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B-Start, Bloomington’s business development program, to accept applications through Sept. 20

Posted on by Steve Martin

Luke Mongin of Haven delivers a business pitch during the Demo Day competition portion of the 2019 B-Start pre-accelerator program. Photo courtesy of Jeremy Hogan, Bloomington Economic Development Corp.

Are you interested in launching an innovation-driven business in Bloomington?

Indiana University Bloomington students, faculty and staff with an interest in starting their own company can apply to participate in the 2019-20 cohort of B-Start, a pre-accelerator program, to help launch their for-profit, innovation-driven business in Bloomington.

The five-month B-Start program includes:

  • Individual mentoring by local entrepreneurs, business leaders and young professionals who have experience or interest in starting and scaling companies
  • Group workshops and peer meetups to guide participants through the startup process
  • Demo Day, B-Start’s final event in which entrepreneurs pitch their business plans to judges

The Bloomington Economic Development Corp. will accept applications between Aug. 26 and Sept. 20 from Monroe County residents to join the fifth annual B-Start cohort. B-Start is scheduled to run from September to March. Group workshops will take place on Tuesdays from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at various co-working and startup spaces.

Ellyn Sallee, project/development manager at the Bloomington Economic Development Corp., said a wide variety of entrepreneurs and startups have participated in B-Start throughout its history.

Ellyn Sallee

“B-Start has graduated 27 companies since it launched in 2015. Given great demand from past program applicants, this year we have already increased our mentor capacity, allowing us to accept more entrepreneurs into our program for the 2019-20 session,” Sallee said. “We are committed to advancing our community’s innovation-driven and high-growth companies, ultimately creating new jobs and strengthening Monroe County’s entrepreneurship ecosystem.”

Haven Software, founded by then-IU student Luke Mongin, won first place and $2,500 in the 2019 Demo Day competition. The company is a cloud-based software as a service platform that centralizes and manages all core functions of a small business. Hunger Curbed, founded by then-IU student Kennedy Brown and current IU student Zach Simunic, won second place and $1,500.

Women, minorities, veterans and members of other underrepresented groups are encouraged to apply. For more information and to apply for B-Start, please visit the program’s website.

How attending BIO benefits me and my company, and can benefit you

Posted on by IU Communications

By Nathan J. Alves, CEO and co-founder, Indiana Lysis Technologies LLC; assistant professor, Indiana University School of Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine

Faculty, staff and students at Indiana University campuses and academic centers who seek to develop long-lasting, valuable partnerships across academia and industry should look into the annual BIO International Convention. I highly recommend attending; the conference provides many opportunities that can benefit academic and business interests.

Nathan Alves

BIO is the world’s largest trade association representing all things biotech-related in the United States and more than 30 other nations. The organization hosts an annual international convention in a major American city that draws more than 18,000 attendees. It is a major networking hub that provides a unique, speed-dating-like, one-on-one partnering system that links pharma and biotech executives, academia, and investors in one place. In 2018, the convention set the Guinness World Record for the “Largest Business Partnering Event” with 46,916 partnering meetings over four days.

I have had the pleasure of attending three BIO International Conventions. The first I attended as a student volunteer while I was a Ph.D. student at Notre Dame. That opportunity gave me access to the convention and exhibitor hall at a significantly reduced fee. It also served as an eye-opening experience, demonstrating just how important networking and building business relationships can be.

That was evidenced when I was invited back to speak on panel a few years later regarding my experiences with founding a company, Indiana Lysis Technologies LLC. As the company’s co-founder and CEO, I attended my third BIO this past year as a Start-Up Stadium finalist competing against more than 150 international startup companies.

My experiences with BIO have all been fulfilling and valuable, and I will continue to leverage the business relationships that I have developed through attending it as my career both in academia and business progresses. You should, too.

IU researchers map global economy in collaboration with LinkedIn

Posted on by IU Communications

The study revealed large-scale associations between industries and people across the globe. Each circle represents a specific geo-industrial cluster with its size proportional to its number of employees.

A small team of researchers at Indiana University has created the first global map of labor flow in collaboration with the world’s largest professional social network, LinkedIn. The work is reported in the journal Nature Communications.

The study’s lead authors are Jaehyuk Park and Ian Wood, Ph.D. students working with Yong Yeol “Y.Y.” Ahn, a professor at the IU School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering in Bloomington.

Yong-Yeol Ahn. Photo courtesy the IU School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering..

According to the researchers, the study’s result represents a powerful tool for understanding the flow of people between industries and regions in the U.S. and beyond. It could also help policymakers better understand how to address critical skill gaps in the labor market or connect workers with new opportunities in nearby communities.

The study showed some unexpected connections between economic sectors, such as the strong ties between credit card and airline industries. It also identified growing industries during the study period from 2010 to 2014, including the pharmaceutical and oil and gas industries — with in-demand skills such as team management and project management — as well as declining industries, such as retail and telecommunications.

The study revealed large-scale associations between industries and people across the globe. Each circle represents a specific geo-industrial cluster with its size proportional to its number of employees.

IU researchers created the map using LinkedIn’s data on 500 million people between 1990 and 2015, including about 130 million job transitions between more than 4 million companies. The researchers gained access to this rare data as one of only 11 teams selected to participate in the inaugural LinkedIn Economic Graph Research program in 2015. They later became one of only two teams — IU and MIT — selected to continue their work beyond 2017. The team worked closely with LinkedIn engineers, including Michael Conover, a graduate of the IU School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering and a senior data scientist at LinkedIn at the time of the study.

In a blog post on LinkedIn, Park compares the study to a “roadmap” to the future economy since the first step in any journey requires understanding the current landscape.

“We expect this study will provide a powerful foundation for further systematic analysis of geo-industrial clusters in the context of business strategy, urban economics, regional economics and international development fields — as well as providing useful insights for policymakers and business leaders,” he said.

Other authors on the study are Elise Jing of IU, Souvik Ghosh of LinkedIn and Azadeh Nematzadeh of S&P Global, who contributed to the study as a Ph.D. student at IU. Wood is currently a software engineer at LinkedIn.

IU researchers at LinkedIn headquarters in 2015. From left, Azadeh Nematzadeh, Michael Conover, Jaehyuk Park, Yong Yeol “Y.Y.” Ahn, Yizhi Jing and Ian Wood. Photo courtesy LinkedIn.

Meet Indiana University-connected startups: Hunger Curbed

Posted on by Steve Martin

Kennedy Brown and Zach Simunic are the founders of Hunger Curbed, which they launched in 2019. The company serves food truck operators and their customers. They won second place in Demo Day, the final event of the B-Start pre-accelerator program organized by the Bloomington Economic Development Corp. Brown is an alumna of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University Bloomington; Simunic is a senior in the Kelley School.

Zach Simunic (left) and Kennedy Brown (right)

Kennedy Brown: Food truck operators are looking to make their marketing efforts as pain-free as possible. Hungry foodies are looking for accurate information — like location, menu, hours of operation — that they have grown accustomed to from brick-and-mortar food businesses. Because traditional mediums are not optimized for mobile businesses, most food trucks are losing out on the opportunity to engage with their customers and create a loyal following.

CC: How does Hunger Curbed address those challenges?

Zach Simunic: We simplify how food trucks communicate with their customers. We automatically distribute accurate and timely information, like location and menu, to our native platform and platforms where they might already engage with customers. By creating an accessible, accurate digital profile, we legitimize the business in the customers’ minds and allow truck operators to efficiently develop loyalty among customers.

 CC: What are the next steps to advance Hunger Curbed?

KB: We are currently building an SMS chat system to be deployed in Bloomington. This is the first iteration of what will become a larger system of products that will be deployed across web, mobile application and current marketing channels. We chose to test in Bloomington for its proximity to targeted cities and its diverse, engaged campus population that mimics urban populations like the ones we hope to find success in. We are also actively looking for talent to join us on our quest to create a more trusting and efficient relationship between food trucks and their customers.

CC: What are your thoughts about Bloomington’s entrepreneurial ecosystem?

KB: Our company has benefited greatly from Bloomington’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. The combination of the university and local companies creates an ideal community where students can start, build and grow a company while learning from faculty, community leaders and fellow students.

The Bloomington environment is incredibly unique. Options and a variety of resources — like StartupIU and the Shoemaker Innovation Center on campus, and the Dimension Mill, B-Start and the Indiana Small Business Development Center — are key points that any student interested in pursuing an idea should take advantage of. People are starting to choose to build companies in the Midwest, and it’s encouraging to see students using Bloomington as their launchpad to act on their entrepreneurial urges.

Indiana Data Partnership launch powers multi-sector collaboration

Posted on by Steve Martin

 

 

By Ashley Hungate, Management Performance Hub

The Indiana Data Partnership is launching to empower collaboration among government, nonprofit and private-sector entities to drive positive change in key challenges impacting Hoosiers.

IDP is an enhancement to the Indiana state government’s Management Performance Hub, which provides data analytics solutions tailored to address management and policy questions, enabling improved outcomes for Hoosiers. Formed in partnership with Indiana University, this enhancement expands MPH’s mission by creating a secure, replicable and sustainable framework that helps organizations successfully partner to maximize holistic solutions and minimize duplication of efforts through sharing and viewing common data. Another benefit is the creation of better visualizations of organizations’ service networks.

A news release about the launch of the Indiana Data Partnership is online.

Our portfolio grows: Welcome MBX Biosciences and Ziptility

Posted on by IU Communications

By Teri Willey, executive director, IU Ventures and fund manager, Indiana Philanthropic Venture Fund

I am pleased to report that in Q2 2019, we have added two more companies to our portfolio.

Teri Willey

MBX Biosciences is a therapeutics company founded by serial entrepreneurs Kent Hawryluk, who received the 2018 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the School of Science and the School of Science Alumni Association at IUPUI, and Distinguished Professor Richard DiMarchi, the Linda & Jack Gill Chair in Biomolecular Science at IU Bloomington. Ziptility is a software as a service company addressing critical issues for water utilities. This brings us to 12 investments since we launched the fund in March 2018.

As we consider opportunities and make new investments, we will also work to increase the size of the fund through donations. The IU Philanthropic Venture Fund is a donated pool of capital, which allows us to be evergreen: All equity realizations are returned to the fund for reinvestment in support of IU entrepreneurs. Please consider donating through the IU Foundation, contacting me directly if you are interested in making a gift or visiting our website to learn more. Of course, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact Samantha Ginther as well.

Interns Amick, Ma gain real-world experience in patent law, protecting IU intellectual property

Posted on by Steve Martin

Thomas Amick (left) and Ziyu Ma (right)

Work conducted by Indiana University students Thomas Amick and Ziyu Ma to create and hone patent applications will impact lives around the world.

Amick, from Greenfield, Indiana, is a third-year student in the IU McKinney School of Law. Ma, from Jiangsu, China, is a second-year student in the IU Maurer School of Law. They are both interning this summer at the IU Innovation and Commercialization Office in Indianapolis.

In these internship positions, the students enable technology transfer professionals to protect intellectual property developed at all IU campuses and academic centers. The IP — which covers cybersecurity, education, energy, engineering, IT, life sciences, manufacturing, medical devices and other areas — could be licensed by industry, brought to market and improve people’s quality of life.

Crimson Catalyst: What are your duties at the IU Innovation and Commercialization Office? How do they fit into the technology transfer process?

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Equipping the marketing toolbelt: IU Northwest expert leads workshops for nonprofit organizations

Posted on by Steve Martin

On May 13 and 17, almost two dozen nonprofit owners and managers attended workshops led by an Indiana University Northwest expert. They learned about traditional media and social media tools to better market their organizations.

Subir Bandyopadhyay
Subir Bandyopadhyay

Subir Bandyopadhyay, a professor of marketing at IU Northwest’s School of Business and Economics, organized workshops titled “Bringing For-profit Marketing Tools to Nonprofits” on the IU Northwest campus in Gary and at Ivy Tech Community College in East Chicago. He had three objectives for participants: to outline challenges in attracting donors and volunteers; to develop cost-effective social media strategies; and to explore cost-efficient and effective media options to identify, inform and persuade potential donors and volunteers.

Bandyopadhyay said nonprofit organizations in northwest Indiana play a major role in providing social and health care services in the region.

“Unfortunately, most of them lack financial, technological and human resources,” Bandyopadhyay said. “It is critical, therefore, to provide support in these areas to help them succeed in their endeavors.”

Riley Egan, events and outreach associate at Food Bank of Northwest Indiana, attended the workshop at Ivy Tech. The Food Bank distributes more than 4.5 million meals each year to hungry children, adults and seniors across Lake and Porter counties. Egan said it utilizes a lot of the resources discussed in the workshop.

“It was nice to have confirmation that we are headed in the right direction. In addition, it was nice to listen to other nonprofit professionals discuss what challenges they face and how to overcome them,” Egan said. “The Food Bank relies on the generosity and knowledge of many partners within the community. We greatly appreciate our continued partnership with IU Northwest.”

Bandyopadhyay received a $2,200 award from the Regional Economic Development Fund to organize the workshops. The RED Fund is managed by the IU Council for Regional Engagement and Economic Development, or CREED; Bandyopadhyay represents IU Northwest on the council.

The Past and Future of the Economic Club of Indiana

Posted on by IU Communications

By Nasser H. Paydar, chancellor, IUPUI, executive vice president, Indiana University

It was a pleasure and an honor to serve as president of The Economic Club of Indiana this past year. We welcomed a thought-provoking lineup of speakers to Indianapolis, including Tom Bell, president and CEO of Rolls-Royce North America; Deborah Berke, dean of the Yale School of Architecture; Tom Linebarger, chairman and CEO of Cummins; and Maurice A. Jones, president and CEO of the Local Initiatives Support Corp., among many others.

Chancellor Nasser H. Paydar

Such a stellar lineup of speakers attests to the power of this forum to generate provocative conversations about how we can better understand and support the transformation of current business, nonprofit and educational environments. Each luncheon brought together 600 people from Indianapolis and beyond to engage in meaningful and timely conversations about changes in our community and in our world more broadly.

This wide-ranging group, including members and nonmembers, has been changing over the years as younger people move to the city and join the ranks of working professionals.

The Economic Club is keeping up with these changes. It depends entirely on volunteer support, including the deep engagement and guidance of our board of governors. This year we conducted a survey of board members, which resulted in a new structure that will strengthen the club. In addition, we are partnering with the Indiana University Kelley School of Business at IUPUI to develop a sustainable campaign for engaging Central Indiana leaders under the age of 40 in Economic Club activities.

I look forward to the positive changes the Economic Club of Indiana is undergoing and am proud that I was part of the leadership team that has been guiding these efforts. As a platinum sponsor of the Economic Club of Indiana for more than 10 years, IUPUI has long supported this important community forum, which brings visibility to our campus and to the many institutions that make up the fabric of the great city of Indianapolis.

As much as I have enjoyed serving as president and moderating many of the discussions, I am delighted to pass the torch to incoming president Allison Melangton, senior vice president of events with Hulman Motorsports. I look forward to continuing to serve on the board as past president and being an audience member next season.

Meet Indiana University-connected startups: Haven Software

Posted on by Steve Martin

Luke Mongin is founder of Haven Software LLC, which was launched in 2018. The company targets small, service-based businesses with 20 or fewer employees as clients. Mongin won first place in Demo Day, the final event of the B-Start pre-accelerator program organized by the Bloomington Economic Development Corp. Mongin is an alumnus of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University Bloomington.

Luke Mongin

Luke Mongin: I learned in previous consulting projects that current technology is not designed to meet the cross-functional nature of employee roles at small firms. Features and interfaces are often siloed by business unit. This structure often leads to tremendous operational inefficiencies and inaccurate reporting of business information.

Crimson Catalyst: How does Haven Software address those challenges?

LM: Haven, our cloud-based product, is designed to meet the core needs of a small, service-based business by providing an integrated solution for accounting, invoicing, inventory management and customer relationship management, or CRM.

CC: What are the next steps to advance Haven Software?

LM: Development is currently ongoing. Our Minimum Viable Product, or MVP, is over 60 percent complete. Currently, we are accepting interest to participate in our beta program on our website, www.solutionsbyhaven.com.

CC: What are your thoughts about Bloomington’s entrepreneurial ecosystem?

LM: The Bloomington entrepreneurial community is very welcoming to new businesses. There are first-class resources through the IU network for those with ties to the university and within the community, such as The Mill, the Indiana Small Business Development Center, Start-up Mic Night, and so on.

One program that Haven benefited from was B-Start. That 26-week program allowed us to gain insights from individuals in the community, and it was invaluable to the development of the business. Above all, the Midwest spirit encompasses Bloomington, as people are genuinely willing to help one another and celebrate each success.