run from August 10-14, with stops in Bozeman, Montana; Idaho Falls, Idaho; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Laramie, Wyoming. Finally, the Central Southern Tour will run from November 2-6, with stops in Jackson, Mississippi; Shreveport, Louisiana; Dallas, Texas; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Fayetteville, Arkansas. Small technology firms, innovators, scientists or researchers seeking more information on the SBIR Road Tour, including a schedule of stops and participating agencies should visit: https://www.sbirroadtour.com/. For more information about SBIR/STTR programs, please visit https://www.sbir.gov/. About SBIR/STTRSBA coordinates the SBIR/STTR programs, also known as America’s Seed Fund, which each year provides more than $3.7 billion in early stage seed capital totaling over 5,000 awards to small businesses. Eleven participating federal government agencies announce funding opportunities as either grants or contracts to address their research and development needs. Companies supported by the SBIR/STTR programs often generate some of the most important breakthroughs each year in the U.S.  Additional information about the programs, as well as past and current topics can be found at www.sbir.gov. About the U.S. Small Business AdministrationThe U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) was created in 1953 and is a Cabinet-level agency of the federal government to aid, counsel, assist and protect the interests of small business concerns, to preserve free competitive enterprise and to maintain and strengthen the overall economy of our nation.  The SBA helps Americans start, build and grow businesses, and recover from disasters.  Through an extensive network of field offices and partnerships with public and private organizations, the SBA delivers its services to people throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam. To learn more about SBA, visit www.sba.gov.

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    Revolution Medicines, EnterpriseWorks Graduate, Went Public

    Revolution Medicines is publicly traded as of February 12, 2020. The EnterpriseWorks graduate filed its initial public offering on January 17 for $100 million. According to Nasdaq on February 11, 2020, Revolution Medicines raised its proposed deal size to $231 million by offering over 10 million shares between $16 and $17. The company raised $238 million when the stock opened at $17 per share on February 12. It  is listed on the Nasdaq under the symbol RVMD. Revolution Medicines was founded at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign by researchers Mark Goldsmith, David Pompliano, and  Martin Burke. Burke was a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign at the time of founding the company in 2015. In addition to his affiliations with the Beckman Institute, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, and the Biochemistry department, Burke is now the Associate Dean for Research and Professor at the Carle Illinois College of Medicine. He serves as the scientific advisory board chairman for Revolution Medicines, while Goldsmith serves as the president, CEO and board director. Revolution Medicines is a “clinical-stage precision oncology company focused on developing novel targeted therapies to inhibit elusive frontier targets within notorious growth and survival pathways, with particular emphasis on RAS and mTOR signaling pathways.” The company graduated from EnterpriseWorks in 2015, and it announced in July 2019 that it had raised $100 million in series C financing to advance drugs aimed at “frontier targets” in cancer. Currently, Revolution Medicines has raised $232 million from multiple equity financing rounds.

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    AgTech Startup EarthSense Featured in New York Times

    EnterpriseWorks agtech startup EarthSense was featured in an article in the New York Times in its February 13 edition. In the article, co-founder Girish Chowdhary discussed EarthSense’s TerraSentia, a farm robot that uses advanced machine-learning skills to collect and report data in the fields. EarthSense was founded in 2016 by University of Illinois researchers and entrepreneurs Chinmay Soman and Girish Chowdhary.  Since their start, the company has developed an agricultural robotics and AI platform with three key applications: (1) developing the next generation of more productive and sustainable crops, (2) helping growers obtain actionable intelligence from their fields, and (3) managing problems like herbicide resistant weeds.

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    Research Park 2019 Year in Review

    2019 was a great year for the University of Illinois Research Park. In 2019, employment in the Research Park grew, ground was broken for several development projects, and many tech startups graduated from the EnterpriseWorks incubator. Here is a glimpse of the Research Park 2019 Year in Review: Research Park has experienced significant employment growth in the past five years. In 2015, the number of employees at Research Park was at 1,574. In 2019, employment reached a record of nearly 2,200 employees including 875 student interns from multi-disciplines. Three new innovation centers joined the Research Park in 2019. BP, Procter  & Gamble, and Motorola Solutions opened their doors at the Park to advance their technology and engage with the campus community. In addition to the new additions to the Research Park, several startups graduated from EnterpriseWorks. Most of these companies stayed local to the Champaign-Urbana area. In fact, 70% of EnterpriseWorks graduates remain in the State of Illinois. In 2019, three projects broke ground in the Research Park. The Illinois Conference Center expansion, the addition of a Greenhouse to support the “Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency” (RIPE) project, and the construction of a multi-tenant building on Fourth Street are in the works with expected completion dates in 2020. On July 1, the governance of the Research Park was transferred from the U of I system to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus. The scope of the Research Park will focus solely on the Urbana-Champaign campus. Throughout 2019, the Research Park hosted over 200 events including the AgTech and Big Data Summits, Women in Tech luncheons, entrepreneurial and intern workshops, and networking and recruiting events. 2019 Year in Review

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    EnterpriseWorks News Recognition & Awards Research Park

    EarthSense selected for John Deere Startup Collaborator program

    EarthSense, a startup located at the EnterpriseWorks incubator, was selected to participate in John Deere‘s 2020 Startup Collaborator program.  This program was started in 2019 to help strengthen Deere’s relationship with startup companies with technology that’s proven beneficial to John Deere customers. EarthSense was one of four companies chosen for this year’s program. John Deere selects startup companies who are transforming agriculture with their technology. The companies selected for the 2020 Startup Collaborator program include: DataFarm – A Brazilian company building digital tools to recommend climate-smart agricultural practices to optimize farmers’ return on investment FaunaPhotonics – A company from Denmark building technology for real-time pest detection to ensure sustainable crop management and improve tools for pest control. Fieldin – An Israeli company working on data management tools for specialty crops EarthSense – A company from Champaign, IL building novel sensing methods to improve in-field data collection EarthSense was founded in 2016 by Chinmay Soman and Girish Chowdhary. The company develops ultracompact autonomous robots that use machine vision and machine learning to collect and convert field data into useful information. Their first robot, TerraSentia, is revolutionizing agriculture. John Deere’s Technology Innovation Center is located at the University of Illinois Research Park. The Research Park provides an collaborative space for startups and corporations, like EarthSense and John Deere, to collide.

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