Ecosystems For Change

This season, we traveled around the country to take a look under the hood of nine US National Science Foundation-funded Regional Innovation Engines. We learned about pressing issues facing our country, our economy, and the world in sectors as varied as water, energy, semiconductors, textiles, agriculture, biomedical, and climate resiliency. We uncovered how these innovation ecosystems are tackling...

Today marks the final stop on our tour of the US National Science Foundation-funded Regional Innovation Engines. To round out our adventure, we’re headed to Tempe, Arizona to talk with Brian Sherman, CEO of the NSF Futures Engine in the Southwest. The NSF Futures Engine represents three states–Arizona, Nevada, and Utah–with a diverse range of landscapes, a large population that includes fifty-eigh...

Take a quick look around you. How many things in your field of view run on batteries? Your smartwatch, phone, the earbuds you’re listening to this podcast on, or maybe even the electric vehicle you’re driving–they all use batteries. Batteries also make our electric grids more resilient, enable transportation, and provide backup power to infrastructure such as data centers. And yet, fewer than 25%...

In an industry dominated by fast fashion, our next US National Science Foundation funded Regional Innovation Engine is working to bring sustainability and circularity to the textile industry. Headquartered in Morganton, the NSF Textile Innovation Engine in North Carolina –or The Textile Engine–is working to make the Southeast’s Textile Belt a home for innovation and the lifeblood of its communitie...

Our next region has been part of the world’s energy story for over a century. Today, we’re visiting the US National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engine that is aiming to not only be part of the story, but to write it through innovative research, workforce development, and commercialization of new technologies. I sat down with Michael Mazzola, Executive Director of the NSF FUEL Engine in...

Everybody needs to eat, and our food has to come from somewhere. With changing weather patterns and landscapes, ensuring we have secure and resilient agricultural and food systems is crucial to our future. It’s fitting that our next stop on the US National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engines tour has subtitled themselves the FARMS Engine: Food systems Adapted for Resiliency and Maximize...

As we continue our tour of the US National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engines, today we’re headed to North Carolina. Tim Bertram and Jesse Thornburg of the Piedmont Triad Regenerative Medicine Engine are taking us into the lab to give us a crash course in what regenerative medicine is, and how their Engine is helping regenerative medicine companies build, grow, and scale in the Piedmon...

Colorado and Wyoming are famed for their wide open spaces and incredible landscapes.  They’re also very, very dry. Changes in rainfall and snowpack are already impacting agriculture, tourism, and the frequency and intensity of wildfires in the western United States. The wicked problem of climate resiliency isn’t one for the future, it’s making itself known in real-time. Today, we’re headed west to...

Would you be able to describe what a semiconductor is? A lot of us probably can’t, but they’re essential to modern life as we know it.  Today, we’re headed to NeoCity and the Central Florida Semiconductor Innovation Engine to talk with CEO Tawny Olore. This Regional Innovation Engine, funded by the US National Science Foundation, is taking on the major project of developing an ecosystem for produc...

Fresh water is a vital resource for life on earth, and it plays an increasingly important role in developing technologies like AI, quantum computing, and the data centers on which both rely. Managing access, use, and waste will only become more pressing as industry and communities continue to compete for water resources. So it makes sense that the Great Lakes, which hold 20% of the world’s fresh s...

How do we make our communities more resilient to extreme weather events?  How do we become smarter about using and recycling water, one of the most precious resources on our planet?  And how can we turn the textile industry into a more circular and sustainable economy that reduces waste and develops new fibers and materials? Welcome to season seven of Ecosystems for Change, where I’ll be talking w...

Water scarcity, food insecurity, and wasteful textile supply chains are major societal challenges with no easy solutions. But some of the nation's leading scientists, researchers, innovators, and entrepreneurs are committed to tackling these problems. In Season 7 of Ecosystems for Change, I’m going to introduce you to nine different innovation ecosystems who are solving some of our most pressing s...

 Welcome to my seventh logbook, an in between seasons update on Ecosystems for Change.  In each logbook, I give you a peek behind the scenes of what’s happening in my day job as an entrepreneurial ecosystem builder in the Shenandoah Valley, some updates from the field of ecosystem building, an introduction to Unsung Heroes of Ecosystem Building doing amazing work in their communities, and a behind...

On today’s bonus episode, I’m speaking with Chris Heivly.  Chris has over 40 years of experience working as, for, and with entrepreneurs and I was delighted to talk with him about why he wants to see more ecosystem and community builders come together and build a fort. Chris Heivly is a life-long entrepreneur and multifaceted investor who spent forty years working as, for, and with entrepreneurs....

We started this season by asking how we can tell better stories about what is happening in our ecosystems. As I reflect on the lessons learned throughout the season, the key piece is that storytelling is not just some fun marketing campaign; it’s a tool to show the community what is possible and what the future might look like. But most of us–entrepreneurs and ecosystem partners alike–are so bogge...

Today, we’re headed to Vermont to hear stories about extraordinary rural communities throughout the US. Austin Danforth is the chief storyteller in charge at the Center on Rural Innovation (CORI), not that he would call himself that. But I definitely do. Austin is putting his prior career as a sports reporter and photographer to use to reshape the narrative around tech ecosystems, innovation, and...

In this episode, I’m continuing my conversation about Yearbook Indiana with Polina Osherov of Pattern, Morgan Allen of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, and Julie Heath, formerly of IEDC. We’re jumping right back in from the break, so if you haven’t listened to part one, go do that!  In part two, we’re digging into the nitty-gritty of getting the yearbook into the right hands, how they...

In today’s episode, I get to introduce you to a storytelling powerhouse trio. At every stage of the process, from vision to execution to the final product, I have rarely seen such a well-produced, coherent, and meaningful storytelling campaign as Yearbook Indiana. The Indiana Economic Development Corporation–IEDC–collaborated with Indiana-based magazine Pattern, to produce a yearbook highlighting...

I’ve been in awe of today’s guest, Natalie Hodge, since I first learned about her show Hometown Hustle . As of summer 2023, the show is in its second season telling the stories of entrepreneurs building their big business ideas in the small towns of rural America and changing the narrative about rural entrepreneurship. Today, Natalie shares why she believes it’s so vital to share the stories of ru...

Welcome to my first interview of season 6. I sat down with none other than Eva-Maria Verfürth, Publisher and Editor in Chief of Tea After Twelve. While based in Frankfurt, Germany, Eva’s storytelling spans around the globe to talk about new solutions to old problems to create a better world. As you’ll see in this conversation, Eva is driven by a deep desire to transform journalism in a way that mo...

In season 6 of Ecosystems for Change, we are going to explore the art, craft, and science of telling meaningful stories that have the power to affect change in our communities. I’ve always enjoyed hearing other people’s stories, reading about them, and eventually telling these stories. As I started out helping to develop the ecosystem in Richmond, VA, I also began to understand that storytelling i...

Welcome to my 6th logbook where I give a little insight into what’s happening behind and beyond the scenes of this show. And I’m switching up the format a little bit! I’ve been meeting so many incredible ecosystem builders, and while I can’t have them all on the show, that’s not going to stop me from trying! I’m super excited to introduce a new quarterly segment called the Unsung Heroes of Ecosyst...

Over the course of this season, quitting became a constant topic in my life. One of my team members quit to take on a new role closer to home. A new friend talked to me about quitting her job to spend more time enjoying her family and less time worrying about making it all fit in her schedule. A partner quit because he had done what he came to do and was ready to move on to something else. With th...

In our last conversation of this season, we’re traveling to Berlin, Germany. I’m sitting down with Naomi Ryland, systemic change maker, social entrepreneur, bestselling author and overall insightful person. We talked about the last ten years in the German social impact space, how to turn your organization from a hierarchical to a self-organized one, and how to shift and share power as a person wit...

In today's episode, we're traveling to Phoenix, Arizona to chat with Lucas Lindsey. Lucas is an ecosystem builder turned real estate developer. We talked about planning for succession and the importance of the built environment for entrepreneurial ecosystem building. Lucas Lindsey is a Michigan kid on a long hiatus to the American Southwest. He is a big fan of new ideas and old buildings who has a...