Brennen Hodge started Citizen Health to provide a marketplace for direct primary care, an area of healthcare that is poised to explode with growth over the next few years. Brennen Hodge always thought he’d be a doctor, going so far as to pursue a master’s in biomedical science at William…
Innovate Mississippi announced the formation of the Central Mississippi Angel Fund during the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s 2nd Annual Health Innovation and Transformation (HIT) Forum on May 21, 2019 at the Norman C. Nelson Student Union on UMMC’s campus. The Central Mississippi Angel Fund will focus on investing in…
For a new virtual reality research project, the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) has selected Jackson-based Lobaki, Inc. The firm will develop what the two organizations are calling a "Sports Enhancement Virtual Reality Experience." Lobaki will build the software in support of ongoing UMMC-driven research. They hope to create…
Over 100 people in Mississippi's innovation ecosystem—entrepreneurs, economic developers, students and government officials—gathered in Jackson for the fifth annual Mississippi Entrepreneurship Forum, sponsored in part by the McLean Institute for Public Service and Community Engagement. “The forum is designed to bring colleges and universities together in Mississippi to share about…
It’s a little surprising that Mississippi State University student Landon Casey, a Texas native, has founded a company, EM-Boards, built a working prototype of his motorized longboard, and is raising capital. After all, he hasn’t even graduated from college yet. But his company received a $10,000 prototype award from the Mississippi…
The Mississippi Seed Fund has awarded Seed Fund Proof of Concept awards to two companies recently. EM Boards has developed a longboard system that gives the rider the ability to jump over and avoid obstacles. The system is a hybrid electrical-and-mechanical solution centered around the use of a remote, a…
Two great friends of Innovate Mississippi, Dr. Nashlie Sephus and Dr. Julie Cwikla, were honored at the 4th Annual Ada Lovelace Awards. The Ada award was created to celebrate women from around the Southeastern U.S. for their achievements in technology fields. The award ceremony took place in New Orleans at…
From March 1-3, 2019, about 50 people took part in TechStar’s Startup Weekend Jackson, an intensive business accelerator program that Innovate Mississippi locally organized at Coalesce Coworking in downtown Jackson. The title sponsor of the event was the Mississippi Development Authority. The program began with a welcome and opening keynote…
In a world dominated by the lean startup model and the “minimum viable product” approach, Nutech Metals is something of an outlier, having spent nearly six years doing research and development in pursuit of a new technology for body armor. The goal, said Jim Borque, partner and technical lead on…
Conor Ferguson had a slight leg-up on the competition as he graduated from Mississippi State University—he’d already started a wireless Internet company with his dad when he was still in high school. That company offered high-speed access to residential areas where other types of broadband didn't reach. How it works…