The Iowa Tech podcast recently featured an insightful discussion with Anuj Sharma, the founder of Coltie, a tech company operating out of Ames, Iowa. Coltie aims to enhance the academic experience for students by bridging the gap between them and their potential faculty advisors. Anuj, a professor at Iowa State University, shared his personal journey and motivation for founding Coltie, highlighting his own experiences in academia where matching with the right mentor was crucial for success. Coltie is designed as an integrated platform that connects various stakeholders in academia—students, faculty, and administrators—using an app to provide timely and accurate information. The platform seeks to address the common challenges faced by students, such as finding the right advisor, understanding the resources available to them, and ultimately, reducing the stress and anxiety prevalent in graduate education.

During the podcast, Anuj also elaborated on the innovative use of AI in Coltie's matchmaking process. The platform utilizes natural language processing to create a comprehensive database of faculty and their research areas, allowing students to easily find potential advisors who align with their academic interests. Beyond just matching students with faculty, Coltie also provides tools for departments and local businesses to engage with students through platforms like Coltie Hive and Coltie Local, enhancing both academic and social experiences. With a focus on strategic partnerships and an expanding user base, Coltie is poised to become a significant player in transforming global academic collaboration by making the process of academic matchmaking more efficient and stress-free.

Find this show on your favorite app: https://iowapodcast.com/coltie

The latest episode of the Iowa Tech podcast, hosted by Micah Walker, features a heartfelt and inspirational conversation with Jeffrey Johnson, the founder of Brightn—a mental wellness startup. The episode delves into Jeffrey's personal journey, which led to the creation of Brightn. It all began with a tragic turn of events when Jeffrey lost his son to an overdose and subsequently, his wife to grief and substance abuse. These painful experiences propelled him to start a nonprofit, Living Undeterred Project, and eventually Brightn, an app aimed at shifting the focus from crisis intervention to mental wellness prevention and planning. Jeffrey emphasizes that while Brighton is not anti-medication, it seeks to explore alternatives before medication becomes the first line of treatment.

Brightn aims to revolutionize mental wellness by focusing on the pre-treatment and prevention realm. The app offers a unique approach by using a nine-question Brightn Zone assessment to identify user strengths and deficiencies in health, wealth, and purpose. This information, along with AI-driven personalized content, helps users engage in self-improvement. The episode also highlights Brightn's impressive growth, both in B2B and B2C markets, with partnerships like Med-One and Choice Charter Schools. Jeffrey shares the app's successful engagement strategies, which have resulted in higher retention and lower churn rates compared to industry averages. With strategic partnerships and a focus on prevention, Brightn is poised to make a significant impact in the mental wellness space, all while honoring the legacy of Jeffrey's late son and granddaughter, after whom the app is named.

Find this show on your favorite app: https://iowapodcast.com/brightn

The recent episode of the Iowa Tech podcast, hosted by Micah Walker, features an engaging conversation with Zach Krawiec from Legible AI. The podcast, recorded at the Jethro's Barbecue Studio, delves into the origin and mission of Legible AI, a company co-founded by Zach and Casey, who met as legislative interns at the Iowa State House. The duo leveraged their deep understanding of the legislative process to develop an AI-native policy intelligence platform designed to assist statehouse professionals. The platform addresses challenges such as policy discovery, tracking, research, analysis, and reporting, making it easier for users to navigate and understand the intricacies of state legislation.

Throughout the discussion, Zach emphasizes the platform's standout features, including BillChat, a tool for AI-powered bill summaries and Q&A, and policy chaining, which helps users track related bills that might otherwise be missed. These innovations are designed to streamline the policy management cycle, offering comprehensive solutions rather than focusing on a single aspect. Zach also shares insights into the challenges the company faces, such as hiring and scaling, and highlights the importance of building relationships in the government affairs sector. The episode concludes with a look at the future of Legible AI and its potential impact on policy engagement, aiming to democratize access to legislative information and foster a more informed policy creation ecosystem.

Find this show on your favorite app: https://iowapodcast.com/legible-AI

In the latest episode of the Iowa Tech podcast, host Micah Walker sits down with Joun Lee, the founder of PaniClean, a woman-owned company that originated from the University of Iowa's Chemical Engineering Department. PaniClean is tackling the pressing issue of nitrate pollution, particularly in North America, by developing innovative, economically viable solutions for water purification. The company's roots trace back to Lee's profound experience in India, where she witnessed children playing in visibly polluted water, sparking her commitment to addressing global water crises. With a strong background in electrochemical sciences, Lee and her team have developed a technology that removes nitrates from water and converts them into useful byproducts like ammonia, turning liabilities into assets for local communities and industries.

Throughout the podcast, Lee discusses the challenges and triumphs of scaling PaniClean, including the impact of stringent environmental regulations and the importance of customer discovery in shaping their business model. Currently, the company is piloting their technology in Iowa City and plans to expand by targeting industries with significant nitrate waste, such as semiconductors and chemical manufacturing. As PaniClean seeks to raise $2 million to hire a CEO and expand their team, Lee emphasizes the importance of having a complementary leadership structure that allows her to focus on technological development. In closing, Lee expresses gratitude to her supporters at the University of Iowa and her dedicated team, reflecting a strong community spirit and commitment to making a positive environmental impact.

Find this show on your favorite app: https://iowapodcast.com/joun-lee

The Iowa Tech Podcast, hosted by Micah Walker, recently featured an engaging episode with Cole and Cam from Spock Sanctuary, an exotic animal rescue startup. Originating as a project during their time at Iowa State University, Spock Sanctuary has grown into the largest reptile rescue in Iowa. The duo shared their journey from a college apartment operation to a full-fledged sanctuary, highlighting the challenges of space and resources they faced as they expanded. Their mission to combat misinformation in the pet trade and provide the best care for exotic animals has driven their growth and innovation. Their story is not only about rescuing animals but also about navigating the entrepreneurial landscape as university students, adapting and learning from each challenge they encountered.

A significant part of their discussion centered around Nutri Cubes, an innovative product developed by Cam to meet the dietary needs of reptiles. Nutri Cubes are unique because they are species-specific, formulated based on what these animals would naturally consume in the wild. This innovation came from a personal need to address the picky eating habits of their own reptiles, leading to a product that now serves a broader market. With the help of pitch competitions and the support of entrepreneurial ecosystems like Cystarters, Spock Sanctuary and Nutri Cubes have gained traction, allowing them to expand their offerings and separate into distinct entities to better serve their missions. Looking ahead, Cole and Cam aim to expand Spock Sanctuary’s physical space and continue to build relationships within the community, all while fostering a greater love and understanding for exotic pets.

Find this show on your favorite app: https://iowapodcast.com/spock-sanctuary

In the latest episode of the Iowa Tech podcast, hosted by Micah Walker, listeners are introduced to Joe Sweeney, a fractional leader from Jennings Kallen Advisory, currently associated with BioAxis. Sweeney, who grew up on a family farm in North Central Iowa and attended Iowa State for ag business, shares his journey into fractional leadership, highlighting the influence of his entrepreneurial parents. His career trajectory included starting companies in the aquaculture space, with varying degrees of success, which eventually led him to help friends with their businesses. This snowballed into a career as a consultant and fractional CFO, where he now supports multiple startups, particularly in the Midwest, by providing financial guidance and helping them scale operations. Jennings Kallen Advisors, where Sweeney is a venture strategic advisor, plays a crucial role in helping innovative companies find resources, manage growth, and develop market strategies.

Sweeney's expertise and passion for entrepreneurship shine through as he discusses his work with various startups, including BioAxis, a company addressing biosecurity challenges in the protein industry. He emphasizes the advantages Iowa offers in scaling ag bio companies, highlighting the region's productive land and efficient operators. The discussion also touches on the fundraising landscape in Iowa, with Sweeney providing insights into the challenges and opportunities within the venture capital ecosystem. He underscores the importance of building relationships and fostering creativity while maintaining focus. The episode concludes with resources and shoutouts to various organizations supporting Iowa's entrepreneurial ecosystem, encouraging founders and stakeholders to engage and connect for growth and innovation.

Find this show on your favorite app: https://iowapodcast.com/joe-sweeney

In a recent episode of the Iowa Tech podcast, host Micah Walker welcomed Roberta from Layer One Ag, a promising startup in the agricultural insurance space, to discuss their innovative approach to managing crop risk. Recorded from the Jethro's Barbecue Studio, the episode delved into how Layer One Ag is leveraging AI to reimagine risk assessment at the farm and field level, enabling precision underwriting for farms that have traditionally been priced out of the market. Roberta, whose background ties deeply with Brazil's rich history in sugar and ethanol production, shared insights into how her experiences in bioenergy and agriculture informed the development of Layer One Ag’s risk assessment methodologies. She emphasized the limitations of traditional risk assessments that focus heavily on historical yield data, which can often miss the nuances of farm resilience to pests, disease, and climate shocks.

Layer One Ag is navigating the complex landscape of agricultural insurance by using a wealth of agricultural data, including inputs from IoT devices and satellite data, to create a new dimension of risk evaluation. Their platform, L1A Risk, provides predictive risk scoring akin to a FICO score for farms, assessing risk across multiple dimensions such as crop practices, location-based vulnerabilities, and resilience strategies. This approach allows for the creation of more tailored crop insurance products that better serve the needs of diverse agricultural operations, beyond the conventional row crop insurance. The podcast also highlighted the strategic advantages of building such a company in Iowa, a hub for insurance and ag-tech innovation, which has provided Layer One Ag with invaluable connections and resources. As Layer One Ag looks to expand its reach, the company is also eyeing the Brazilian market, where regulatory landscapes and data availability present both challenges and opportunities for growth.

Find this show on your favorite app: https://iowapodcast.com/layer-one-ag

In a recent episode of the Iowa Tech podcast, host Micah Walker engaged in a compelling conversation with Nigel Reuel, the founder of Zymosense, a pioneering company emerging from Iowa State University. Nigel, an innovator and entrepreneur at heart, shared his journey of establishing Zymosense to revolutionize enzyme activity measurement. With a robust background in chemical and biological engineering, Nigel explained how his experience with global enzyme development leaders inspired him to tackle the challenges of enzyme activity measurement. Zymosense's cutting-edge sensors provide a sustainable, efficient solution for various industries, enhancing material research and development. The company has rapidly evolved since its inception in 2021, securing intellectual property and initial funding through strategic partnerships and federal grants.

Throughout the podcast, Nigel emphasized the supportive ecosystem at Iowa State University that fosters innovation and venture creation. He credited the university's resources and collaborative culture for facilitating his entrepreneurial endeavors. Nigel also highlighted the importance of assembling a dedicated team, including his collaboration with students and industry experts like CEO Scott, to drive Zymosense's growth. The conversation further delved into the intricacies of transitioning from research to commercialization, underscoring the critical role of customer feedback and strategic partnerships. Nigel's insights not only illuminate the potential of enzyme technology but also serve as a testament to the vibrant startup landscape in Iowa, paving the way for future breakthroughs in biotech and beyond.

Find this show on your favorite app: https://iowapodcast.com/zymosense