Indiana Center for Emerging Technologies launches in downtown Evansville
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The Indiana Center for Emerging Technologies, a collaboration between Evansville-based Circular Venture Lab and the University of Evansville’s Center for Innovation and Change, launched in downtown Evansville on Aug. 13. The tech research firm and venture partner works with startups, industry leaders and research labs to support southwest Indiana’s innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The center is led by Logan Jenkins, executive director of Circular Venture Lab, who’s been working with local and regional leaders in industry, education and economic and community development since 2023. Jenkins’ vision for the center was inspired by established entrepreneurial ecosystems in Los Angeles, San Diego and Denver.
In a news release, Jenkins said he “felt the Evansville region, a multimodal transportation gateway and home to multiple national and global industry leaders, needed better connections to agencies and universities across the state, the Midwest and the nation.”
ICET will hold an introductory event on Thursday at 5 p.m. at Innovation Pointe, located at 318 Main St. Tech enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and industry professionals can register online to attend the gathering and learn how they can work together to create new growth ventures and company spinoffs.
About ICET
ICET supports high-tech startups and high-skill tech job creation in the Evansville area by researching, evaluating and validating the market potential of emerging technologies.
“Emerging technologies are innovative advancements with the potential to disrupt industries and society. They represent the cutting edge of technological development, often characterized by rapid evolution and broad applications. Examples include artificial intelligence, robotics and advanced manufacturing technologies like 3D printing,” Jenkins said in the release.
The center serves multiple purposes, including fostering regional partnerships and luring skilled workers.
“ICET is a resource center for industry leaders to explore collaborations between academia, government research agencies and Indiana manufacturers,” said Jenkins. ”Our center attracts new entrepreneurs and industries to southwest Indiana, spurs the creation of new startups and spinoffs and helps to retain our current entrepreneurial talent.”
The center also plays a role in making relevant connections and highlighting industry proficiencies.
“Engagement with our network in Evansville and across the state to help startups strengthen capabilities and reach funding and commercialization milestones,” Jenkins said. “The center allows our regional industry leaders a digital and physical space to showcase their technological capabilities and strengths.”
Dr. Jason Salstrom, ICET’s principal, venture partner and technology scout, views the center as a catalyst for companies to thrive in the digital age.
“Businesses can’t compete without staying ahead of the curve on new technology,” said Salstrom in the release. “So we connect industry to startups, universities and federal labs to help executives make the hard choices necessary to stay competitive.”
Getting started
Funding from the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Small Business Administration helped develop ICET as a centralized research and collaboration hub. This year, Circular Venture Lab received four awards totaling $331,000 for its work in technology transfer initiatives, economic development and regional collaboration.
“We’ve done some great work already with partners from the University of Evansville’s Center for Innovation and Change and the Evansville Regional Economic Partnership,” said Jenkins. “Now we have a formal center to work with industry leaders in manufacturing, healthcare and a wide variety of emerging technologies across these sectors.”
Jenkins told Inside INdiana Business winning $50,000 in stage one of the SBA’s 2024 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition was particularly notable.
“There were only two awardees from the state of Indiana across the United States. The other one was [TechPoint through the] Central Indiana Corporate Partnership or CICP. That’s pretty significant for our newly established center to be awarded the same recognition that CICP received because they’ve been established for 25+ years,” he said.
Salstrom got involved with ICET after more than a decade of work in industry, academia and government. He launched the Eagle Innovation Accelerator at the University of Southern Indiana as well as Purdue@WestGate and WestGate@Crane Technology Park in Odon.
“I was excited about joining the center because of the opportunity to provide some focus on growing and attracting startups that are specifically relevant to our region. They will have a competitive advantage for growing in this region because of the nature of the industry clusters that we have here. And those industry clusters will benefit from the startups that we cultivate locally and attract from elsewhere,” Salstrom said.
Jenkins said ICET’s long-term goals include supporting existing and new startups and creating high-wage jobs. In the short term, the center will build a foundation to achieve those goals.
“A lot of the initial work is in the discovery of startups in the region and speaking with and meeting with those startups. And the same can be said for industry. It’s a lot of discovery of relevant industry leaders and initial meetings with them and identification of specific challenges that they’re facing in our region,” said Jenkins.
Moving forward
Ahead of the ICET launch, Jenkins and Solstrom worked to understand and map out the innovation ecosystem relevant to Evansville area industry clusters and network with potential partners.
“For example, we spent time with HG Ventures in Indianapolis to get to know the startups they’re running through their accelerator right now to understand what their value proposition is and how they might benefit from and be beneficial to the southwest Indiana economy,” Salstrom said.
The pair will host Thursday’s ICET kickoff event in Evansville a day after attending Rally, an innovation conference in Indianapolis that unites companies, universities, entrepreneurs and investors from around the world.
“Part of that [event] is also building that network, building those relationships, bringing back some of the learnings and sharing that with the local stakeholders and the emerging innovation ecosystem in Evansville,” said Salstrom.
Solstrom invites tech enthusiasts and entrepreneurs to the launch event to discover what ICET can offer.
“An outcome we’d like to see from the event on the 29th is some undiscovered startups and innovators that show up and looking for some support, hopefully from corporations,” he said.
Solstrom also described how the gathering will be beneficial for tech industry professionals.
“Helping them engage the innovation ecosystem, universities, federal laboratories and startups, because a lot of that know-how doesn’t exist in corporations, especially small, medium-sized ones. But even the big corporations here, they might have offices in Silicon Valley or Austin or Spain, but they don’t have that capacity here. We might be a bridge to some of those corporations and help develop that locally,” he said.