JACKSON, Mississippi - Ten Mississippi counties will share $75,000 in grants for projects to make them more competitive among companies looking to establish or expand their operations. In its second year, Entergy Mississippi's Excellerator Competitive Communities program, awarded grants for environmental site assessments, website development, marketing and more. "When our…
[press release] WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., Chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet, yesterday chaired a hearing to consider the state of the mobile application economy and ways for Congress to support the development of the industry. (View the video on…
The inaugural MVMT 2018 ("movement") event took place this month at the Jackson Convention Center. The day-long conference presented by C Spire was really two different events—one was a serious cyber security conference for technology professionals and the other was technology fair for students, teachers and the general public. Mississippi…
When Jackson native Nashlie Sephus was working on her doctorate degree at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), she met Jewel Burks. Burks had a startup business idea that came out of her work in customer service at the parts department of a manufacturing company.The idea came from a…
Startup Weekend 2018 in Jackson was a huge success, with nine teams making it through the grueling 54-hour process. Startup Weekend participants begin with initial ideas and team formation on Friday evening, and then go two full days through the process of business planning, customer validation, mentor sessions, prototyping, market…
J.J. Townsend's non-profit business got its start at an Innovate Mississippi-sponsored Startup Weekend in 2016, although Townsend says he initially went in with a somewhat different idea. "The original [pitch] was still CitizenJXN, but the idea was a convoluted 'everything store,'" Townsend said. "It was sort of like 'all things civics.'…
In a "Made in Mississippi" feature article, "Myra Mirrors More Than a Gadget," Callie Daniels Bryant of the Mississippi Business Journal tells the story of Myra Mirrors, a startup founded in Oxford, Mississippi, by Ole Miss students Pontus Andersson and Sam Bertolet. Myra Mirrors makes "smart mirrors," designed to use…
We've got more great coverage to share, this time from WAPT in Jackson, which ran stories all evening this past Tuesday, the same day as our open house and tour of the new Jackson-based Mississippi Coding Academy classroom for legislators and others. In Mississippi Coding Academy Funded with Grants, WAPT's…
WLBT's Roslyn Anderson produced two news stories this week on Innovate Mississippi and the Mississippi Coding Academies—we thank her for communicating our entrepreneurial initiatives and needs so well! In the first story, Coding Academy In Need of Take-Home Laptops, Anderson talks about the Mississippi Coding Academies' inaugural Jackson class of…
One way to increase state budgets and overcome revenue challenges, according to Dr. Glenn Boyce, commissioner of higher education in Mississippi, is to grow Mississippi's economy by encouraging entrepreneurship. With a shout-out to Innovate Mississippi and the work we do to encourage (and find funding for) startup businesses, Dr. Boyce…