Get to know the good scientists engineering enzymes to clean up your shampoo.
The Curie Co team is replacing banned chemicals in consumer products with safe and sustainable ingredients.
With Curie Co, the entrepreneur designs alternatives to compounds like parabens that have fallen out of favor with retailers. Erika Milczek founded Curie Co in 2017. The firm engineers biodegradable enzymes to replace some of the more controversial types of chemicals, such as preservatives — like parabens — that Amazon, Target, Walmart, and other large retailers are barring from certain consumer products. …
In the season 3 finale of Disrupt the Continuum, host Clark Buckner and Launch Tennessee interim CEO Van Tucker provide an overview of the extensive resources available to entrepreneurs all across the state.
Van Tucker believes Tennessee is an ideal place to start and grow a business, and it all comes back to community, connection and culture.
“It’s what differentiates us as an ecosystem and as a state. LaunchTN empowers Tennessee’s ecosystem through 12 network partners,” she explained. …
Get to know the entrepreneurial researchers leading the charge in Tennessee’s science- and tech-based innovation. This week, meet Branch Technology.
“Branch is bringing the vision of 3D printed buildings to life” — Architect Magazine February 2019
Branch Technology is an architectural fabricator specializing in construction-scale 3D printing that brings unprecedented design freedom and resource stewardship to the construction industry with a new technology called Cellular Fabrication, or C-Fab®.
C-Fab® combines industrial robotics, proprietary computational-geometry algorithms, and a novel “Freeform” extrusion capability that enables printed material to solidify in free space without support. …
Sumeet Chahal, Regional Executive Director for the Central Region at Bunker Labs, shares the exciting work his team is doing to help veterans create and scale their businesses.
Sumeet Chahal wanted to start a business after serving in the Marines, but he struggled to find the network to make it happen. And Sumeet is not alone in this. After World War II, 45 percent of veterans came home and started their own businesses, but today, that number has fallen to only 4.5 percent.
“Those of us that served in the military walked away from the largest network we’ve ever known once we got out — whether we retire or serve our time and get out. And we never leverage that network after,” Chahal explained. “And so the premise was, if we got these people together in a room, could we help each other launch or scale our companies?” …
Abby Trotter and Ted Townsend, executive director and chairman of the board of Life Science Tennessee, respectively, explain how Tennessee’s life science sector is aiding in economic development.
Abby Trotter and Ted Townsend believe life science is one of the most important industries for improving people’s lives, and that work is more critical than ever in the midst of COVID-19.
“There’s really only one industry that can meet this challenge, to combat and eradicate the threat of this virus and unlock the arrested economy, and that’s the life sciences,” Townsend explained. …
Jim Biggs and Brandon Bruce, executive director and board chair of the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center, respectively, share some insight into the factors that set Knoxville apart as a hub of entrepreneurship.
For Jim Biggs, one of the best parts of working with Knoxville’s entrepreneurs is getting to see companies succeed across an incredibly diverse range of industries.
“One of the strengths of our community is that we’re able to accommodate just about any kind of business growing and succeeding here,” he shared. …
Get to know the entrepreneurial researchers leading the charge in Tennessee’s science- and tech-based innovation. This week, meet Purist.
Purist is developing a technology to enable a distributed network of small-scale and underutilized nuclear reactors to produce high-purity radioactive ingredients for nuclear medicine applications. What differentiates Purist is the capability to concentrate the radioisotope product, during the production process itself, to produce a high purity radioactive ingredient that can be used in medical applications.
Ben Ferguson and Lisa Garner, cofounder and executive director of theCO, share some exciting updates on the work they’re doing to foster entrepreneurship and economic development in West Tennessee.
With theCO, what started as a Taco Thursday gathering for Ben Ferguson and his friends turned into a crucial resource for entrepreneurs and business owners in Jackson and the surrounding communities.
“At theCO, a lot of what we’re doing is asking, ‘What do you need and how can we help?’” Ferguson explained. “It all started over tacos on Thursdays.”
In this episode of Disrupt the Continuum, Ferguson, along with Garner, explain how theCO is supporting entrepreneurship and economic development in West Tennessee. They also share some exciting success stories of businesses in the area. …
Heath Guinn, President and Executive Director of Sync Space, describes the mutually beneficial relationship that he sees between rural communities and entrepreneurs.
Heath Guinn believes his community in the Tri-Cities has something special to offer, an ideal environment for entrepreneurship.
“We have our flag in the ground around how rural companies can succeed in a region such as ours,” he said. “The focus on rural as a positive, not as a negative, actually puts us in a position to be one of the nation’s leaders for rural health and rural innovation.”
In this episode of Disrupt the Continuum, Guinn shares how he and the team at Sync Space are supporting entrepreneurs as Launch Tennessee’s newest network partner. He also explains why the Tri-Cities region is an excellent place to start and grow a company. …
Leslie Smith, Founding CEO of Epicenter Memphis and current national director for Gender Equality in Tech Cities, explains why entrepreneurial communities are uniquely suited to rise to the occasion in the midst of setbacks.
Even as COVID-19 has had devastating economic impact, Leslie Smith recognizes that sometimes a crisis is exactly what entrepreneurs need to find new motivation and purpose. She’s spent the last five years building an entrepreneurial community in Memphis, and throughout 2020 she’s seen those efforts pay off in a new way.
“I think crisis breeds an extraordinary level of risk-taking that doesn’t necessarily exist in normal times,” she explained. “Now that doesn’t mean we haven’t been successful over the last five years in creating change and catalytic partnerships, but I do think that we wake up every day encouraging and incenting those behavior changes, and in a crisis, they occur more naturally.” …
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