ATDC - Enterprise Innovation Institute

Serena Williams Lobs Venture Funds to Enterprise Innovation Institute Client Lillii RNB

Barbara Jones-Brown.

ATDC and Georgia MBDA Business Center client Barbara Jones-Brown has received $3 million in venture funding, led by tennis great Serena Williams’ early-stage venture fund. The investment in Jones-Brown’s company, Lillii RNB Inc., will support Freeing Returns, a platform that analyzes product return data to detect fraud.

Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute, home to ATDC and the Georgia MBDA Business Center, first met Jones-Brown in 2015, when she and her team were the grand prize winners of the ATDC FinTech Hack Competition, sponsored by payment processing provider Worldpay.

“I think at least four or five of the problems they wanted to solve during that hackathon were related to [retail] returns. We knew that space very well,” Jones-Brown said. “We took on all of the challenges they had around returns, we built all of that into the application that is now Freeing Returns, and that has gotten us this $3 million investment.”

The hackathon was the beginning of a fruitful relationship with Georgia Tech. She has also worked with the Opportunity Hub at its home in Tech Square, received support from the ATDC following the hackathon win, hired Georgia Tech students as interns and employees, and now is a client of the Georgia MBDA Business Center. “We’ve taken full advantage of having Georgia Tech in the backyard,” she said.

And while the resources Georgia Tech offers have been important – and were, in fact, the catalyst for the development of Freeing Returns – Jones-Brown has also participated in other entrepreneurial programs in Atlanta.

“One of the great values of the Enterprise Innovation Institute is we engage in hand-offs — from external partners and to external partners, as well as within Georgia Tech,” said Enterprise Innovation Institute Vice President David Bridges. “We are a valued connector and capacity builder within the Atlanta and Georgia ecosystem.”

That ecosystem came full circle in 2020. Jones-Brown was graduating from the Morehouse Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center’s Ascend Atlanta program, a small business support program for minority and women-owned companies funded by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Georgia MBDA Business Center Director Donna Ennis spoke at the graduation. Jones-Brown reached out to Ennis and became a client.

“We’re really helping her with capacity building,” Ennis said about the work her program is doing with Jones-Brown. “That’s the coaching that she’s getting and connecting her into different networks. We’ll continue to work with her to try to identify opportunities for her product.”

Meanwhile, Jones-Brown has $3 million to spend. Part of it will support work her company is doing with Salesforce. She’s also recruited new talent into the company, leaders in the retail loss prevention arena, to work on predicting fraud rather than responding to it, she said. “We’re adding artificial intelligence and machine learning to the data analytics that we’re collecting. We will start getting better at predicting the fraud before it happens, so that we can alert retailers to potential fraudulent transactions.”

And it all started with a hackathon at the ATDC.

Enterprise Innovation Institute to Host Spanish Technology Entrepreneurs for Training Series

Georgia Tech Administration and Finance Vice President Kelly Fox (left) and Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology Director General Javier Ponce Martinez sign a letter of intent to create a training program for Spanish technology entrepreneurs. (Photo: Matt Hummel)

In the fall of 2022, Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute will host 20 technology startup founders from the Kingdom of Spain in a training program designed to expose Spanish entrepreneurs to the startup ecosystem in metro Atlanta, Georgia, and the broader United States.

The initiative stems from a collaborative effort between the Enterprise Innovation Institute’s Innovation Ecosystems program and Spain’s Centre Para El Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial (Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology) to develop the training program for Spanish entrepreneurs.

As a part of Spain’s Ministry of Science and Innovation, the government office charged with fostering technological development and innovation of Spanish companies, the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology coordinates the funding and support applications for those startups’ national and international research and development projects. The Centre also manages, including managing Spanish companies’ participation in international technological cooperation programs.

Innovation Ecosystems works with communities, governments, and organizations to help them launch, operate, and sustain successful entrepreneurship and innovation programs.

From left: Georgia Tech Innovation Ecosystems Interim Director Juli Golemi; Kelly Fox; Javier Ponce Martinez; Enterprise Innovation Institute Vice President David Bridges; Centre Technical Innovation Director Carlos de la Cruz Molina; Economic Development Lab Interim Director Lynne Henkiel; and ATDC Director John Avery. (Photo: Matt Hummel)

The early-stage startup founders, who are tentatively scheduled to come to campus for a week in September, would participate in a series of workshops being led by some of the Institute’s flagship ecosystem development programs, including the Advanced Technology Development Center, VentureLab, and the Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business.

Centre leaders — Director General Javier Ponce Martinez and Director of Technical Innovation Carlos de la Cruz Molina — visited the Georgia Tech campus to sign an agreement that establishes a framework for the training and curriculum, which includes an overview of the Georgia ecosystem, lean startup methodology, and innovating for sustainability.

“This is an opportunity to get together to collaborate together towards the future,” Martinez said during the signing ceremony. “The future looking at sustainability issues, industrial, and social activities. This is the starting point, and a great starting point.”

The organization has collaborations with other countries, but this is its first such effort in the United States.

The Enterprise Innovation Institute — Georgia Tech’s economic development arm — is the largest, most comprehensive, university-based program of entrepreneurship and startup company development, business and industry growth, ecosystem development, international outreach in the United States. As a globally recognized model of university-based economic development, the Enterprise Innovation Institute has hosted a number of international delegations in recent years looking to engage with Georgia Tech and its programs, including from the Bahamas, the United Kingdom, France, Argentina, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and South Africa.

“We are celebrating connecting globally and inclusive innovation and this agreement is at the heart of a space that is very important to the Institute,” said Georgia Tech Administration and Finance Vice President Kelly Fox, who signed the agreement on behalf of the Institute. “We’re honored that you are working with us, and we look forward to seeing how this grows from there.”

Enterprise 6 Students Share Experiences in Working on Economic Development Projects

Six Georgia Tech students spent the summer working on various economic development projects as embedded Enterprise 6 (E6) interns in the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI²).

The six interns were selected from more than 200 students who applied for the slots for the inaugural internship cohort.

The 13-week, paid internship was funded by the Office of the Executive Vice President for Research and open to all Tech undergraduate and graduate students.

As Georgia Tech’s economic development arm, EI² is comprised of a dozen programs across a host of sectors ranging from manufacturing and technology entrepreneurship, to minority business and community and regional planning and development.

“We were really excited about this opportunity and grateful for the support from EVPR’s office,” said David Bridges, EI²’s interim vice president. “We had students from a variety of disciplines including industrial engineering and economics and city planning.

“One of our goals with this was to show these students how they could use what they are learning in the classroom and the skills they are learning all have uses and applications in economic development.”

The students worked on challenging projects that allowed them to use their skills and classroom learning and apply that to economic development initiatives.

Mansi Mahajan, a graduate student studying quantitative and computational finance, interned with the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation, a public-private effort launched in 2020 to lead coordinated, statewide efforts to position Georgia as the technology capital of the East Coast.

“We’re building a fund for investing in social impact startups, so I developed the financial model for the process and how it would be forecasted and what the returns would be depending on our investments,” she said. “I hadn’t worked in the finance field as much as I did in this internship, so this I found very rewarding and it was a very great experience working with them.”

For Dylan Both, an economics major in the Ivan Allen College for Liberal Arts, the E6 opportunity was his first internship.

Both worked with the Center for Economic Development Research (CEDR), which works with local communities, governments, and regional economic development organizations on a variety of initiatives, including impact analyses reports, strategic planning, and professional development.

Both researched best practices that communities around the country developed following natural disasters to evaluate for a recovery and resilience plan being created for southwest Georgia.

“Southwest Georgia suffered from Hurricane Michael and COVID. I was finding similar areas, similar regions that suffered from a natural disaster. And whatever best practices we learned from those, we gathered them up, chose which ones would be a good fit, and wrote about it,” he said. “My favorite thing was doing actual meaningful work.”

See what all the students shared about their experiences as E6 interns:

Georgia Institute of Technology Collaborates with Morehouse College and PRENEURology Global to Boost Minority Innovation in Metro Areas

Initiative is part of a federal push to strengthen entrepreneurship, growth, and sustainability for minority business owners across the Southeast.

The Georgia Institute of Technology has partnered with Morehouse College and PRENEURology Global to launch the Southeast Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) Business Growth Hub to serve entrepreneurs and innovators in eight southeastern states.

The two-year pilot is funded by a $1.4 million cooperative agreement from the U.S. Department of Commerce MBDA to establish a collaborative support network for minority entrepreneurs in the Hub, which, along with Georgia, includes Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.

The Southeast MBDA Business Growth Hub will be a valuable resource for programs serving minority business enterprises (MBEs). As a pilot effort, it could serve as a model yielding sustainable economic wealth for minority entrepreneurs in other regions of the country. (For more information about the Hub, please visit: businessgrowthhub.gatech.edu.)

Led by the Atlanta MBDA Centers at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI²), the Southeast MBDA Business Growth Hub will operate virtually and in-person as a regional, blended network of entrepreneur spaces, education pathways, and engagement programs. The Hub will also serve as an access point to corporations, financing, and other government programs. This cohesive, blended network will foster MBE participation in ecosystems. It is designed to overcome the limited participation of minorities in local innovation ecosystems while giving them access to a broader regional network of connections, experiences, and expertise in the eight-state region.

The Hub will operate as a collective partnership of the Atlanta MBDA Centers, Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), the Morehouse Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center (MIEC), and PRENEURology Global.

Donna M. Ennis, C.P.F., is EI2’s director of diversity engagement and program development.

“The goal of the Hub is to connect the ecosystems throughout the Southeast in a way that will provide greater access for all MBEs and entrepreneurs regardless of the stage of their business,” said Donna M. Ennis, C.P.F, EI²director of diversity engagement and program development and the Atlanta MBDA Centers. “We realized while there are highly effective ecosystems throughout the Southeast, minority entrepreneurs often struggle with making viable, long-term connections to enable the acceleration of their products and services to the market.”

ATDC, Georgia Tech’s statewide technology incubator, will host the MBDA@ATDC to attract technology startups and innovators with diverse backgrounds to the program. “The Hub is designed to enhance the reach of services available to entrepreneurs of color by connecting nodes or services like ours together in a more dynamic way through broader regional connections,” said John Avery, ATDC director. “This gives us an opportunity to enhance ATDC’s presence in communities of color while bringing our access to resources and expertise.”

The Morehouse Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center (MIEC) at Morehouse College will help the Hub identify minority-serving institutions (MSIs) — Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other institutions of higher education with predominantly Latino or other minority populations — that have programs and resources aimed at fostering entrepreneurship and building wealth for people of color. “We will form a Southeast cluster of MSI innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems to connect and stimulate the growth of each MSI, said Tiffany Bussey, DBA, executive director of the MIEC. “This partnership will further help us accelerate entrepreneurship among students and faculty at MSIs.”

PRENEURology Global will establish the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Pathways for new relationships within and among MBEs, collective workspaces (traditional and non-traditional hubs), state, regional, and local governments, corporate partners, financing resources, and accelerators/incubators. This approach will create an integrated network of resources to help MBEs grow and scale their businesses. “We’re seeing a lot of business activity in these ecosystems but there is lack of connectivity,” said Le’Kiesha French, CEO of PRENEURology Global, “Our goal is to create more efficiency by eliminating barriers of access to opportunities and resources within the Southeast region for Black, Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) business entrepreneurs so they can experience equitable pathways to starting and growing their businesses.”

About the Atlanta MBDA Centers
As part of a national network of over 40 centers and special projects, the Atlanta MBDA Business and Advanced Manufacturing Centers help MBEs access capital, increase profitability, and scale their businesses. Funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce Minority Business Development Agency, the Atlanta MBDA Centers are part of Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute, the nation’s largest and most comprehensive university-based program of business and industry assistance, technology commercialization, and economic development. To learn more, visit mbdabusinesscenter-atlanta.org.

About the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC)
The Advanced Technology Development Center at Georgia Tech is a startup incubator that helps technology entrepreneurs in Georgia launch and grow successful companies. ATDC is one of the oldest and most successful research university-affiliated incubators in the United States and was named by Forbes as one of the “Top 12 Business Incubators Changing the World.” Founded in 1980, ATDC has fostered innovation and economic development by graduating more than 150 companies, which together have raised over $2 billion in outside financing. To learn more about ATDC, visit atdc.org.

About Morehouse Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (MIEC)
MIEC is a global model for higher education and industry collaborations to foster innovation and entrepreneurial leadership by promoting local and regional economic growth and development with people of color on and off-campus. The Center was established as a unit of Morehouse College in 2004 and has secured grants and contracts worth more than $20 million, impacted over 2,100 students, partnered with more than 17 large mentoring corporations, and assisted over 120 technology growth companies nationwide. The MIEC also serves as the lead institution in the JP Morgan Chase Small Business Forward Ascend Atlanta program, where it has accelerated 80+ minority tech startups over the past three years and helped them raise more than $5.5 million in funding. Visitmcecenter.com for more details.

About PRENEURology Global
As a Social Enterprise serving entrepreneurs around the world, PRENEURology Global has worked with organizations, educational institutions, corporations, and government agencies across the globe for more than 15 years, to support emerging innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems through a human-centered approach. With its team of bilingual professionals (English and Spanish), PRENEURology revolutionizes mindsets within communities at risk by empowering people with tools for innovation and economic growth. For more information, visit preneurology.org.

T-Mobile, Georgia Tech, and Curiosity Lab Team Up to Fuel 5G Innovation in Drones, Autonomous Vehicles, Robotics, and More

New 5G Connected Future incubator program will support growth and development of 5G entrepreneurs and startups.

Outside picture of Curiosity Lab at Peachtree Corners — Curiosity Labs at Peachtree Corners is home to the 5G Connected Future incubator that will be managed by Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC).

The new 5G incubator is located in the city of Peachtree Corners’ 500-acre smart city technology park, a living lab powered by T-Mobile 5G where more than 8,000 people live or work. The facility features a 25,000 square foot Innovation Center and 3-mile autonomous vehicle test track. T-Mobile has deployed its Extended Range 5G and Ultra Capacity 5G network across the park enabling developers to build solutions in a real-world environment. Here developers will build and test new 5G use cases such as autonomous vehicles, robotics, industrial drone applications, mixed reality training and entertainment, remote medical care, personal health and fitness wearables, and more.

“What a match-up! America’s leading 5G network, the brilliant minds of Georgia Tech and the most advanced living lab in the country — now that’s a powerhouse combination,” said John Saw, EVP of Advanced & Emerging Technologies at T-Mobile. “We cannot wait to see the innovation that occurs as entrepreneurs and developers build the next big thing in 5G backed by these world-class resources.”

Hedshot of ATDC Director John Avery — John Avery is director of ATDC.

The new incubator, managed in collaboration with Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), is an expansion of the T-Mobile Accelerator and part of the Un-carrier’s efforts to fuel 5G innovation. T-Mobile supports numerous initiatives to help startups and entrepreneurs develop, test and bring to market groundbreaking new 5G products and services. T-Mobile Accelerator is an award-winning program founded in 2014 that originated in the smart city corridor of Kansas City.

Companies participating in the 5G Connected Future program will work directly with technology and business leaders at T-Mobile Accelerator, Georgia Tech, and Curiosity Lab as they build, test and bring to market new products and services that unleash the potential of T-Mobile 5G. ATDC is a globally recognized technology incubator. The 5G Connected Future vertical is the fourth of its kind at ATDC and follows other targeted programs in health, retail and financial technologies.

“In addition to the normal startup concerns, entrepreneurs in the 5G space face a unique set of challenges such as regulatory issues at the state and local levels, network security, and integration testing,” said ATDC Director John Avery.

Betsy Plattenberg is executive director of Curiosity Lab.

ATDC brings a unique framework that combines its startup curriculum, coaching, connections, and community, as well as direct access to Georgia Tech resources, research expertise, and student talent, to help entrepreneurs learn, launch, scale, and succeed. In this effort, ATDC will offer programing, recruit and evaluate startups, and hire staff to manage the vertical in Peachtree Corners.

“This collaboration is a great opportunity for ATDC and Georgia Tech, the city of Peachtree Corners and Curiosity Lab, and T-Mobile, a Fortune 50 company, to create a unique collection to work with these companies, refine their ideas into scalable companies, and bring these solutions to market more quickly,” Avery said.

Such a partnership underscores “Georgia Tech’s commitment to enabling tomorrow’s technology leaders, which remains as strong as when ATDC was founded 41 years ago,” said Chaouki T. Abdallah, Georgia Tech’s executive vice president for research. “Innovation cannot take place in a vacuum, which is why entrepreneurs and startups require the knowledge and resources provided through partnerships such as ours.”

“The City of Peachtree Corners and Curiosity Lab continue to affirm our commitment to technology innovation through programs, partnerships and engagements with industry leaders such as T-Mobile and Georgia Tech,” said Betsy Plattenburg, executive director of Curiosity Lab. “These two organizations were instrumental in the launch of Curiosity Lab and our continued collaboration will create opportunities for the next-generation of intelligent mobility and smart city entrepreneurs.”

T-Mobile 5G, A Platform for Innovation
T-Mobile is America’s 5G leader, with the fastest and largest nationwide 5G network. T-Mobile’s Extended Range 5G covers more than 280 million people across nearly 1.6 million square miles – more geographic coverage than AT&T and Verizon combined. With Sprint now part of T-Mobile, the Un-carrier is widening its lead, using dedicated spectrum to bring customers with capable devices download speeds of around 300 Mbps and peak speeds up to 1 Gbps.

With its supercharged 5G network as the foundation, T-Mobile is working to fuel 5G innovation and build the 5G ecosystem. The Un-carrier collaborates with universities and standards bodies to support 5G research and development. In addition to running the award-winning T-Mobile Accelerator, it also operates the T-Mobile Ventures investment fund and is a co-founder of the 5G Open Innovation Lab.

Startups interested in joining the 5G Connected Future program can apply here.

Georgia Institute of Technology and Morehouse School of Medicine Announce Collaborative Effort for Health Technology Startup Development

Initiative aims to expand Morehouse School of Medicine’s research commercialization efforts, and support focus on the needs of underserved minority and rural populations.

ATLANTA (July 9, 2019) — The Georgia Institute of Technology and Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) today announced the launch of a new initiative that will support MSM’s commercialization efforts to create health technology (HealthTech) startups.

The effort brings the Institute’s globally recognized technology incubator — the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) — to the MSM campus, ranked the No. 1 medical school in the nation in fulfilling its social mission and the top ranking historically black college or university for producing patents (2009-2019).

“We’re excited to forge this effort between our two schools that will help translate ideas that may start in the lab to real-world solutions for minority and rural populations in healthcare,” said James W. Lillard, Ph.D., MSM’s associate dean for research and director of the Office of Translational Technologies. “This initiative leverages the research rigor and innovations developing at Morehouse School of Medicine with Georgia Tech’s proven ATDC model of helping technology entrepreneurs create viable, scalable companies.”

The collaboration with MSM, the eighth for ATDC through its ATDC @program, continues the incubator’s mission of working with technology startups across Georgia. The catalyst for this initiative was an i6 Challenge grant the U.S. Department of Commerce awarded to Georgia Tech in 2015.

That $500,000 grant, secured by Tech’s Innovation Ecosystems group, supported wide-ranging innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives across the state. In Atlanta, it called for the Institute to collaborate with Georgia State and Clark Atlanta universities, Morehouse College, the Morehouse School of Medicine, and Spelman College to develop entrepreneurship programs that supported their unique visions.

The ATDC @ MSM will provide the medical school with a full suite of services and educational programming to support entrepreneurship in the HealthTech arena among faculty, staff, and students on the MSM campus. The core goal is to help entrepreneurs gain insight into successful HealthTech commercialization, through the program, which includes curriculum, connections, and coaching.

ATDC was founded in 1980 to help technology entrepreneurs learn, launch, scale, and succeed in the creation of successful businesses in the state. Since its founding, ATDC has developed a global reputation for fostering technological entrepreneurship, with Forbes naming ATDC to its list of “Incubators Changing the World” in 2010 and 2013, alongside Y Combinator and the Palo Alto Research Center.

Kirk Barnes, ATDC’s HealthTech catalyst, said the effort is a great example of how two world-class institutions can collaborate to create a medically-oriented innovation ecosystem. It also brings focus to the needs of minority and rural populations that are traditionally underserved from a medical standpoint, just as state leaders in Georgia are looking at the issue more closely.

“This is a great collaborative undertaking that takes our “Startup Success, Engineered” model into the clinical setting and gives particular focus on black entrepreneurs who are an underrepresented community in tech,” Barnes said.

“This will help expand the pace and flow of innovation and commercialization of research coming out of the Morehouse School of Medicine as well as give them access to the broader resources at Georgia Tech and the ATDC model will formalize and expedite how that happens.”

About the Advanced Technology Development Center

The Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), a program of the Georgia Institute of Technology, is the state of Georgia’s technology startup incubator. Founded in 1980 by the Georgia General Assembly which funds it each year, ATDC’s mission is to work with entrepreneurs in Georgia to help them learn, launch, scale, and succeed in the creation of viable, disruptive technology companies. Since its founding, ATDC has grown to become one of the longest running and most successful university-affiliated incubators in the United States, with its graduate startup companies raising more than $3 billion in investment financing and generating more than $12 billion in revenue in the state of Georgia. To learn more, visit atdc.org.

About Morehouse School of Medicine

Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM), located in Atlanta, Georgia, was founded in 1975 as a two-year Medical Education Program at Morehouse College with clinical training affiliations with several established medical schools for awarding the M.D. degree. In 1981, MSM became an independently chartered institution and the first medical school established at a Historically Black College and University in the 20th century. MSM is among the nation’s leading educators of primary care physicians and was recently recognized as the top institution among U.S. medical schools for our social mission. Our faculty and alumni are noted in their fields for excellence in teaching, research, and public policy, and are known in the community for exceptional, culturally appropriate patient care.

Morehouse School of Medicine is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award doctorate and master’s degrees. To learn more, visit msm.edu.

About the Office of Translational Technologies

The Office of Translational Technologiesat MSM was established in 2011 to leverage MSM’s intellectual property, research and infrastructure to develop and commercialize product and services that advance health equity. To learn more, visit msm.edu/Research/translational-technologies.

Georgia Tech hosts Congressional visit for FinTech discussion at ATDC

U.S. Rep. French Hill (right) discusses the goals Congressional FinTech Task Force he sits on as Andrew Bate, CEO of SafelyStay, an ATDC FinTech portfolio company, listens. — U.S. Rep. French Hill (right) discusses the goals of the Congressional FinTech Task Force he sits on as Andrew Bate, CEO of SafelyStay, an ATDC FinTech portfolio company, listens. (Photo: Péralte C. Paul)

The Georgia Institute of Technology’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) recently hosted U.S. Rep. French Hill, who came to campus as part of a multi-city tour to learn about the incubator’s innovation efforts in financial technology.

Hill, an Arkansas Republican whose district includes the Little Rock area, spent more than 20 years in commercial and investment banking. He founded the Little, Rock-based Delta Trust & Banking Corp. where he served as chairman, and CEO.

A member of the House Financial Services Committee, Hill, who served under President George H.W. Bush as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Corporate Finance, is a leading voice in the financial services industry.

“We’re going to create a new task force on FinTech in the House Financial Services Committee and are taking ideas from around the country to help drive legislative policy,” Hill said during his Feb. 16 visit where he met ATDC Director John Avery and founders of two of the incubator’s FinTech companies.

As part of his work on that task force, Hill wanted to see the innovation ecosystem that has been built around FinTech, ATDC’s role in collaborating with related business and industry to support it, and how the incubator works with companies in that sector to help them grow and succeed.

Georgia was an important stop for the Congressman’s fact-finding tour as 70 percent of all credit, debit, and gift card swipes — more than 118 billion transactions and $2 trillion in purchase volume each year — are processed through Georgia companies. More than 60 percent of all payment processing companies are either based in or have operations in the state.

ATDC’s FinTech program, launched in 2015, has 35 early-stage startups in its portfolio. Since inception, companies and recent graduates of ATDC’s FinTech program have raised more than $65 million in angel and institutional venture capital.

That success and impact factored in Hill’s visit as the Congressman’s tour also is designed to get input from FinTech companies and incubators regarding issues that can be a drag on FinTech innovation.

Entrepreneurs, Avery said, are concerned with regulations at the federal level, which sometimes conflict with one another and the uncertainty that creates for fledgling startups. What’s more, state statutes can vary, leading to additional challenges for growth.

“This is what I want to use this FinTech task force for, to work through some of these things,” Hill said, adding he wants to build a priorities list that the FinTech companies want Congress to focus on as well as emerging trends and innovations that leaders should be aware of in the industry.

Along with that, Hill is seeking input from FinTech leaders about specific issues that need further analysis and study via hearings and how Atlanta could play a role in that.

“Georgia Tech’s engagement in the startup ecosystem and Atlanta’s preeminence in payments I think is a good place to do this kind of convening.”

Georgia Tech Hosts State Legislative Leaders at ATDC HealthTech Summit

Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan ATDC — ATDC Assistant Director Jane McCracken (far left), explains how entrepreneurs use the incubator’s design studio to make and refine product prototypes, as Georgia state Sens. Greg Kirk and Dean Burke and Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan listen. (Photo: Péralte C. Paul)

With health care a major focus at the state and national levels, the Georgia Institute of Technology welcomed Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and other state legislative leaders to campus for a health summit focused on how technology drives innovation, leads to better patient outcomes, and reduces costs.

Duncan, joined by Georgia state Sens. Dean Burke, Greg Kirk, and Ben Watson, toured the Institute’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) to learn more about the incubator’s efforts to support health technology (HealthTech) innovation and meet startup leaders in its portfolio.

Burke spearheaded the visit from the state government delegation.

A program of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, Tech’s economic development arm, ATDC is the state of Georgia’s technology startup incubator. Created in 1980, ATDC has helped its companies generate more than $12 billion in revenue and raise in excess of $3 billion in investment capital.

“One of my most ambitious goals is for Georgia to become the technology capital of the East Coast. Incubators like ATDC are critical to that vision,” Duncan, a Tech alum, said. “Georgia boasts the top talent coming out of our world-class university system, business-friendly environment, low cost of living, high quality of life, and emerging venture capital presence necessary to grow from the Silicon Valley of the South to the Tech Capital of the East Coast.”

The delegation received an overview of ATDC’s focused efforts to support HealthTech innovation and startups, including the July 2018 launch of the ATDC HealthTech Program.

Supported with a financial gift from NASCO, the ATDC HealthTech Program is focused on helping entrepreneurs launch viable companies in that sector, Kirk Barnes, ATDC’s HealthTech catalyst explained to the delegation.

Separately, ATDC entered into a collaborative partnership with Navicent Health’s Center for Disruption & Innovation (CfDI) to support the development of new technologies, treatments, and care created by healthcare technology-oriented companies based in the state. The goal: to improve the health and lives of patients in central and south Georgia.

It’s a goal that resonated with Duncan.

“It’s encouraging to see the system built around these ideas and to see these ideas commercialized,” the lieutenant governor said. “It’s not just about cutting costs, it’s about improving service and quality of care.

“I’m appreciative of the impressive work being done at Georgia Tech and ATDC, and I look forward to working alongside them as Lt. Governor.”

Since its launch, the ATDC HealthTech Program’s portfolio of companies has grown to 48 and includes a host of technologies ranging from digital health and medical devices to drug discovery tools and healthcare robotics.

One of those companies, Rimidi Inc., a provider of software and clinical analytics for chronic disease management,raised more than $6.5 millionin its Series A-1 financing, which included an investment from Eli Lilly and Co.

Tee Faircloth, who helped spearhead the summit, is founder of Coordinated Care Inc. (CCI), an ATDC HealthTech company. CCI, one of the companies the delegation met, works with urban and rural hospitals to move patients back to their local hospitals for rehabilitation.

Faircloth said such summits give state leaders valuable insight into how public support of programs such as ATDC and public-private partnerships such as the one with NASCO work.

“With the incoming administration’s focus on rural healthcare, it’s great to see them embrace innovation as an agent of change so early on. This summit continues the dialogue of how we, as technology companies focused on bringing solutions and innovation to healthcare, can work with state and local leaders,” Faircloth said.

“We want to find areas where we can work together in these public-private partnerships to leverage the resources of the Atlanta and Georgia ecosystems so that we really improve healthcare for all Georgians.”

Elavon Invests in FinTech Innovation with Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center

Investment will create valuable partnerships to spur greater innovation in payments.

Wally Mlynarski is Elavon's chief product officer. — Wally Mlynarski is Elavon’s chief product officer.

Elavon, a global payments provider and subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB), announced a new and significant, three-year financial commitment at the Georgia Institute of Technology to further accelerate innovation across financial and payments technologies (FinTech).

The Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Georgia Tech is Georgia’s technology incubator. It focuses on building and growing FinTech companies in the state of Georgia. Elavon’s financial sponsorship will allow for further growth and startup support for entrepreneurs in the program.

As part of the sponsorship, Elavon executives will mentor program participants on topics such as software and applications integration as well as consultation on effective go-to-market strategies. As the FinTech space continues to evolve, partnerships with incumbents have become more important for an early-stage company’s customer acquisition and business model development.

“Our investment in this program and local FinTech companies brings us closer to the growing technology community in Atlanta and across the entire payments ecosystem, and is part of Elavon’s continued focus on integrated payments and eCommerce,” said Wally Mlynarski, Elavon’s chief product officer. “With this partnership, we are able to directly impact and shape the future of payments as technology and business models continue to rapidly evolve.”

In addition to receiving the benefits of being an ATDC program participant, startups in the incubator’s FinTech Program are integrated into Georgia’s FinTech ecosystem. This statewide ecosystem consists of strong public-private partnerships dedicated to the continued success of Georgia FinTech companies. ATDC FinTech provides access to industry, investors, and Georgia Tech’s resources to help these startups flourish as well as coordinating support from the Technology Association of Georgia, FinTech Atlanta, and the Metro Atlanta Chamber.

“We’re extremely excited to welcome Elavon as our partner in further developing Georgia’s early-stage FinTech startup community,” said Jeff Gapusan, who is ATDC’s FinTech executive-in-residence and secured the sponsorship. “Elavon is a world-class financial technology company. Its resources, mentorship, and insight will enable startup founders to also succeed in this highly complex space.”

The ATDC FinTech program currently hosts 35 early-stage FinTech startups. Since the program’s inception in 2015, ATDC FinTech startups and recent graduates have raised more than $65 million in angel and institutional venture capital.

About Elavon (www.elavon.com)

Elavon is wholly owned by U.S. Bank, the fifth-largest bank in the United States, and provides end-to-end payment processing solutions and services to more than 1.3 million customers in the United States, Europe, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. As the leading provider for airlines and a top five provider in hospitality, healthcare, retail, and public sector/education, Elavon’s innovative payment solutions are designed to solve pain points for businesses from small to enterprise-sized.

About Georgia Tech

The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the world’s premier research universities. Georgia Tech is a national and international leader in scientific and technological research and education and is the nation’s leading producer of engineers as well as a leading producer of female and minority engineering Ph.D. graduates. Ranked among the top public universities by U.S. News & World Report, the Institute enrolls more than 25,000 undergraduate and graduate students in fields ranging from engineering, computing, and sciences, to business, design, and liberal arts. For additional information, visit gatech.edu.

About the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC)

The Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), a program of the Georgia Institute of Technology, is the state of Georgia’s technology startup incubator. Founded in 1980 by the Georgia General Assembly which funds it each year, ATDC’s mission is to work with entrepreneurs in Georgia to help them learn, launch, scale, and succeed in the creation of viable, disruptive technology companies. Since its founding, ATDC has grown to become one of the longest running and most successful university-affiliated incubators in the United States, with its graduate startup companies raising $3 billion in investment financing and generating more than $12 billion in revenue in the state of Georgia. To learn more, visit atdc.org.

NFL “1ST AND FUTURE” SUPER BOWL EVENT PRESENTED BY ARROW ELECTRONICS FEATURES NEW CROWDSOURCED COMPETITION ON PUNT PLAY RULES

The deadline to submit applications is January 9, 2019. For more information on the submission process, selection criteria and official rules, visit www.nfl.com/1standfuture.

The National Football League (NFL) and Arrow Electronics (NYSE:ARW) today announced the launch of 1^stand Future, the NFL’s annual Super Bowl competition designed to spur innovation in athlete safety and performance. 1^stand Future will be presented by Arrow Electronics and hosted at Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) at the Ferst Center for the Arts in Atlanta, Georgia on February 2, 2019, the day before Super Bowl LIII.

This year’s event will feature two categories of competition. The first category, the NFL Punt Analytics Competition, is new this year and will give applicants access to exclusive NFL data sets to inform creative submissions about rule changes designed to reduce player injury during punt plays. This challenge will utilize the crowdsourced data science platform Kaggle. Up to four of the best submissions will be awarded $20,000 each. The winning teams will be invited to present their submission in Atlanta, where they will compete to win Super Bowl tickets.

“Leveraging available data to analyze the game is an increasingly essential way to improve our rules and look to make the game safer,” said Jeff Miller, NFL Executive Vice President of Health and Safety Initiatives. “This is a groundbreaking new effort to ask the public to analyze our rules and make recommendations. We are excited to tap into the innovative thinking of data scientists and entrepreneurs.”

The second category, Innovations to Advance Athlete Health and Safety Competition, invites all types of submissions for innovative product concepts that could improve player health and safety and will be managed by Georgia Tech’s Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC). Up to five startups will be selected as finalists and will have the chance to present their innovations on stage in Atlanta. One grand prize winner will be awarded $50,000 and two tickets to Super Bowl LIII. The second-place winner will receive $20,000 and two tickets to Super Bowl LIII.

Finalists for both categories will present to a panel of judges and an exclusive audience including NFL team owners and executives, and representatives from the Atlanta Super Bowl Host Committee, Arrow Electronics and Georgia Tech.

“We are seeing technology reach a threshold that opens up a whole new class of opportunities to improve the health and performance of athletes,” said Victor Gao, chief marketing officer of Arrow Electronics. “Innovation begins with a single idea, and we are proud to support 1^stand Future that draws upon the ingenuity of entrepreneurs to enhance the quality of life for not only professionals in the stadium but also aspiring young athletes at home.”

“Georgia Tech is proud to host the NFL’s 1^stand Future startup competition,” said Georgia Tech President G.P. “Bud” Peterson. “This event will tap into the robust startup culture and entrepreneurial spirit for which the Institute is well known. An embodiment of those traits, our Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), is located on campus in Tech Square, one of the nation’s most exciting entrepreneurial ecosystems. Yellow Jacket fans love our sports teams, and the opportunity to partner with the NFL to advance collaborative innovation in athletics, particularly around safety and performance, is one we wholeheartedly endorse.”

About the NFL’s Health and Safety Initiatives

The NFL is committed to advancing progress in the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of sports-related injuries. As part of the NFL’s ongoing health and safety efforts, in September 2016, Commissioner Goodell launched Play Smart. Play Safe. — a league-wide health and safety initiative. At the heart of the initiative is a pledge of $100 million in support for independent medical research and engineering advancements and a commitment to look at anything and everything to protect our players and make our game safer, including enhancements to medical protocols and improvements to how our game is taught and played. For more information about the NFL’s health and safety efforts, please visit www.PlaySmartPlaySafe.com.

About Arrow Electronics

Arrow Electronics guides innovation forward for over 150,000 of the world’s leading manufacturers of technology used in homes, business and daily life. With 2017 sales of $26.6 billion, Arrow aggregates electronics and enterprise computing solutions for customers and suppliers in industrial and commercial markets. The company maintains a network of more than 345 locations serving over 80 countries. Learn more at FiveYearsOut.com.

About the Georgia Institute of Technology

The Georgia Institute of Technology, also known as Georgia Tech, is one of the nation’s leading research universities. Georgia Tech provides a focused, technologically based education to more than 32,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Georgia Tech has many nationally recognized programs, all top-ranked by peers and publications alike, and is ranked in the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News and World Report. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech has more than 100 centers focused on interdisciplinary research that consistently contribute vital research and innovation to American government, industry, and business.

About the Advanced Technology Development Center

The Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), a program of the Georgia Institute of Technology, is the state of Georgia’s technology startup incubator. Founded in 1980 by the Georgia General Assembly which funds it each year, ATDC’s mission is to work with entrepreneurs in Georgia to help them learn, launch, scale, and succeed in the creation of viable, disruptive technology companies. Since its founding, ATDC has grown to become one of the longest running and most successful university-affiliated incubators in the United States, with its graduate startup companies raising $3 billion in investment financing and generating more than $12 billion in revenue in the state of Georgia. To learn more, visit atdc.org.