Photo Credit:
Shobeir Ansari, Getty Images.
At the end of every month, we recap the biggest tech and startup happenings in Rhode Island. We have an archive of past roundups here. To get this info weekly (Tuesday afternoons, to be exact), sign up for the Rhode Island Inno Beat newsletter.
Let’s take a look.
- University students in Rhode Island have a new opportunity to learn the ins and outs of social enterprise thanks to a September-announced partnership between Brown University’s Swearer Center and the Social Enterprise Greenhouse. The 3-year program is aimed at undergraduates and provides hands-on training at the SEG, with the help and mentorship of a wide thought leader network. University seniors who are already developing a social venture of their own have the option to take a 1-year version of the program.
- The Providence Journal reports that Community College of Rhode Island is proposing a $63 million general revenue bond to renovate its aging campuses. The Warwick campus opened in 1972 and the Lincoln campus opened in 1976. The bond is CCRI’s largest request in recent history, and, according to college spokeswoman Amy Kempe, it’s long overdue.
- Thanks to a partnership with the Department of Homeland Security, University of Rhode Island researchers are developing new tools that either detect the presence of an explosive or “flash freeze” it, CBS News reports.
- Huron, Ohio-based n2y LCC, a provider of software, curriculum and more for special education in grades K-12, received a majority investment of an unknown sum from Providence Equity Partners.
- Westerly-based startup Retail MarketPoint has inked a partnership with Moody’s Analytics. The financial intelligence leader will add the company to its REIS network, which is Moody’s commercial real estate search platform.
- RISD’s entrepreneurship club E’SHIP has recently launched what they say is the country’s first student-run art and design driven accelerator that provides mentorship and funding to RISD-born student ventures and startups. The program, which is called UpStart, completed its first cohort earlier this year and is gearing up to launch another in the beginning of 2020
- University of Rhode Island Associate Professor of Engineering Kunal Mankodiya has received north of $249K via a federal grant, The Sun reports. Why? “Because a smart glove he is developing to help patients with Parkinson’s disease has the potential for commercial success and societal impact,” the report states. The National Science Foundation, via its Partnerships for Innovation Technology Translation program, awarded the grant.
- University of Rhode Island students Andrew Bikash and Ben Grossman, founders of Kanu, a marketplace app, won top honors in oral presentation at URI’s 2019 Showcase of Undergraduate Research, Scholarly and Creative Works, URI Today reports (you may recognize those names from this year’s Inno Under 25 list). They won first place among a pool of 58 students across 27 different majors.
- Commercial Integrator has named North Kingstown-based Constant Technologies, which develops tech and video wall systems for command centers, one of the fastest-growing integration firms of 2019. Constant Tech received the accolade after Commercial Integrator surveyed firms with “demonstrable, above-average growth in AV Integration.”
- Innovation can and has been used to make life easier. Think of the convenience of Uber, or the ease with which you can order groceries online with Instacart. While those kinds of developments are certainly helpful and, of course, quite valid, there’s another side of innovation that is less concerned with modern convenience and more focused on driving cultural change for the better, in the most basic sense. This month, we profiled five social impact startups to watch in the Ocean State.
