INNOVATE® Minnesota

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MINNESOTA

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In the 1930s, 26% of the U.S. population were farmers.

Today, it’s less than 2%. By 2050, there will be 10 billion people to feed—yet we are being asked to do more with less.

How can we bridge that gap to feed human progress?

The key is technology and innovation.

—TEDDY BEKELE, SVP & CTO, LAND O’LAKES, INC.

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THOSE WHO KNOW THE HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY IN MINNESOTA KNOW THAT WE HAVE A STORY THAT NEEDS TO BE TOLD EACH GENERATION. HENRY HINTERMEISTER, PUBLISHING PARTNER, INNOVATE® MINNESOTA

A century ago, my father and his Minnesota peers were making the switch from using horses to farm their land to new-fangled contraptions called tractors. Many of these Minnesota natives rarely left the state to travel, their lifestyle centered on dutiful labor that required long hours and attention and left little time for leisure.

Minnesota State Basketball tourney in Southwest Minnesota was like trying to make out the car in front of you during a full-fledged blizzard.

Today, many Minnesotans who have a heritage like this are using computers that fit into their hand that are far more powerful than early military computers. Today’s generation thinks nothing of flying overseas for a summer vacation or driving a thousand miles to camp in the mountains. Three-year-old children can pick up a smartphone and find their favorite movies faster than their grandparents could crack a walnut.

My father could count on one hand the number of times he boarded a plane in his life and buying his first television was a major milestone— even though that TV could only bring in two channels. Watching the 1

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Henry is an experienced Project Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the publishing industry both in the US as well as Australia, where he put together a book on Sydney for the 2000 Olympics.

This INNOVATEÂŽ Minnesota edition celebrates a splendid current generation of thought leaders and companies that are developing cutting-edge ideas and products.

Many of the companies featured in this book are responsible for products and services we use every day. Sometimes they are prominent in the marketplace but other times they are the unsung heroes operating in the background to help other companies communicate and run smoothly or more profitably.

He has assisted over 70 cities and civic organizations in creating hard-cover books on their locality, working with former presidents, sitting governors, senators, congressmen, mayors, and movie stars to participate in the books.

In addition to helping others to tell their stories, Henry is an avid amateur photographer who specializes in shooting old barns in the Midwest. He has photographed over 1,000 of them, a familiarity that began with 18 years of indentured servanthood on a farm in Southwestern Minnesota along with seven siblings.

Those who know the history of technology in Minnesota know that we have a story that needs to be told each generation. While Silicon Valley might grab headlines, it is Minnesota who can lay claim to being the first center of technology. Technology in Minnesota has strong roots in developments for the military that turned out to be a major springboard for what is happening today.

Forty-eight years ago, Henry took a small singing team on a multinational tour and met a young blonde in Brisbane, Australia. He was only there for nine days, but it was long enough to propose to her. This poor young woman who had never seen snow was brought to the tundra of Minnesota where that was soon remedied. Henry and his wife Lyn have two children: a physician son and a daughter who is goodlooking, strong, and above-average, along with other Lake Wobegon peers.

It has been a privilege to talk with folks from over 100 growing companies represented in this book. We are in good hands with these innovators who are making our lives easier and in most cases, just a whole lot more fun.

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The “INNOVATE® Minnesota” Team would like to give a special thanks to all the participants and the following companies for their support and assistance in making this project a reality.

Meet the people that are building a better Minnesota for tomorrow Si

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INNOVATE® MINNESOTA: A MULTIMEDIA EXPERIENCE AND MORE.

SVEN BOERMEESTER, FOUNDER/CEO, INTERNATIONAL GROUP PUBLISHER

Sven Boermeester, Founder/CEO, International Group Publisher with Callie Van Graan, Global Village COO

INNOVATE® Minnesota showcases the best of Minnesota’s innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem. Embedded in its pages, you will find augmented reality videos that accompany nearly every feature, and when you use the free GLOBAL VILLAGE AR app, the world of the future will open up before your very eyes.

recently transpired in the Minnesota ecosystem, and who play or want to play an active role in its growth and development.

This inaugural edition of INNOVATE® Minnesota is just part of a global series. We are currently launching volumes in cities throughout the GlobalVillage.world publishing partnership network.

But “INNOVATE® Minnesota” is far more than a tech-enabled publication; it is a multimedia experience centered around the deluxe hardcover coffee-table book you are now holding, which includes AR videos, an online web platform, and multilevel social media networking. Online, the full e-book will be viewed in the millions through the InnovationsoftheWorld.com online library.

By experiencing INNOVATE® Minnesota, you are part of our Global Village network, and we are happy to have you. I trust you will join us as we continue the journey of the INNOVATE® series.

Sven Boermeester Founder/CEO International Group Publisher

This publication aims to celebrate those involved in the Minnesota ecosystem, but it is also meant for all business leaders and decisionmakers who can effect change in their industries throughout the US and throughout the world. We publish INNOVATE® Minnesota for the openminded folk who want to know more about the exciting changes that have

Belinda Van Graan

Meghan Tear Percy

Anita Naidoo

Ravi Handve

Susan Heiman

Sarah Nieman

JR Griggs

CMO

Managing Editor

Production Manager

Art & Design

Art & Design

Copy Editor

Web Development

Partner 4

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27 37 45 63 CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

FUTURE CITIES & COMMUNITY ASSOCIATIONS & COUNCILS DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER FOUR

MEDICAL ALLEY

CHAPTER FIVE

HEALTHCARE & HEALTH TECH

145 155 169 181 195 CHAPTER ELEVEN

FINTECH

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

IT OUTSOURCING & MANAGED PROFESSIONAL CONSULTING SERVICES

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EVENTS, MEDIA & MARKETING EDUCATION, UNIVERSITIES & COLLEGES

CONTENTS Global Village CEO Sven Boermeester

Publishing Partner Henry Hintermeister

Research & Selection Henry Hintermeister

Global Village COO Callie Van Graan

Project Manager Anita Naidoo

Global Village CMO Belinda Van Graan

Art Direction & Design Ravi Handve Susan Heiman

info@globalvillage.world www.InnovationsoftheWorld.com www.GlobalVillage.world

Managing Editor Meghan Tear Percy

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Production Team Anita Naidoo Sarah Nieman

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79 89 105 113 129 CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

BIOTECHNOLOGY

ENERGY, GREEN TECH & SUSTAINABILITY

CHAPTER EIGHT

MANUFACTURING

CHAPTER NINE

SOFTWARE & HARDWARE

CHAPTER TEN

TECHNOLOGY

221 233 245 251 261 CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

FUNDERS, ACCELERATORS & INCUBATORS

BIG DATA & ANALYTICS

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

SAFETY & SECURITY

CHAPTER NINETEEN

PRODUCT INNOVATIONS & RETAIL

CHAPTER TWENTY

HR & STAFFING

IT’S A KIND OF MAGIC...

DOWNLOAD THE GLOBAL VILLAGE AR APP TO VIEW 100 AUGMENTED REALITY VIDEOS IN THIS BOOK!

To experience the future of print, download the Global Village AR App from the IOS or Android App stores. Open the App and hold it about 30cm above any page that contains an image with the “play” Icon.

Make sure your back camera is pointing at the page. Click the Play button that appears onscreen and immerse yourself in the latest updated content with reference to that page.

Disclaimer: Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information in The “INNOVATE® Minnesota” vol 1. Neither “INNOVATE® Minnesota” nor Global Village assume any responsibility for errors or omissions. All rights reserved: No part of this publication shall be reproduced, copied, transmitted, adapted, or modified in any form or by any means. This publication shall not be stored in whole or in part in any form in any retrieval system.

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CHAPTER 1

THOUGHT LEADERS

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

—MARGARET MEAD

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AN IDEAL FUTURE IN HEALTH CARE CAN START IN MINNESOTA. KEITH TANSKI, CTO, OPTUM

Innovation to me is working to never settle … and to continually be obsessive over creating a continued better experience and product. This means that status quos need to continually obsess over all spectrums and that we need to realize that the greatness that got us to this point will not necessarily continue to take us to the future or that it will be sustainable as it is today. We can and must continue to evolve, whatever the discipline.

An ideal future in health care is to create a seamless, consumer-based experience that allows for ease of use in the system. Today the system is hard to use across insurance, providers, and the various go-betweens in getting the necessary care. Even more ideal than this is to enable the system (where possible) to be preventative and proactive, one that anticipates needs and helps guide providers and patients alike. This is in contrast to the reactive needs patients have when something is already wrong.

As in any industry, the ability to be a successful entrepreneur involves grit, energy, and tackling opportunities that have not been addressed at all, or not been addressed efficiently. Taking a customer-in focus is the best approach in all industries, health care included. Within health care there are so many touchpoints; the end point could be a clinician, a consumer using the system, the insurance industry, or any of the various processes that interact across one or all of those end points. The key is to identify the opportunities but also to then start working across the various constituents to foster ideas. Oftentimes a smaller organization has the ability to move faster than the larger companies … but taking the larger companies as a partner can serve well given their reach and existing customer base. So taking a partner along the journey can sometimes prove very advantageous.

The Twin Cities is sometimes referred to as Silicon Prairie. The innovation within this region of the country and the world is amazing. The talented individuals across a number of industries can come together very quickly and have had the ability to work among some of the country’s and world’s greatest brands. It makes the Twin Cities a unique region, in my mind, to incubate and grow ideas across a number of industries … and to do so by drawing across a large pool of very talented individuals. Couple this with the fact that many of the companies in the region help to incubate the startups and their ideas, and partner with them. They do this both directly, and through a number of incubation organizations and frameworks.

I want to continue doing what I can to bring fresh perspectives to all areas that help the community. It’s an honor to put forward some of my energy and passion to help contribute to the great causes the Twin Cities are and will be known for.

Keith Tanski gravitated toward the IT world at a fairly early age programming on the Commodore 64. Since that time, he has had the opportunity to implement platforms that support multibillion-dollar books of business, create robust delivery organizations that reshape how IT services can be delivered, as well as drive innovative topics across small business, financial services and retail industries in roles as an engineer, and architecture through the role of CTO. Today, he is a Senior Vice President in Enterprise Architecture at Optum Technology within UnitedHealth Group.

His focus remains on building cross-functional, multi-tiered capabilities to help integrate various capabilities across the company, which ultimately pave the way for change and innovation.

Keith has a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Minnesota. He sits on two boards for nonprofits and is also part of for-profit advisory boards. Keith resides in the Twin Cities and stays busy with his four children.

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CHANGE AND INNOVATION WILL ONLY OCCUR IF WE TAKE CHANCES AND TRY NEW THINGS. MOULI VENKATESAN, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT & CIO, OPTUMHEALTH & ENTERPRISE CLINICAL TECHNOLOGY Innovation means constantly learning from experiences of the past and using those as guideposts and insights to invent a better future—in this case, to make the health care system serve everyone better.

Innovation can mean many things. I look at Innovation using a lens of small “i” and BIG “I” models. Small “l” innovations are things that we do every day to incrementally make technology, processes, and experiences better for employees, consumers and members we are privileged to serve. BIG “I “innovations are things that radically change and define a new model of engagement that significantly reduces the complexities within today’s health care ecosystem. These could be using advanced technologies to the best of our abilities in support of the people we serve every day and making health care simple and easy for them to navigate.

I would go so far to say that technology has a moral responsibility to be the solution for today’s challenges. To be specific, I would like to see machine learning playing a broader role in health care in support of things like chronic disease management; fraud, waste, and abuse detection; and reducing hospital readmissions. And, I would like to see enhancements in our ability to answer benefit questions through Natural Language processing using Q&A search-like capabilities. Innovation like that helps us meet our customers, payers, and providers where they are and make working with us simple, easy, and more affordable.

Health care today still operates in a world of paper, batch processing, highly fragmented systems, and a lack of standards, all resulting in a confused customer experiences and outcomes.

But imagine a health care model for humanity where physicians know exactly which medications a patient is taking, which specialist to refer their patient to (or which site is best for tests and procedures), and where they can easily access a patient’s full and current medical history—at the point of care. Imagine a health care model where a patient is empowered with the right information to get the best care in network, in real time.

All resulting in consumers experiencing health care as convenient and easy to engage with.

I envision a time where we openly share data, code, and systems by enabling seamless interoperability, efficiency, and accelerated innovation; radically change health care from a fragmented and disconnected model to a real-time digital experience that eliminates waste and improves care outcomes; and evolve and elevate collaboration across the health care ecosystem to develop and employ optimal care pathways.

I am a strong believer in “the power of Passion and Perseverance.” I’d encourage any innovator or entrepreneur to keep learning and to be curious in your engagement at all levels when trying new technologies, new business models, and new ideas.

Change and innovation will only occur if we take chances and try new things. If you have the passion, know your purpose, and have the perseverance to go at some of the toughest challenges—we can together create a better and healthy health care system for tomorrow.

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Mouli Venkatesan is Senior Vice President and CIO of OptumHealth and Enterprise Clinical Technology. Mouli supports businesses, consumers and customers of UnitedHealthcare and OptumHealth. In this capacity, he is responsible for technology strategy and delivery across the enterprise. Mouli also leads the enterprise technology agenda for interoperability and closely partners with UnitedHealthcare and OptumHealth business stakeholders, external regulators and industry collaborative standards forums to advance the interoperability agenda for the enterprise.

Mouli holds his undergraduate degree in electronic engineering from Gulbarga University in India and his MBA in health care from the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.

Optum 11000 Optum Circle Eden Prairie, MN 55344

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WE CAN USE COMMUNITY ENTANGLEMENT TO OVERCOME RISK AVERSION.

DAN ATKINS, PRESIDENT, MINNEANALYTICS; CHIEF COMMUNITY ENTANGLEMENT PARTICLE, OPTUM Community engagement is just one of innovation’s key elements, though; you also need creativity and education. As a state, we value, encourage, and reward creativity, which is reflected in our arts scene. By almost any measure, Minnesota is at or near the top in this regard. You can’t be innovative without being creative. Linear thinking and deductive reasoning can bring innovation, but not in the way inductive reasoning and serendipitous brainstorming can. Innovation is a chaotic process (even if “chaotic process” sounds like an oxymoron).

Interestingly, this all has to play against a tradition of aversion to risk. You only have to go back a few generations to realize that if you didn’t plan for what you were going to eat six months into the future, you would be dead. Minnesota winters have a habit of negatively reinforcing a lack of planning. Innovation demands an acceptance of risk and a willingness to fail. Repeatedly.

Having the privilege to work with a lot of college students, it’s exciting to see all of this—creativity, community engagement, their learning—in their young faces. They are an unfiltered exaggeration of all these great things.

They are smarter and more creative than any generation I’ve encountered, and they are eager to change the world with little concern about failing. I hardly need to suggest that they go and mix things up. Everyone should be this way.

In my field, data science, it’s by its nature DevOps. The same goes for Innovation. You deliver while you’re still developing. You learn and adapt on the fly with a tolerance for failure and underdeveloped ideas. You can iterate multiple times and deliver a winner while others are still talking about it.

I can’t explain the principle of quantum entanglement as well as a physicist could, but I believe in its application to the concept of community engagement nevertheless. There’s a way that two particles, separated by immense distance, can become entangled to the extent that what happens to one affects the other. Einstein called quantum entanglement “spooky action at a distance.”

When we combine a culture that fosters creativity with a dedication to community engagement, then entangle a great education system and the broader culture, we have the perfect formula for a great community. Take initiative, fail, pivot, fail, win, repeat. Entangle yourself with others and with other communities. Change a life. Change your little corner of the world. Just do it already.

Entanglement is something I try to enact every day; in fact, “Chief Community Entanglement Particle” is my self-described role in all of my endeavors. This is what it can look like: when I give a talk, I have a strict rule that no one can sit down next to someone they already know. I tell the audience that if they want to attend quietly and then return to their office without having met anyone, then they’re missing the point of communitybuilding and they might as well leave now. (My rule has worked so well that sometimes when I’m just walking through the building people talking to each other will jump apart when they see me.)

Dan Atkins is a classically trained capitalist that’s culturally a startup, working for a Fortune 6 enterprise as an executive-in-residence for a 501c6 community nonprofit. Known by many friends & colleagues as simply “Danalytics.”

MinneAnalytics info@minneanalytics.org +1-952-941-1300 MinneAnalytics

I insist on this entanglement because such community action—which begins with an introduction, a conversation—can be driven to surprising results.

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AS IMPORTANT AS TECHNOLOGY IS TO OUR INCREASINGLY CONNECTED WORLD, MORE SO ARE THE INDIVIDUALS THAT BRING PROMISING TECHNOLOGIES TO LIFE. JEFF TOLLEFSON, PRESIDENT & CEO, MINNESOTA TECHNOLOGY ASSOCIATION

Technology and people. For more than 30 years, these two very different, yet intrinsically intertwined words have formed the basis of my professional life. First, as a venture capital investor backing entrepreneurial teams developing and leveraging technology to create and grow innovative companies. Next, as a social entrepreneur helping low-income high school students succeed on a path to career success in the tech field through the Genesys Works program. And now, leading the Minnesota Technology Association, where cultivating and developing our state’s tech talent resources is a top priority.

I’ve long believed in technology as a powerful force for change in our world, a belief that has only been hardened as we address the current challenges of the COVID-19 crisis. Technology is enabling and powering the remote workforce that’s keeping our economy afloat, the distance learning keeping our students on track, and the videoconferencing and communication tools keeping families and friends connected and informed.

As important as technology is to our increasingly connected world, more so are the individuals that bring promising technologies to life.

From the inventor or engineer with the idea, to the CIOs leading digital transformations at their companies, it’s all about the people. Those leading the charge, and those delivering the results.

Talent matters. Recognizing that the success of any business depends on the strength of its people, it’s no wonder that business leaders are increasingly focused on attracting and retaining diverse teams with the digital skills and competencies needed to innovate and grow their organizations.

pursue STEM careers. We need to think differently as to how we engage historically overlooked and untapped sources of talent, how we attract new talent to Minnesota, and how we develop and retain talent once onboard.

This is why the Minnesota Technology Association has prioritized helping Minnesota’s technology-driven companies inspire, hire, develop, and retain exceptional talent. This means helping to develop new tech talent pipelines, advocating for workforce policy changes at the state and federal level, creating opportunities for companies to share best practices, and facilitating connections between job seekers and employers as we cultivate the skilled, inclusive technology workforce Minnesota companies need for continued business success.

The war for talent in the tech sector will only intensify, which is why addressing this issue is such a strategic imperative for MnTech and the companies and communities we serve. Working together, we can build the skilled, and more inclusive, tech workforce needed to sustain the strength and vibrancy of our tech ecosystem and Minnesota’s innovation economy.

We’re proud to be your partners in this important work.

Many of Minnesota’s future workforce challenges are based on changing demographics and uneven labor force participation. With baby boomers leaving the tech workforce in large numbers over the next ten years, we need to think differently as to how we inspire our next generation to

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THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT FOR TECHNOLOGY ON THE FARM. TEDDY BEKELE, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, LAND O’LAKES, INC. At its very heart, farming is filled with uncertainty. Just ask any farmer here in Minnesota who has ever wrapped up harvest amid a list of nearly endless variables, from trade to prices to weather and beyond. But there’s one important element farmers can rely on no matter what is thrown at them: Tech.

The way American farmers use technology sets an example for the whole world. You might have heard about how self-guided tractors and precise field testing have helped them grow more. To do more with less. And they have.

Minnesota farmers have nearly doubled yields of some crops from the 1980s to today thanks in large part to the use of agricultural technology, or “ag tech.”

As Chief Technology Officer for Land O’Lakes, Inc., I see every day how farmers are using ag tech to improve their businesses. But better yet, I have a front-row seat to what’s around the corner. And it’s pretty incredible.

Turns out, the next generation of ag tech is built on technology Minnesotans use every day in our living rooms.

Many of us use voice-controlled personal assistants to play songs and radio stations at home. Agronomists, or crop doctors, at WinField United, our business that focuses heavily on ag tech, are researching how that same technology could help farmers manage their fields. Rather than asking a home assistant to play Springsteen, a farmer could ask which product they should use to target pests—based on their type and what kind of crop they’re invading. This kind of tech could greatly boost efficiency and help farmers sift through a huge amount of complex information.

Other experts are looking into how we can help farmers get a better view of their fields— for example, self-flying drones and real-time satellite images—all while using sophisticated computer models to decipher the daunting amounts of information gathered.

And while virtual reality tends to be associated with video games, expert teams are developing augmented reality technology that, when paired with smart glasses, could display individual plants for an agronomist miles away. As the technology takes off, it could help farmers tackle problems early and effectively, increasing their crop output.

This kind of tech helps farmers produce more, but ag tech takes it one step further by helping them safeguard the air, land and water as well— and show us all that they’ve achieved.

Consider the work happening at Truterra, our business focused on farmer-led sustainability.

Their Truterra Insights Engine helps farmers visualize sustainable practices that are best for every acre they farm.

And what’s more, this technology helps farmers “show their work,” with analytics dashboards that track the sustainability results they achieve. This matters for anyone who cares about where their food comes from and how it was produced. (So pretty much everyone!)

From where I sit, every Minnesotan should expect to hear more about advances in ag tech for years to come. From voice recognition to virtual reality, Minnesota is leading the way—and we’re going to help farmers around the world become more productive and more sustainable as a result.

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THE PROBLEM-SOLVING CAPITAL OF THE NEW ECONOMY. PETER FROSCH, CEO, GREATER MSP

Entrepreneurship and innovation aren’t new to Minnesota. They’re the source of our current economic success and the key to even greater future prosperity, equity and growth. We have the potential to be the problemsolving capital of the new economy and the GREATER MSP Partnership is working to make that vision reality.

Rapid changes in the global economy—demographic shifts, climate change, and automation included—create an imperative for companies of every size to innovate and evolve or risk being left behind. In this environment, the risk isn’t trying something new, it’s staying the same.

What’s true for business is also true for Minneapolis-Saint Paul.

Remarkably, we grew our “headquarters economy” from the ground up.

Yet, as Ecolab’s CEO Doug Baker told the audience at GREATER MSP’s Annual Meeting last fall, “If big companies don’t innovate, they become small companies.”

In Minnesota, the only thing more natural to us than innovation is collaboration. In the last five years alone, the region has experienced an explosion of energy and focus around entrepreneurship and innovation.

Some of our largest companies including Ecolab, Cargill, Target, and United Health Group launched national accelerator programs with Techstars.

Others partnered with gener8tor or built in-house programs. Existing entrepreneurial support organizations such as MN Cup and Minnestar grew, while efforts like Bunker Labs, Grow North, and Lunar Startups opened their doors.

Forge North, a strategic initiative of the Partnership, was launched to build and drive the region’s innovation ecosystem. Through this working partnership of entrepreneurs, investors, startup accelerators, and many others, we are building on our authentic strengths rather than looking to emulate other regions’ models. We want an ecosystem that is purposedriven, more inclusive of gender and race, and focused on unlocking new ideas at the intersection of our sectors of strength like health, food, and water.

Bold ambitions call for big coalitions. GREATER MSP is a fast-growing partnership, and our vision is for the Minneapolis-Saint Paul region to lead the world in inclusive economic growth by welcoming everyone, empowering people, and igniting innovation. The launch of Forge North is a statement from the Partnership that innovation is now and will always be a core strategy in our approach to regional economic development. It is everyone’s work and we would love for your organization to be involved.

To that end, Forge North partners from across the region have helped assemble over 500 existing local support resources for entrepreneurs into a single free tool, the Resource Compass. Now, founders can search the tool by industry, stage, and business to find the solutions they need to succeed at forgenorth.org. That’s smart, and it’s just the beginning.

GREATER MSP Partnership - Make It. MSP. 400 Robert St. North, Suite 1600 Saint Paul, MN 55101 651-287-5941

The leaders and partners of Forge North are tackling problems in the present while also thinking big about the future. In November 2019, the Partnership announced a 2030 regional ambition to become the best place for people from every background to start and scale ventures that create wealth by solving global challenges. Hundreds of innovators in this community shaped that ambition and are now hard at work daily driving toward that horizon.

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WITH APOLOGIES TO THOMAS EDISON, INNOVATION IS ONE PERCENT INSPIRATION AND NINETY-NINE PERCENT PERSPIRATION. TONY HUTH, CO-FOUNDER & PRESIDENT, MEDICOM HEALTH PEOPLE, PRODUCT, PROCESS... AND PERSPIRATION If a simplistic definition of innovation is to do something better than others (i.e., faster, cheaper, etc.) then common sense tells us that a business can’t thrive without it. And maybe most importantly for smaller companies, you’ll have to do it over and over in big and small ways.

Why is that? The bad news is that the benefits of successful innovation are variable and often temporary. Worse, innovation attempts can fail.

Ideally a business should build a culture of rapid, ongoing innovation—one that can incrementally learn from failures. To me, the best way to harden an organization for iterative attempts over time is to focus on the basics: People, Product, and Process.

We were able to take the company to the next level: C-corp status, board of directors, CEO search, stock option plan, investment, etc. As the company grew, it became clear we couldn’t be as tightly integrated as the first 6 employees without some very rigorous processes.

This takes hard work, but truly is the bedrock for innovation. With apologies to Thomas Edison, innovation is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.

Process as innovation.

Companies don’t innovate. People innovate.

I’m not talking about development processes, but a proven high-level management framework to ensure the forward progress of the entire organization. A thought-model that could be embraced by all and followed by all, with a common lexicon and clear expectations.

Innovation can’t happen without empowered People, so you must begin there.

We were lucky. Starting as a 6-person custom software shop in 2000, we intuitively focused on People because that is all we had. Being projectbased, we baked R&D into our daily grind. Constant innovation at the individual level was natural. Every project incorporated advances.

There are many popular options, but we settled on one that emphasized our focus and values. We worked hard and continue to work hard to implement it thoroughly and consistently across the organization.

Honestly, it has made a huge difference. I truly consider it to be an innovation. When I come across companies that don’t follow something like this, I often spot issues we solved long ago. It helps with all three P’s while reducing our Perspiration.

Unfortunately, this business model was vulnerable to cash flow issues.

During the 2007 recession, a consultant told us, “You’re a collection of experts providing an expert service. It’s not scalable.” We learned our past successes weren’t worth much to outside investors. Our business was at risk.

Partners are the fifth “P.” As we’ve grown, Partners have become important. Not coincidentally, finding and operationalizing successful partnerships is similarly experimental. Know that you’ll likely kiss a lot of frogs, but the right partners can help you innovate faster, broader, and deeper. In conclusion, innovation comes in many forms. It can be built, borrowed, or bought. You need time, resources, and a perpetual commitment to its pursuit, plus the strength to survive failure.

For the first time, we had to purposefully innovate. We needed rapid, significant Product innovation to fuel an alternative business model.

Fortunately, by then, we could leverage our investment in our People, who were now a flexible, skilled team of experienced problem-solvers.

Evolutionary innovation can have revolutionary results.

I am proud to say that we did successfully fully pivot to a SaaS model over a few years’ time. It changed our path completely. By necessity, we followed the natural, incremental evolution of our products, with a better way to monetize them. We found you don’t have to “bet the company” on product innovation. That does not mean it was easy. It took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears but paid off in spades.

Tony Huth is the President and co-founder of Medicom Health, a health technology company founded in 2000, focused on health engagement and patient activation.

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WHEN EXPERIENCE-BASED SALES AND MARKETING PRESENTATIONS WORK, THEY INCREASE DEMAND FOR YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES, AND AN EXCITING REVOLUTION IN CLOUD-BASED PRESENTATIONS IS TAKING PLACE RIGHT HERE IN MINNEAPOLIS. ANGELINA LAWTON, FOUNDER, SPORTSDIGITA Experience Selling Is Here To Stay With the creativity of design professionals combined with the power of web-based analytics, we’ve been able to give leaders in organizations across the spectrum unparalleled opportunities to make presentations come alive. How? By transforming information and design into experiences that viewers can hear, see, and feel. We’re talking about sales presentations, but we’re not talking about slides.

Our approach to presentation design is based on the intense engagement of fans with their sports teams. In the stands or on the couch, at the net, over the goal line, across home plate, and at the buzzer, sports fans epitomize the possibilities of sales and marketing strategies designed for engagement with fans’ favorite brands.

From the Rinks to the Board Room Professional sports turns out to have been the best possible preparation for building a presentation platform that excels in experience-based B2B sales, marketing, and branding. Our journey started on the rinks of professional hockey and continues in the great frozen North, where walking and skating on ice has developed in us the agility to win in the slipperiest of situations. That’s why we can engage B2B clients at the most critical point in a sales strategy: during sales presentations that can make or break your relationship with customers.

A Competitive Advantage: Agility More than a buzzword, agility is a competitive advantage that sales teams achieve when they have access to fresh sales and marketing content ondemand. Deloitte Insights recognizes agility as a vital value and strategy as we embark on the third decade of the 21st century. Companies must employ adaptive models to keep up with the speed of their own success, and that means tapping into artificial intelligence, predictive selling, real-time customer engagement, and fully engaging communities with your brand. That’s what we do with our platform called Digideck.

The world of sports is where product, service, and customer are all part of an immersive experience where they all have vital parts to play.

Sports teams and the sponsors they attract are all about the game, the beverage, the gear, the food, the family and friends that all come together to stand for the brand. We exist to help organizations of all stripes engage their customers and build community through the same 360° sports experiences but in a B2B sales and marketing strategy that breaks through and stands out.

Meet Customers Where They Want To Be Met

We started out by revolutionizing sports marketing, and now we’re taking what we’ve learned from working with the New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, Los Angeles Lakers, to bring the same immersive experience to Cargill, Visa, Ticketmaster, and many others.

When we stop presenting and start immersing customers in brand experiences, we meet customers where they want to be met—not in front but all around in sound, image, video, music, and brand messaging that delivers a three-dimensional experience.

We’re here to serve global and local leaders who want to join us in building sustainable, adaptive, cloud-based environments for sales innovation.

Expectations for engaging, versatile, current content and formats have driven demand for new viewing experiences, and that’s why we’re in the business of delivering a platform that goes far beyond presenting.

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IN MY EXPERIENCE, THERE ARE FOUR THINGS THAT ARE ESSENTIAL TO INNOVATE: A STRONG MISSION AND CULTURE, A SUPPORTIVE ECOSYSTEM, DIVERSITY OF THOUGHT AND PEOPLE, AND A BUSINESS PLAN THAT TRANSFORMS AN INVENTION INTO AN INNOVATION. ANGIE CONLEY, CEO, ABILITECH

In my days at Medtronic, I remember Bill George used to say (as a lighthearted dig at General Mills), “We’re not selling Cheerios; we’ve got soul.” We all laughed, but even today I find it relevant in thinking about the importance of a mission. A mission-centered culture gives employees purpose, fueling them in that eleventh hour and keeping them aware of their impact—not just on the task at hand but on people’s lives; they are helping others to live better. At Abilitech, for example, we get in front of a patient or a clinician every week. That way, we stay close to the problems we’re trying to solve for them and to our mission.

The next essential on my list is infrastructure. Minnesota has an incredible med-device ecosystem; Medical Alley, the Minnesota High Tech Association, our universities, the Angel Credit tax program and an interest-free loan fund, the state’s incredibly skilled workforce. Thanks to this infrastructure and the investment it attracts, med-device startups in Minnesota have raised $5 billion in the last 10 years. Abilitech is part of that; we’ve been very capital-efficient compared to other device companies on the West and East Coasts, and it’s accelerated our ability to innovate at an early stage.

And so can a strong business plan. It is essential to first determine that the invention really solves a problem and to test both its mechanics and user feedback. Abilitech’s strategy also encompasses understanding how reimbursement will work, for example, and ultimately concentrating on the biggest opportunities before us. Developing, iterating, retesting, and refining our focus helps to build a strong business model that can be executed well, even in conjunction with the changing needs of the market.

Diversity of thought and people has also done that for us. I’m a big believer in lateral thinking; inventions and innovations are not discovered using linear thinking. If you keep looking at the same problem through the same lens, you’re never going to see new solutions. Applying knowledge from a different field to a new problem can create a new solution. An early example of this at Abilitech was taking our knowledge of pacemaker leads and guidewires and applying it to the design of cables in our devices.

Innovation in startups requires being comfortable with being uncomfortable. It requires failure and learning. When you’re doing those two things, you can only get better—but you also have to get to market.

It can be difficult to draw the line in the sand and say, This is the product that’s going to help a lot of people; let’s go. But if you’ve got the essentials in place—which Minnesota’s innovation ecosystem really enables—it can be a lot of fun. I’m happy to say that’s been true for Abilitech, and we’re only just getting started.

That kind of cross-pollination of ideas starts with our team, whose diversity enables better problem-solving and innovation. One of Abilitech’s engineers, for example, lives with a C4 spinal cord injury, and the perspective he provides keeps our patients’ needs top of mind. Diversity of thought is not always present in a research lab or a more corporate space, but it’s necessary for ensuring an invention becomes an innovation. It can set you apart.

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USING MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY TO RELIEVE PAIN AND DISRUPT THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC. GEOFF MARTHA, PRESIDENT & CEO, MEDTRONIC

Millions of Americans are affected by pain and have been prescribed systemic opioids as part of their treatment plan. Whether for chronic or acute pain, prescribing systemic opioids continues, despite the limited evidence on the benefits of long-term systemic opioid therapy and evidence that long-term systemic opioid therapy is associated with increased risk for opioid misuse or addiction. An estimated 11.4 million Americans are misusing opioids, with 63% doing so to relieve physical pain. 25% of chronic pain patients also are misusing prescription oral opioids.

As part of the comprehensive efforts in the United States to address the opioid epidemic, device-delivered therapies are being considered as an alternative or adjunct to systemic opioids in the management of acute and chronic pain. Device-delivered therapies of spinal cord stimulation, intrathecal pain pumps, and vertebral augmentation, along with several other procedures, have been identified by the US Department of Health and Human Services in The Pain Management Best Practices InterAgency Task Force Report as interventional procedures. These can be considered singularly or as part of a multimodal approach to managing chronic and acute pain, depending on the patient. Through greater awareness and use of device-delivered therapies, healthcare providers can reduce pain for many patients—and potentially reduce their exposure to high dose opioid and/or long-term systemic opioid use. This in turn could help disrupt the opioid epidemic.

Medtronic Pain Therapies do not treat opioid addiction, but rather offer patients a way of managing their pain as an alternative or adjunct to systemic opioids. Medtronic has already published clinical evidence that shows reduction in the use of systemic opioids with Targeted Drug Delivery (i.e., intrathecal pain pumps) and acute pain associated to vertebral compression fractures (VCF) using Balloon Kyphoplasty as a technology for vertebral augmentation. We know that not every patient experience is the same, and so we continue to invest in clinical trials that generate new evidence to help physicians make more informed pain treatment decisions.

Geoff Martha, President and Chief Executive Officer, Medtronic Healthcare providers, payers, elected officials, regulators and patient advocacy groups all hold important pieces to the puzzle, and we must work together. It starts with novel care pathways and personalized treatment options to help these patients break their cycle of misuse or dependency. Solutions must also help the approximately 7.2 million patients who misuse opioids to alleviate pain, and these patients need effective policies and programs that will expand access to medical devices shown to relieve pain as an alternative or adjunct to systemic opioids.

Medtronic supports ongoing efforts by stakeholders across the US— patients, providers, payers, regulators, elected officials, patient advocacy groups, and employers—as they pursue approaches for preventing and treating prescription opioid misuse, addiction, and overdose. We are playing an important role alongside other stakeholders in helping patients take control of their pain in several ways: by informing them of their options for device-delivered pain relief; partnering with providers to consider non-systemic opioid pain relief in treatment plans for patients with acute and chronic pain; and educating payers, policymakers, and regulators to enable greater patient access to medical devices shown to alleviate pain as an alternative or adjunct to systemic opioids.

Partnership is the path forward in addressing the systemic opioid and pain management crises. Together, we must pursue effective policies and programs that will expand patient access to medical technologies shown to relieve pain as an alternative or adjunct to systemic opioids.

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MEDICAL ALLEY IS THE GLOBAL EPICENTER OF HEALTH INNOVATION AND CARE. SHAYE MANDLE, PRESIDENT & CEO, THE MEDICAL ALLEY ASSOCIATION

sector—payers, providers, medical device companies, pharmaceutical and biotech companies, digital health companies, and non-traditional healthcare entrants—to demonstrate a path forward that truly transforms healthcare.

You might say modern healthcare was invented in Medical Alley more than 150 years ago when the Mayo Clinic set the standard for care delivery. The medical device industry was born here with Medtronic’s founding in 1949. When the relationship between payers and providers needed to change, HMOs were invented here. Global healthcare leaders call Medical Alley home, including 3M, United Health Group, Ecolab, Best Buy, and many others. Medical Alley is also home to one of the most robust early-stage healthcare ecosystems in the world, producing companies like Rebiotix, Datica, Zipnosis, StemoniX, Vyriad, Bind, and Bright Health.

Today, Medical Alley is leading the transformation of healthcare.

As the President & CEO of the Medical Alley Association, I get to see some of the world’s greatest innovators and entrepreneurs changing the face of healthcare every day. As a community, there is a commitment to collaboration unlike any other place on earth. We’re leading the conversation. We’re transforming healthcare.

In 2020, the Medical Alley Association launched the Healthcare Transformation Initiative at Medical Alley (HTI-MA), bringing together current and future global healthcare leaders to reimagine a healthcare system that works to engage in new models, pilots, and collaborations to accelerate the shift to value-based care and change the health consumer/ patient experience. We’re leveraging Medical Alley leadership from every

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CONNECTIONS, NOT CONTACTS: ENGAGING PERSONALLY IN A VIRTUAL WORLD. NATHAN A. PEREZ, EXECUTIVE CAREER & JOB-SEARCH COACH, CAREER INNOVATION LLC

Getting right to it, networking gets a bad rap. The word itself can suggest a name-dropping, room-working extroverted event, where people make a lot of contacts, collect business cards, and go home. Me, me, me. And there’s such a thing. It’s alive and well in every city.

The idea of reciprocal networking, however, doesn’t occur to many of us, much of the time. Consequently, we miss out on the huge value of it, and what it will bring us in return. But it’s probably no surprise that things are this way, if only because traditional business has largely been transactional in the past. You’ve got something I want; I’ve got something you want; maybe it involves money; we trade those things, and off we go.

Why would professional networking be any different?

But if we consider that networking is just information exchange, we turn a mysterious mountain into a molehill. Because it ain’t no big deal just to talk about what we know. And when we realize that we are all walking databanks of (all kinds of) information, we are instantly transformed into networking experts. Each one of us. We know what we know, and we have it to offer. We just have to put words to it. And ask others questions.

And that just takes practice. (Like all other skills. Right?)

I know the idea may sound kind of quaint, but look deeper and you’ll see the potential profundity in every interaction you have from now on.

Here’s an example. I was speaking with a student who suggested a few unknown fly-fishing streams to try. I was thrilled. Because while this could be about secret fishing holes, it’s actually about fishing with my youngest son. New places to discover together. New memories to make. In this way, it was invaluable. And from a professional standpoint, there’s no doubt I’d answer executive career questions this person may have in the future. He helped me. I would help him in return. Simple. Reciprocal. But deeply valuable to both parties. And the fact that he was a student and not someone different has no bearing on the information or the value it brought me. We all have such things of value.

Imagine meeting (finally!) someone that you have long waited to meet. An investor. A potential officer. Leader. New business partner. Someone who is going to be big and influential to you or your project and work. And imagine that they asked you to reach out to them again later when there was more time, or to please stay in touch. (Yes!) And now imagine that it was all because of your willingness to help them in return for their help.

Believe it or not, I witness this every day in the great state of Minnesota.

At all levels. There are a few things that make this happen, but in the end, it’s about what people give freely. This state is something of a startup haven and has more than a dozen and half Fortune 500 companies. As this generates a lot of revenue, it drives and fosters a huge philanthropic culture, too; Minnesota has been cited as the most charitable state in the country a number of times over the years. Due to the nature of my work, I get to network with professionals from all walks here, and everywhere else. And what I’ve discovered is that the reciprocal nature of what I have described has created a cycle that makes giving and giving back part of the fabric of this state. But none of that could happen without the intentional reciprocity of people, or its role in networking.

So where to begin in a world where innovation is constant and fluid?

Stand still and take stock. Don’t just chase what you’re after; utilize what you’ve already got. It will have quicker, and longer-lasting returns. And for certain, get out there and actually meet people. You don’t have to work a room. (You don’t want to work a room.) Just talk with a few folks. Maybe some longer than others. In the end, it’s not about making contacts; it’s about making connections. nathanperez

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TO SURVIVE, COMPANIES MUST BE WILLING TO EVOLVE TO KEEP UP WITH CUSTOMERS’ CHANGING DEMANDS AND THE TECHNOLOGY THAT MAKES THEM POSSIBLE. ADAM COYLE, CEO, DIGITAL RIVER

Growth leaders like to talk about the concept of “hockey-sticking”—when a company’s product really catches fire in the market, and its revenue growth chart suddenly shoots upward, resembling a hockey stick. It’s a great analogy for a company from Minnesota, and it’s something Digital River knows well. From its beginnings 25 years ago giving software companies tools to sell their products online, Digital River experienced the hockey stick firsthand. Now, as a legacy ecommerce company with an eye on the future, it is poised to experience the hockey stick once again.

The key factor driving this opportunity is the speed at which change is coming to the ecommerce industry. It’s both exciting and daunting, and it is most definitely not for the faint of heart. To survive, companies must be willing to evolve to keep up with customers’ changing demands and the technology that makes them possible.

In 2019, Digital River made a major pivot from a legacy full-stack ecommerce provider to a best-of-breed API and microservices-based company providing turnkey, back-office technology solutions that plug into any ecommerce platform to enable brands to sell online, globally. It was a journey borne out of absolute necessity, as the entire ecommerce industry had shifted to modular solutions. Every industry experiences disruption that can open new possibilities just as it can close doors on others. It can be an existential crisis for a company, or an opportunity to innovate your way to long-term, sustainable growth. Digital River was at just such a crossroads when I became CEO. My background has taught me that a company’s own employees often know what needs to happen to move forward. Executing on that takes three things: owners who have the courage to make that change, a common understanding of the true economics of the business, and leadership that has the motivation to remove the roadblocks to success.

Adam Coyle has spent over 25 years in the financial technology industry in a wide range of executive roles. Adam joined the management team at Digital River after spending three years at Siris Capital, where he was an executive partner and a member of the Digital River board.

It’s about seeing the one small detail others have missed and using available technology to expose it in a way others haven’t. These are the breakthroughs that create opportunities for companies to create value and grow. Aviation pioneers frequently failed because they tried to emulate the mechanics of birds flapping to achieve propulsion. Only when they focused on the subtle aspect of wing shape, were they able to generate lift, and therefore success.

For the first, you either hope you have owners who see the value in taking a risk, or you try to convince them. If no one is willing to give up what worked in the past, but doesn’t work now, the company is at high risk of failing.

Finally, the simple advice I give to leaders who are joining an organization that needs an “innovation restart” is this: Listen to the employees; they know what needs to be done. The leader’s role is not to be the innovator, but to remove the roadblocks that are stifling innovation and give the employees the tools and resources they need to be successful. It’s certainly not easy and it’s never pretty, and most businesses fail because their ownership or leadership cannot overcome the fear of losing what they’ve already got. But those that can get the opportunity to experience the most exciting and satisfying of all business outcomes: a second hockey stick.

Similarly, understanding the true economics of your business is a driver of innovation that can lead to a profitable path forward. If what you’re selling has become commoditized, how can you differentiate and create a value proposition that is compelling? In many cases, businesses think their markets have become commoditized simply because buying patterns have changed.

For complex products, it can be easy to lose sight of what aspects of their product the market truly values over those it doesn’t. Sometimes unbundling a product that has historically been sold as a single solution is the most innovative strategy of all. Similarly, true technological innovation is rarely about creating something completely new.

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WITH THIS IMPACTFUL HISTORY AS A FOUNDATION, WE ARE EXCITED ABOUT THE STATE’S CONTINUED INVESTMENTS TO SUPPORT AND ATTRACT MORE HIGH-TECH STARTUPS TO MINNESOTA. JEANNE GLASS, FOUNDER & CEO, VIRTUALZ COMPUTING Although several of my family members and friends worked at Honeywell, Sperry-Univac, Unisys, and Control Data, until founding VirtualZ, I didn’t have a full appreciation for the contributions of Minnesotans in creating the computer industry. Now I’m proud to know Minnesota has been referred to as the “Midwestern Silicon Valley.”

One of the main reasons Minnesota’s computing innovations aren’t widely known among the public is much of the work was for the military, and therefore classified. One of the first inventions by Minnesotabased Engineering Research Associates (ERA) was developed in 1947 to decipher encrypted foreign military communications, later followed by the design of a general-purpose, re-programmable computer. The US Navy later granted permission for ERA to produce a commercial version of the classified computer, which was announced in 1951. From there, the technology advanced to more sophisticated systems, such as anti-aircraft computing systems.

Another important piece of Minnesota’s computing history—and a pivotal legal case in the computing industry—is Honeywell v. Sperry-Rand, 1973. In this landmark case, the 1964 Sperry-Rand ENIAC patent was invalidated: “This ruling put the electronic, digital computer in the public domain and opened the door for free entrepreneurship and innovation within the field.” (mncomputing.com)

In addition to Minnesota’s legacy in computing, according to SmartAsset’s Best Places for Women Entrepreneurs – 2019 Edition, the Twin Cities ranks as “the best place for women entrepreneurs in the country” and is also home to a growing ecosystem of women-led venture funds, such as the Sofia Fund, Capita3, and the local chapter of Pipeline Angels.

One of the state’s most recognized contributions to computing is IBM’s manufacturing plant in Rochester, Minnesota, but much of its history is unknown as well. According to postbulletin.com, in the 1950s, after evaluating 80 cities for their Midwest plant location, Albert L. Williams, executive vice president of IBM Corp provided several reasons for selecting Rochester, including that Minnesota workforce boasts unusual stability. The IBM Rochester plant lead to innovations in manufacturing and engineering that reached across the state and the world. These innovations resulted in “notable achievements in computer storage, computer-game chips, mid-range computers, and the landmark Blue Gene supercomputer.”

As a women-owned business, VirtualZ looks forward to contributing to the state’s community of female founders at this important time when awareness, funding and community are increasing for female entrepreneurs.

We’re thrilled to be part of Minnesota’s legacy in computing innovations and we applaud the state’s efforts and initiatives to recognize the vital importance of female founders and all entrepreneurs. Founders, entrepreneurs and their companies create jobs for communities, support local and global economies when procuring goods and services, and bring new innovations to market as Minnesotan’s positively impact our mutual economic well-being.

With this impactful history as a foundation, we are excited about the state’s continued investments to support and attract more high-tech start-ups to Minnesota. Most recently, “Launch Minnesota” was approved as part of the 2019 legislative session. This new program partners with private industry to “create financial incentives and programming to demonstrate that Minnesota is committed to fostering an innovation ecosystem that draws global attention.”

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MINNESOTA IS WHERE THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST COME TO SOLVE THE WORLD’S GREATEST PROBLEMS. REED ROBINSON, FOUNDER, BETA

The point of this history lesson is this—though there is much to celebrate about the recent wave of entrepreneurial activity and enthusiasm, this isn’t anything new; this is who we have always been— the place where people solve the world’s greatest problems.

So, what’s next for Minnesota’s startup ecosystem?

It’s a call to action. For anyone admiring the work being done here from a distance, please join us.

Move here, join us for things like Twin Cities Startup Week, or visit, even if just for one day. If you can’t make it, then follow along and/or send your friends. We want your best and brightest. We want those who recognize that genius comes in all forms, and that the time for solving big problems is also right now.

Nearly 150 years ago, General Cadwallader Washburn and Charles Pillsbury set up mills along the Mississippi, introducing scalable food-processing and global food distribution. A short time later, William Worrall Mayo moved to Rochester, and with the help of his two sons and the Sisters of Saint Francis, they would invent what are now standard practices of patient care, while building the world’s premier healthcare destination—the Mayo Clinic.

In 1952, Walt Lillehei—a professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Minnesota—participated in the first successful heart surgery. A short time later, Earl Bakken developed the first external, battery-powered pacemaker. His commercial efforts led to founding of Medtronic, while establishing Minnesota as an international leader in medical device development.

From the 1950s through the mid ’80s, Minnesota became the Mecca of supercomputing, though most of the work couldn’t be talked about. During that time, companies like Engineering Research Associates, Control Data, Cray, and Honeywell worked on secret government projects involving code breaking, national defense, and more, earning us the title of “the Land of 10,000 Top-Secret Computer Projects.” Their efforts continue to power the world’s most complicated and critical IT infrastructures.

Smattered in my timeline, you also have retail leaders like Richard Schultz (of Best Buy) and the Daytons (now Target), 3D printing pioneers Lisa and Scott Crump (with Stratasys), Prince, and nearly all female and minority-built innovations left out of the history books. Fast-forward to today and you’re looking at a very special place, with a diversified economy, that is home to many of the world’s leading companies in industries that feed the world and keep it safe.

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If you’re already actively involved in the community, go one step further—invite a friend, share what you’re seeing/learning with your network, encourage your employees to participate in the programming, and make time to be inspired.

The future of this startup ecosystem is a bigger tent, with room for global partners. It’s a cure for Type I Diabetes. It’s the elimination of senior fraud.

It’s an affordable, distributed energy grid. It’s an idea hatched in a hackathon and scaled to the world by one of our leading global institutions. It’s 20 years from now when we look back at the time when we conceived our next Fortune 500, or two. It’s a time to take risks and to build something new, because that’s what we do here. Our future is you.

BETA hello@beta.mn betadotmn

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WE’VE ALL HAD DISEASE HIT CLOSE TO HOME. IT’S WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO. PING YEH, CO-FOUNDER & CEO, STEMONIX

the human response to medications, which makes them ideal for use in drug discovery. The human heart cells in our microHeart platform are structured like and beat like native human heart cells. The human neural cells in our microBrain platforms communicate like native human brain cells. The microOrgans that we manufacture retain the function of the donor. As a result, we can make platforms that mimic a variety of disease.

Right now, we’re working on several disease models, including one for Rett syndrome—a rare developmental disorder that causes progressive loss of function and behaviors similar to those seen in severe autism.

To ensure the most accurate analysis of responses, our team of bioinformatics scientists created a proprietary analytical data management tool that allows for robust, biologically-tuned, and unbiased data evaluation in a fraction of the time. Because our platforms are so consistent and are delivered ready-to-use, drug-discovery companies can use them and our software to identify both the effective and toxic doses of medications faster, safer, and more effectively. Together, our combination of advanced, complex human-based experimental models and advanced analytics provide a strong foundation that will pivot drug development to humanbased, rather than animal-based, processes; extending from general to precision medicine.

My background is in nanotechnology with a foundation in mechanical engineering—so I understand the importance of quality and structure.

Furthermore, I’ve founded two organizations prior to StemoniX, trained in Lean Startup and as an Innovation Architect, and brought new technologies to market within large corporations. These experiences coupled with those of my co-founder have helped to focus our energy and move our company forward. I’m not a biologist, but I’ve been immersed in stem-cell research over the past six years with our world-experts who research, develop, and manufacture our products as well as provide a variety of drug discovery services to different sectors. Together, among other activities, we’ve partnered with the NIH to help end the opioid crisis and entered into a joint venture to do AI-based drug discovery.

Mostly, we’ve all had disease hit close to home. It’s why we do what we do. Together with our pharma partners, we’re achieving our mission statement: Make Medicine Work the First Time.

Coming back from the brink of death sounds so dramatic, but that’s truly how I feel. In 2012, I was literally dying. I had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and, a few months into my treatment, I learned that my cancer was resistant to the drugs. My only treatment option at that point was maximum potency drugs—drugs that might cure me but might destroy my heart. Not great options. I was lucky—my cancer was cured, and my heart is fine, but I kept wondering why wasn’t there a better way to test these drugs before they entered my body. Why didn’t we know my risks with these drugs? With all of the technology available, why do we still use the patient as the guinea pig? Thus was born StemoniX®.

Using human induced Pluripotent Stem Cell (hiPSC) technology, StemoniX creates complex cultures of, among other organs, brain or heart tissues from adult human skin cells. These microOrgans® are formatted to better mimic native function to allow for a more accurate representation of

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A NEW HIGHER EDUCATION MODEL FOR THE INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM.

DR. BHABANI MISRA, ASSOCIATE DEAN, UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

Not long ago, students could simply complete a college degree and find work for the rest of their lives. But today, industry is evolving rapidly—especially engineering and technology. Today, every one of us needs to retool and learn new skills about every four to five years.

How do we do that? How should we mold an innovation ecosystem to meet this need?

Of course, within our degree programs, we are updating course offerings and degree certificates to reflect the needs of both industries and students—graduate and undergraduate alike. We ensure that content is relevant—and stays that way. Many times, within our universities, we try to teach the same things year after year, but in today’s environment we reevaluate what we offer on a yearly basis.

Perhaps more importantly, we are changing how we see education, expanding on the discreet four-year degree model. We cannot assume that education ends there. Our students want more: They want to know they can return to upskill or retool a skill set completely. As well, they want to be leaders and innovators, bringing these new tools and skills back to the workplace and community.

If it’s our duty to help students and community members prepare for a better career, or even a completely new one, then we must meet them where they are.

For example, scheduling classes in the evening or on the weekends, limiting campus commutes to once a week, encouraging local companies to provide onsite training and experience—whatever we can do to increase convenience for our learners.

The organizing principles behind this new approach to education are based in community—not just looking at the student experience but determining how the university can help the workforce needs of our region. To that end, the University of St. Thomas has incorporated online programs and developed nuanced short courses and professional development programs, all of which are based on our conversations at various levels in a wide variety of industries.

Photo by Mark Brown School of Engineering Graduate Programs in Software University of St. Thomas, Minnesota 2115 Summit Avenue Saint Paul, MN 55105 USA +1-651-962-5500 StThomasEngineering UST_Engineering GPS_UST

In the Twin Cities, we’re fortunate to have 17 Fortune 500 companies, and we work hard to understand their needs so that we can prepare our students to fulfill them. That’s why many of our students have secured employment prior to their graduation date.

The fast pace of change means that the future belongs to those institutions that are nimble enough to stay in front of that change and help define what will be next in education. We are creating an innovation ecosystem for our community and region—deliberately innovative. We are creating the future of education.

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INTERESTINGLY, ONE OF THE MOST CRITICAL ASPECTS OF BEING SEEN BY OTHERS AS AN INNOVATOR IS A BRAND’S ABILITY TO THINK AND ACT LIKE A LEADER. AMY FISHER, VICE PRESIDENT, PADILLA

Not a young. disruptive brand? That’s okay. The “sage” is an established brand that can also innovate. Their tried-and-true reputation gives them more freedom to challenge the market and ask for support. Sages tend to lead the industry in new directions—convincing others to enthusiastically come along for the ride.

Finally, some brands are “conveners.” A convener brings disparate groups together to solve a common problem. Like sages, conveners need followers, but the convener mindset is a perfect fit for effective thought leadership. If you’re a convener, you probably find it easy to take center stage, showing others the path forward and speaking on behalf of the group. Just remember that truly innovative thought leaders share the limelight.

BUILDING THOUGHT LEADERS, ONE BRAND AT A TIME Innovation has been described as a business strategy, a brand value, even an organizational characteristic. It implies continuous ideation, creativity, and execution based on an ability to understand and meet the needs of customers, employees, investors, and other key stakeholders.

Innovation is what pushes ideas forward into the realm of reality.

One of the most critical aspects of being seen by others as an innovator is a brand’s ability to think and act like a leader.

Changing your mindset and how you think about thought leadership is the first step. It will give you the freedom to apply the skills you already use as an innovator to the process of building your brand. Your stakeholders will take notice and start to view you as an innovator.

Once you’ve identified your thought leadership role, you need a brand story, voice, messaging, visual identity, and (most importantly) a strategic plan.

Establishing a content and connectivity strategy is key to building and growing your reputation as a true thought leader.

WHAT KIND OF THOUGHT LEADER ARE YOU? A lot of brands find being a thought leader extremely challenging. After all, you want your opinions to be seen and heard, but you don’t want to alienate any potential stakeholders. You want media to pay attention, but you don’t want to stick your neck out on controversial topics.

Here’s the thing: brands that think this way are approaching thought leadership in all the wrong ways. Innovators already have all the qualities of a good thought leader. You just need to apply them to your brand communications.

If you’re an entrepreneur, you’re probably a “disruptor”: an upstart that’s challenging the way things are done. Creating something new and disrupting the status quo with something of greater value are essential for thought leadership. So, build on these qualities—be vocal about the challenges in your industry and be the one to step out with opinions on how you (and others) can solve them.

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Amy Fisher, Padilla vice president, helps companies articulate their value and strengthen their brands. She heads up accounts for the agency’s largest B2B enterprise hardware, software, and services clients. Her teams focus on brands selling complex B2B technologies into retail, healthcare, education, financial service, industrial, and agricultural segments. padilla padillacomm Padilla_Comm padilla_comm

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CHAPTER 2

FUTURE CITIES & COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

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“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”

—ALBERT EINSTEIN

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Supporting a Growing Data Science Community and Disrupting the Conference Scene Through Radical Engagement

It all started as a humble user group for professionals in the decision sciences—this was pre-2010, and the now-ubiquitous term “data science” was still relatively unheard of. A few dozen people would meet up at the local library to talk shop, with a particular focus on building networks and sharing knowledge. A turning point occurred in 2012 when the group organized a predictive analytics and big data conference keynoted by Geek Squad founder and former Best Buy CTO Robert Stephens. More than 500 people showed up, and it only got bigger from there.

MinneAnalytics is a nonprofit organization serving the data science and emerging technology community in Minnesota, the Upper Midwest, and beyond by organizing accessible, authentic, and engaging events. They facilitate the sharing of knowledge among analytics professionals across business and technology through industry-specific conferences. They also support the next generation of data science professionals through scholarships, career fairs, and experiential learning opportunities.

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The organization currently boasts more than 18,000 members, encompassing a vast array of job titles and industries. Its ranks include executives and directors, founders and entrepreneurs, quantitative analysts and developers. Minnesota’s Fortune 500 companies are wellrepresented, as well as a long list of up-and-comers and startups.

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I have often described MinneAnalytics as one would Lake Wobegon. ‘MinneAnalytics: where all the data is strong, all the graphs good looking, and the engagement above average.” —Dan Atkins, President

MinneAnalytics has now organized data science conferences across a wide range of industries, including Healthcare, Finance, Retail, Marketing, Agriculture, Supply Chain, Human Resources, and even Sports. Their industry-agnostic, technology-focused Data Tech conference is now in its sixth consecutive year, the most recent of which sold out in 24 hours with more than 1,200 registrations. The success of these events is measured by the experience of the participants, and event surveys reveal Net Promoter Scores reaching as high as the world-class 70 mark.

science challenge. Investments in scholarships have increased annually, providing support to a greater number of students.

As the number of data science programs grew exponentially, MinneAnalytics saw the value in connecting graduates with companies desperate for talent. Their first career fair in 2018 was designed to do just that, and the popular event is now an annual occurrence.

Innovation is also a key element to any thriving technology-focused community, and MinneAnalytics has taken great interest in showcasing the latest startups in the data science space. Since 2013, more than 100 startups have participated in the startup showcase sessions featured at all of their major conferences. In 2019, they organized a healthcare startup event that included pitches from more than 70 startups. These events proved to be a valuable way to connect innovators with investors and enterprise executives to make big things happen.

Part of what makes the MinneAnalytics conference experience so unique is the accessibility. On a typical conference agenda, you might find a nationally-renowned keynote speaker alongside the founder of a local meetup group, or a professor from a nearby college. The speakers aren’t speaking to the community, the speakers are the community.

“We offer the same quality content of many of the bigger national conferences, but we offer superior engagement,” says co-founder Dan Atkins. “And we do it for free.”

The future is wide open for MinneAnalytics. The group has already spread its message of engagement to the East Coast, organizing conferences in Boston in 2018 and 2019. These are not destination conferences—rather they are experiments in building a local community organically. They have plans to take this experiment to other regions in the coming years.

Despite its growth, the organization has maintained the communitydriven values that made it so special to begin with. The focus remains on accessibility and engagement—you don’t attend a MinneAnalytics event, you participate in it. It is free to join MinneAnalytics and events are free to attend. Funding comes from sponsors eager to connect with the impressive list of members.

One thing that won’t change is the almost indescribable quality that makes MinneAnalytics special: its atmosphere. MinneAnalytics does not create the community—they represent it.

This funding has allowed the organization to expand its scope.

Recognizing the importance of education to the future of the data science community, MinneAnalytics created scholarships and education initiatives. Through partnerships with universities, nonprofits and businesses, they organize experiential learning opportunities for hundreds of students each year with events such as the MinneMUDAC student data

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Our future depends on how we shape cities today.

The Minneapolis–Saint Paul metro area is expected to grow by nearly 900,000 residents over the next three decades. Nearly 500,000 new jobs are forecasted, with rapid employment growth occurring within the next decade. Together, this growth will increase the strain on affordability and economic opportunity, climate protection, and aging infrastructure systems.

The form and function of our urban centers will not only have major environmental impacts, each will significantly influence social well being, economic prosperity, connectedness, and sense of community. Getting this right is one of the greatest challenges of our time.

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Neighborhoods reside at the heart of these issues, and Towerside is a neighborhood-based response to address complex challenges. Successful solutions to these challenges reach beyond any one sector. By working at a district-scale, Towerside is able to deliver the projects, programs, and infrastructure that can support a thriving community. Imagine: a district energy system; a biosciences incubator; a busy light rail line; affordable, senior and market-rate housing; makerspaces; stormwater irrigating community gardens; breweries; pedestrians and cycling; green corridors; light rail; retail; medical and high technology; district parking; a center for textile arts and handicrafts; childcare; public art; and more.

Innovation Districts can serve as a model for environmental sustainability, social vibrancy, and equitable economic opportunity. In Towerside, innovation focuses on Energy, Water, and Place. Towerside’s publicprivate-civic partnership structure aligns leadership, improves crosssector collaboration, and builds new models of inclusive governance to drive effective planning and project delivery. +1-612-386-6257 tnordstrom@towersidemsp.org

We invite climate-positive, human-focused innovations that spark walkability, entrepreneurism, a vibrant public realm, health, connectivity, resilience and JOY. Welcome to Towerside!

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Belfast—Belfast and wider Northern Ireland is a center of excellence for cyber security, with the highest percentage of cyber jobs in Europe.

Bristol—Bristol has the most productive tech output in Britain and in 2018 was voted

by CBRE as one of Europe’s top ten tech “super clusters.”

Climate change, growing aging populations, and rapid technological change have transformed the world in which we live, and revolutionary innovation is necessary to design a brighter future.

Forging these partnerships is the role of the UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT), which helps British businesses export, drives inward and outward investment, negotiates market access and trade deals, and champions free trade. DIT helps thousands of US companies set up or expand in the UK every year with expert assistance and advice, and helps connect them with UK products and services that can streamline and enhance their business.

The UK is rising to the challenge and opportunity of this new world by putting innovation and the policy ecosystem it needs to prosper at the heart of our economy. By enabling research, diverse talent, and cutting-edge developments in artificial intelligence, big data, low-carbon technologies and automation, UK companies and institutions are at the forefront of creating new technology providing solutions to society’s greatest challenges.

There’s never been a better time to connect with DIT to find out how partnering with the UK can help your company innovate and grow …

The UK is one of the world’s fastest-growing tech hubs with more than 60,000 tech companies and 30 industry clusters.

2019 was a record-breaking year for the UK tech industry – venture capital investment outpaced that of the US and China, growing 44% to approximately $13 billion. This investment resulted in 8 new unicorns—twice as many as Germany and three times as many as France.

The UK ranked 4th globally in the 2018 Global Innovation Index, the highest of the G7 industrialized economies of Canada, France,

British organizations have found ways to use AI and data to make old age less lonely, improve prediction accuracy for heart disease diagnosis, neutralize cyber attacks before they take hold of a company’s systems and data, and develop transport that is cleaner, smarter and safer than ever before.

However, transatlantic collaboration is central to these efforts, and partnerships between British and American companies, research communities, and government are vital.

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Edinburgh—In 2019, Edinburgh was named the cleantech capital of the world for attracting the largest percentage of financial support for eco-friendly companies.

Manchester—Manchester is a robust tech hub with world-class universities, the largest number of digital workers outside London, and significant business opportunities in healthcare and manufacturing.

Germany, Italy, Japan, the US, and the UK. The UK government invests $21 billion each year in R&D, offers 230% tax relief on R&D costs, and has the lowest corporation tax in the G20.

The country is a magnet for highly skilled talent—it’s home to 4 of the top 10 global universities and is the #1 destination for tech talent, attracting 1 in 5 of all international movers. London alone has 240,000 digital technology employees.

The UK has become a center for low-carbon innovation. We have the largest offshore wind capability of any country in the world and since 1990, have cut carbon emissions by more than 40% while growing our economy by more than two-thirds.

DIT helps thousands of overseas businesses set up or expand in the UK every year with expert assistance and advice, providing tailored information to de-risk market entry, including market research, legal and accounting introductions, recruitment support, policy insight, and partnership-building opportunities. We work with all companies, from startups/scale-ups through to the Fortune 500.

To find out more about “Why UK,” visit great.gov.uk, and contact your local DIT team for advice on growing your business internationally.

UK Department for International Trade department-for-international-trade tradegovukusa Invest in GREAT Britain & Northern Ireland – Technology in the UK greatcampaign

As the #1 destination in Europe for inward investment and home to more fast-growth companies than any other European country, the UK has a lot to offer to US companies seeking global growth.

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your source for career exploration, training & jobs

On any mobile device, you can access CareerOneStop’s Veteran and Military Transition website, a one-stop website for employment, training, and financial help after military service, including a Veterans Job Matcher tool.

MEETING THE EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING NEEDS OF EVERY SINGLE INDIVIDUAL AND BUSINESS ACROSS THE UNITED STATES

CareerOneStop’s Skills Matcher helps you identify careers that match your skills. You answer 40 questions to rate your level in a range of skills. Then you see a list of careers that are good matches for your unique set of skills.

CareerOneStop’s Job Finder taps four different job banks to search for jobs in any location across the United States.

CareerOneStop’s Video Library now includes more than 500 career videos, reflecting nearly 800 occupations.

Each 90-second video gives a career overview and highlights important tasks, education requirements, particular challenges, settings where people in the field work, and more. Videos are responsive and will format to desktop, smartphone, and tablet.

What do these people have in common?

The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development’s CareerOnestop.org provides employment solutions to job seekers and businesses across the United States. Sponsored by the US Department of Labor, CareerOneStop curates the most authoritative data and resources available on the topics of career exploration, education and training, and job searching—and delivers customized information to Americans at all levels of experience, education, and ability. In short, CareerOneStop aims to connect workers and employers and to demystify the employment world for individuals, businesses, and workforce professionals while promoting success for all.

A recent college graduate A newly single mom who hasn’t held a job in 15 years A 24 year old who never finished high school but dreams of finding a job that can lead to a living-wage career An executive who got laid off and wants to know what her options are A retiree who needs part-time work to pay the bills but can’t seem to convince employers that his skills aren’t out of date A veteran who’s never held a job outside of the military and has no idea where or how to start looking for one A military spouse who re-locates frequently, and needs a career that’s as portable as her household goods A business person looking to hire to fill personnel needs A formerly incarcerated individual looking to reenter the workforce

They all need help in preparing for, finding, or improving their employment or prospects. And they all are CareerOneStop’s core audience.

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employment and training needs of every single individual and business across the United States, without collecting fees from users or advertisers. To do this, CareerOneStop innovates continuously to maintain a set of robust online tools, customized websites, mobile apps, and other products.

CareerOneStop’s flagship website, CareerOneStop.org, features a growing toolkit of nearly sixty user-friendly online tools, including:

Job Finder to search updated, local job listings in any US location Veterans Job Matcher to match military skills and experience to civilian jobs Occupation Profiles and Career Videos to explore and learn about indemand careers Salary Finder to identify average salaries for nearly 900 occupations, in any US location Certification Finder to identify certifications that demonstrate skills and knowledge to employers Local Training Finder to locate training programs—short-term through four-year—in any US location American Job Center Finder to find and contact an AJC for in-person employment assistance Interest Assessment with 30 quick questions to help identify careers that match a user’s interests Skills Matcher that lets users rate themselves on 40 key skills—and identify careers that match

CareerOneStop’s CareerBot will help you find the information you’re looking for on the CareerOneStop websites, or to discover something entirely new on any of CareerOneStop’s sites. You’ll find CareerBot on everyone one of our web pages, whether you’re on a computer, tablet, or phone.

In addition, CareerOneStop provides targeted resources for diverse audiences via a collection of customized websites:

GetMyFuture offers career, training, and job search resources to young adults age 16 to 24 Credentials Center helps individuals plan, locate, and pay for education, training, and other credentials to help them start, change, or advance their career mySkills myFuture helps laid-off workers and other career changers explore new careers that may use skills and experience gained in previous jobs Veteran and Military Transition Center provides employment-related resources for veterans and those currently transitioning from the military Business Center provides resources for hiring, training, and retaining a strong workforce Job Search Help for Ex-offenders offers formerly incarcerated individuals tools and resources to help them explore careers, get training, and find employment Disaster Recovery Services offers quick access to a range of employment and related resources for people and businesses impacted by floods and other disasters

Videos Our recently launched collection of career videos replaced a decades-old collection. The videos, available in English and Spanish, provide a brief visual introduction to the details and highlights of more than 800 careers and are heavily used by people and organizations across the US. Currently in production are industry, skill, and other career exploration videos.

CareerBot CareerOneStop continues to refine its award-winning front-line customer service pop-up bot that helps users quickly find the resources they seek on CareerOneStop websites. Next step: improving Artificial Intelligence capabilities to increase our chatbot’s usefulness.

Apps and mobile-friendly resources All CareerOneStop tools and content are formatted to work on smartphones, tablets, and desktops— and our free app (downloadable for Apple or Google devices) features 32 of our most-used career tools. Upcoming products include more stand-alone apps targeted to specific audiences.

Innovation Founded in 1998, today CareerOneStop continues a legacy of innovation by leveraging existing and emerging platforms to ensure we can deliver information that’s easy to consume for our diverse range of users. New projects include:

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CHAPTER 3

ASSOCIATIONS & COUNCILS

“Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement.

Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable.”

— WILLIAM POLLARD

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A FORCE FOR GOOD IN TECH AND THE COMMUNITY. Over the past 38 years, the Minnesota Technology Association—formerly the Minnesota High Tech Association—has been a unifying voice and trusted convener for Minnesota’s tech community, advocating for smart public policies to boost the state’s innovation economy and connecting technology professionals and tech-related companies to build a more robust, and inclusive, tech ecosystem.

“We don’t want to focus only on ‘high technology,’” says Jeff Tollefson, president of the Minnesota Technology Association. “We want to increasingly embrace the broader spectrum of tech-enabled companies and more deeply engage with those deploying technology in new and innovative ways to drive their business success.”

One of the ways MnTech is doing so is through establishing a series of communities of interest—gatherings and working groups designed to foster learning and connection based on shared passions and interests.

Seven COIs have recently launched, including AI in Manufacturing,

Recognizing that almost every company is, in some way, a tech company, MnTech’s recent rebranding reflects a renewed focus on broader community building.

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Tech Careers 1.0, and Tech for Good, with more planned in the coming months.

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companies need for continued business success. With Baby Boomers reaching retirement age and an education system—both secondary and post-secondary—struggling to produce appropriately skilled graduates, there is an urgent need to address current and future talent gaps. Both circumstances force different thinking about where talent might come from, including “tapping into often-overlooked talent pools, especially among historically underserved communities,” Jeff says. “We also need to think about how we expand work-based learning opportunities for our cities’ youth.”

Part of MnTech’s efforts in this regard led the association to create a new position—Director of Community Engagement. They’ve found a worthy director in Jade Denson, whose role is to not only facilitate MnTech’s learning communities, but also to form active partnerships with other area organizations that support entrepreneurs and innovators. The idea is to better connect these organizations with MnTech’s member companies and thus strengthen the state’s innovation ecosystem organically through these relationships.

This kind of programming responds not just to young learners’ needs but also to those of the business community, many of whom only have the bandwidth to deal with their day-to-day talent and staffing needs. But MnTech is in the unique position of being able to tend to and build up tech talent pipelines in a way that will sustain businesses’ growing needs far into the future.

“Minnesota has a rich history of innovation to build on, and in order to build the next generation of industry leaders, we need to maintain a culture that not only values and supports innovation but intentionally cultivates the talent needed to fuel a technology-driven economy,” Jeff says.

“There’s a need for a group like MnTech to take the lead in helping inspire youth to think about careers in technology, in working with our public education system so that students acquire relevant skills needed for career success, and in thinking about some of the public policies that we can advocate for to help create a skilled, and more inclusive, tech workforce in Minnesota.”

That perspective on the importance of talent development has led MnTech to double-down on its efforts to build the tech talent pipelines Minnesota

Through cooperation and collaboration in the community, MnTech is a force for good for technology-driven companies and the people that drive their success.

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WHO WE ARE Make It. MSP. is a strategic initiative of the GREATER MSP Partnership.

Leveraging a network-based structure, Make It. MSP. is the Greater Minneapolis-Saint Paul (MSP) region’s effort to work collaboratively as a region to better attract and retain people. The ambition of the Make It. MSP. initiative is to make the MSP region one of the nation’s Top 10 performers at attracting and retaining people by 2030.

OUR FOCUS AUDIENCES

WORKING COLLABORATIVELY TO ATTRACT AND RETAIN A DIVERSE AND TALENTED POPULATION

Newcomers : Projects, resources, events, and programs to welcome newcomers to MSP and help them make meaningful connections

Professionals of Color : Teams working to better connect people of color as they grow and thrive in MSP

Tech Talent : Targeted attraction and retention efforts to expand the number of tech workers in MSP

Interns & Recent Grads : Events, partnerships, and tools to help better to attract college interns and graduates to MSP

WHAT WE DO

We develop data-driven focus areas alongside motivated partners Make It. MSP.’s work is focused in areas that, based on data, represent significant opportunity for improvement and where a diverse group of partners can collaborate.

We collect and share targeted insights from real people We listen first, gathering insights through interviews, focus groups, surveys, and conversations straight from the people we are trying to reach. These insights guide the actions we take together.

We set priorities, take action, and measure results in partnership Informed by the voices of our customers and coordinated by GREATER MSP staff, Make It. MSP. supports cross-sector teams that set goals together, launch and execute projects together, and evaluate results together.

SPOTLIGHT: MSP TECH PROJECTS RESEARCH The MSP Tech team has gathered key insights from tech workers in MSP and around the country. In early 2019, Make It. MSP. published an MSP Tech report as part of its Insights series. The report set out to capture a clearer picture of the region’s tech economy in relation to other top metros across the U.S. When looking at the total number of tech workers in MSP, the diversity of the region’s industry sectors, and the growth of the region’s startup ecosystem, the report made the case that MSP is a tech hub hiding in plain sight.

ACTION Each year, the MSP region plays host to Twin Cities Startup Week (TCSW), a free weeklong entrepreneurial conference hosting more than 200 events for more than 17,000 people. Make It. MSP. helps sponsor and market the TCSW Fly-In program, which gives people from all over the country an opportunity to experience the region in full force. Hundreds of jobseekers and entrepreneurs have now participated in the program, which reimburses candidates for travel and gives participants VIP access to the entire week including special networking events with employers.

The program has led to new jobs, relocations, business deals, and more.

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STORYTELLING Make It. MSP. developed online profiles and video interviews highlighting a series of dynamic tech professionals who had moved to MSP from all corners of the country. Some worked for MSP’s large Fortune 500 companies like Target and Sleep Number, and others were founders of their own tech startups or had joined the thriving FinTech economy in the region. The profiles and videos are now housed on a permanent subpage of the makeitmsp.org website, and their content has been used for a variety of nationwide targeted ad campaigns promoting the tech ecosystem in MSP.

LEARN MORE Makeitmsp.org : Website including guides, event calendars, tools to help attract and retain people, a job portal, and blog Make It. MSP. Insights : Quarterly reports examining migration trends, people’s perceptions of MSP, and team projects that can be downloaded for free at makeitmsp.org Monthly Newsletters : E-mails designed for different audiences and partners, including talent leaders, newcomers, people of color, and more with free subscription at makeitmsp.org

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Bold. Forward. Together.

GREATER MSP is a public-private partnership of more than 4,500 individuals from over from 300+ leading businesses, universities, cities, counties, and philanthropic organizations in the Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul region (Greater MSP). Leading executives in the region came together to create GREATER MSP so they could work in partnership to accelerate the competitiveness and inclusive growth of the 15-county economy. And grow it has. In 2017 alone, nearly 100,000 newcomers arrived in Greater MSP—about 3% of the metro area’s population of 3.6 million.

Growing jobs and capital investment. Over the past eight years, GREATER MSP has attracted 170 business projects to the region, creating more than 40,000 jobs and $4 billion of investment.

Generating national and global awareness. By telling the stories of the people and places in Greater MSP, we reach millions of individuals, entrepreneurs and site selectors around the US and world, increasing awareness and positive perceptions of the region.

ABOUT THE REGION Powering cross-sector coalition. GMSP leads strategic initiatives on issues like talent, air service and entrepreneurship by convening hundreds of organizations to make change on a regional scale.

The Greater MSP region has a decades-long history of innovation. From medicine and manufacturing to food and fitness, Minnesota inventions have solved some of the world’s biggest challenges and changed how people work and live.

Learn more about our spotlight strategic initiative, Forge North, below and view our list of other GREATER MSP strategic initiatives.

This culture of innovation is clearly evident in our region’s strong and diverse economy. Fifty companies began their rise to the Fortune 500 list as startups in Minnesota. And today, 16 Fortune 500 companies are based in Greater MSP—the highest per capita rate in the nation. This headquarters economy is supported by a thriving business community of companies of all sizes in more industries than other comparable regions in the US.

SPOTLIGHT STRATEGIC INITIATIVE: FORGE NORTH Forge North is another strategic initiative of the GREATER MSP Partnership that aims to make MSP the best place for people from every background to start and scale ventures that create wealth by solving global challenges. Partners in Forge North are building off the region’s legacy as a destination for problem-solvers.

Local problem-solvers have started and scaled some of the world’s leading companies, including 50 Fortune 500 headquarters leading industries like food, health, retail, and more. Today, local innovators continue to transform these industries.

Our growing, globally-connected region is very productive, with $260 billion in output generated by one of the nation’s highest workforce participation rates. This makes our economy the 46th largest in the world.

WHAT WE DO GREATER MSP is a nonprofit, cross-sector partnership with a professional staff and hundreds of investors. It acts as a platform for regional leaders and organizations to come together to do the globally impactful work they can’t do alone. This is achieved through:

The coalition of partners leading Forge North includes a council of local entrepreneurs, venture capital leaders, corporate innovation executives, and directors of entrepreneurial support organizations. These partners work together to proudly celebrate the MSP startup community around the globe as well as dream bigger by rallying that community around a bolder set of startup goals for the near future. Forge North partners also work to inclusively connect people to the local innovation community through resources like the Forge North compass, a tool that helps current and prospective entrepreneurs navigate nearly 500 local startup support resources like accelerators, funds, competitions, peer groups, and more. Visit forgenorth.com to learn more.

Tracking the region’s economic performance. Using 56 economic indicators informed by 6,000 data points, we track how our economy is performing compared to a set of competitive regions.

Creating the regional economic development strategy. This data informs a shared strategy with multiple areas of action like job growth, innovation, racial inclusion, and affordability.

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OTHER GREATER MSP STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

FOOD + AGRICULTURE URBAN GROWTH

AIR SERVICE & ACCESSIBILITY

TALENT ATTRACTION & RETENTION

GREATER MSP Partnership 400 Robert Street North, Suite 1600 Saint Paul, MN 55101 +1-855-287-5941 info@greatermsp.org greatermsp

INCLUSIVE TALENT PIPELINE

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CHAPTER 4

MEDICAL ALLEY IMAGE COURTESY OF MEDICAL ALLEY ASSOCIATION

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“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.”

—RYUNOSUKE SATORO

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CREATING THE FUTURE OF HEALTHCARE HERE IN THE GLOBAL EPICENTER OF HEALTH INNOVATION AND CARE

Global technology giant Cisco Systems visits Medical Alley with a dozen key Australian customers to better ascertain the future direction of healthcare

Located in Minnesota, the global epicenter of health innovation and care, the Medical Alley Association (MAA) supports and advances the global leadership of Medical Alley’s healthcare industry by connecting members with the services they need, advocating for necessary policy changes, and building an interconnected community of people passionate about transforming healthcare.

The association is the central nervous system of the most diverse and influential healthcare ecosystem in the world. We connect our community to key opinion leaders, educate officials on the changes coming to healthcare, and raise the voice and profile of a region that has revolutionized healthcare time and again.

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More than 1,000 healthcare leaders came together to celebrate Medical Alley at the sold out 2019 Annual Dinner

ensure there is a supportive community around them. MAA is creating an ecosystem where startups aren’t isolated from the rest of the community, but one where political leaders, established business executives, and eager entrepreneurs collaborate to transform healthcare.

Founded in 1984 by a group of leaders that understood healthcare’s future lay in collaborative efforts, the Medical Alley Association exists to ensure that Medical Alley is where healthcare leaders come to find the best in new technology, methods, and models. The region is home to the world’s top health technology innovation cluster, the world’s highestranked hospital, the world’s largest private health insurer, and the world’s Destination Medical Center. Over 1,000 health technology and care companies—employing more than 500,000 Minnesotans and millions more worldwide—are here, giving the region unparalleled access to talent and innovation.

This collaborative spirit and dedication to innovation support and sustain Minnesota’s entrepreneurial community. Projects such as the UnitedHealthcare Accelerator Powered by Techstars, the Mayo Clinicand University of Minnesota-backed Walleye Tank, and gener8tor’s gBETA Medtech — which counts UEL, Boston Scientific, Mayo Clinic, and the University of Minnesota among its backers — demonstrate the power of collaboration in Medical Alley. Each of these organizations has the resources to work alone, but they choose to partner together to maximize the good they can do for early stage companies.

The birthplace of implantable medical technology and innovative health plan models, Medical Alley was recognized as one of America’s great places of invention by the Smithsonian, the only place designated for healthcare invention and innovation. That legacy serves as a foundation for the future of healthcare: Value-based care, price transparency, and remote patient care are just some of the forces that will transform healthcare in the next few years, but they are all already changing lives here thanks to the visionary work that has been a hallmark of Medical Alley for more than a century.

This is why much of MAA’s work revolves around helping people make the connections they need to thrive. We connect elected officials at every level of government with industry leaders to help the policymakers better understand the on-the-ground impact of their work; we connect health technology veterans with early stage companies that can benefit from their hard-won expertise, and we connect companies on often-adversarial sides of healthcare so they can work through their differences to benefit patients and the system as a whole.

The Future of Healthcare Happens Here Since its founding, the Medical Alley Association has been a champion of Minnesota’s innovation community, elevating the people that are creating tomorrow’s treatments, cures, and models of care and helping to

To turn these connections into action, MAA convened two working groups composed of engaged leaders from across the healthcare spectrum.

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These groups were tasked to lead the development of a 10-year strategic plan for Minnesota to realize the vision of Medical Alley being recognized as the global epicenter of health innovation and care. The working groups were focused on two topics: one on how to keep Minnesota competitive with our peers and the other on how to strengthen the state’s early-stage ecosystem.

development initiative ever in Minnesota and one of the largest in the United States, and is already delivering results less than five years into the project’s 20-year timeline: Companies like Google, Epic Systems, Boston Scientific, and Philips have already made commitments to set up offices in Rochester, with several other organizations planning moves to the city once more of the construction is completed.

Remarkably, the two groups independently identified the same four action steps: Improve the state’s overall business climate, incrase state support of the entrepreneurial community, attract more talent and better prepare the state’s current workforce for the future, and increase awareness for the state’s activities among key opinion leaders. The final report published by the two groups, Realizing the Vision, delivered recommendations for both private and public sector organizations and continues to serve as a blueprint for policy and industry leaders to make this vision a reality.

But Medical Alley isn’t simply gathering leaders and innovators solely for the prestige of having them, it is because they carry with them the greatest possible resource an innovation center can have: a drive to change the world and the ability to do so. To harness their energy for the good of people all over the world, MAA created the Healthcare Transformation Initiative at Medical Alley (HTI–MA). The initiative was born out of the connections made by MAA board members and a belief that healthcare could only make the necessary transformations if there was collaboration and commitment from across the healthcare spectrum to make them happen.

The revolutionary Destination Medical Center (DMC) project in Rochester, Minnesota, is a step forward on several of those fronts. DMC is a publicprivate economic development partnership with more than $5 billion in projected private investments designed to position the city as the world’s premier destination for health and wellness. It is the largest economic

The HTI–MA represents the commitment of the Medical Alley community to make the future demonstrably better than the present and to break down the silos that have traditionally held healthcare back. Actionable

MAA CEO, Shaye Mandle, sits down for a fireside chat with Asheesh Saksena, president of Best Buy Health, and Cindy Kent, member of Best Buy’s board of directors, at the 2019 Annual Dinner 49

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Medical Alley members host rural health innovation round table with Senator Tina Smith steps are already starting to emerge from phase one of the initiative and soon, with a demonstration facility already pledged to the HTI–MA, the results will speak for themselves.

Medical Alley Association info@medicalalley.org +1-952-542-3077 MedicalAlley the-medical-alley-association medicalalleyassociation UCpF6_RHiiYsiAAVKEw5IaLA

Medical Alley is the global epicenter of health innovation and care in large part because of the work done by healthcare pioneers of the previous generation who were determined to find new ways of treating people and restoring them to health. That dauntless spirit of innovation lives on today, bolstered by a community that believes in a collaborative future with limitless possibilities. The Medical Alley Association is proud to help foster those connections, advocate for supportive policies, and create the spaces necessary for growth to occur.

medicalalley.org

If you want to see what healthcare will look like tomorrow, come to Medical Alley today.

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By identifying obesity’s key phenotypes, Phenomix can positively impact all levels of healthcare, from patient to payor.

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Over 40% of the US population struggles with obesity. While many people—especially those who do not struggle with their weight—may see obesity as a personal choice, research has shown that’s often not the case.

Research has also shown that direct healthcare costs in the US exceeded $480 billion due to obesity and obesity-related illnesses in 2016 alone.

That means that while obesity is not everyone’s problem, it has, in some ways, become everyone’s responsibility.

Andres Acosta, Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Ross Higgins, Chief Operating Officer

Obesity’s far-reaching effects were something that Dr. Andres Acosta, founder and CEO of Phenomix, encountered during medical school.

The team credits its success to its exclusive license from the Mayo Clinic, whose technology they’re applying to develop the phenotype test. They’ve also been hard at work expanding laboratory operations, opening a new facility in Saint Paul and securing their CLIA registration. Grants and startup competitions have also bolstered the funding necessary to get their test off the ground and into the world.

“When I was learning about all these different diseases, it was clear that our generation is more likely to die of something like cancer and not an infection. We’re even more likely to die from heart disease,” Dr. Acosta says. “Cardiometabolic disease is noncommunicable and it’s preventable, and I wanted to study it because the potential for positive impact was so large. When I started down that path, it was easy to see that the top source of cardiometabolic disease—diabetes, coronary heart disease, hypertension—was obesity.”

“In Minnesota, we have an incredibly strong startup ecosystem,” Ross says.

“Securing various grants and startup awards has allowed us to get down to the grit of product development and showing proof of concept before seeking out venture capital.”

It would be a few more years before he would meet Ross Higgins, Phenomix’ COO. Ross was working at OneOme, a Mayo Clinic startup applying genetic markers to help predict medication response, when Andres approached the company about a potential collaboration for obesity testing.

Conditions for Phenomix’ development have been near perfect, and the company is poised to help everyone in the healthcare space.

Trial data from Mayo Clinic suggests that a phenotype-guided approach can more than double the response rates to FDA-approved weight-loss treatments.

“I was so incredibly excited by the science that Andres shared with me that I couldn’t resist getting involved,” Ross says. “I have been in healthcare for the better part of my career, but its not every day that an opportunity arises where you can impact such a significant portion of the population.”

“If we’re able to help someone lose a certain amount of weight and keep it off, that can improve quality of life and literally add back years to a person’s life expectancy,” Dr. Acosta says. “Physicians, in turn, will be more engaged with managing their patients’ obesity when they see improved responses. And the financial burden that obesity has placed on payors will ease as well.”

Phenomix takes its name from phenomics, the study of phenotypes, and a phenotype is basically what you get when you consider the interactions of a person’s genetics with their environment. A phenotype also encompasses the signs and symptoms of an underlying condition in someone’s body.

“We can have a significant impact on society by improving outcomes for patients,” Dr. Acosta says. “It starts with them.”

What makes Phenomix’ science unique is its identification of key phenotypes in obesity. The team has also developed a simple fasting blood test to measure those phenotypes in patients, and this will soon be released to a select number of clinical sites around the country.

“The test’s platform, which we’ll analyze on a per-patient basis, really looks at genetics but also at metabolomics—environmental factors like what you’re eating and how your body metabolizes that food—and the body’s release of hormones that control hunger and fullness,” Ross explains. “From those three laboratory domains—genomics, metabolomics, and proteomics, we’re able to get a much better picture of a patient’s obesity and what combination of factors could be causing his or her weight-gain.”

Phenomix Sciences 1000 Westgate Drive Suite 1002-1003 Saint Paul, MN 55114 +1-877-673-0981 52

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Harnessing Nature to Cure Cancer Vyriad turns viruses into effective anticancer drugs

Vyriad viruses infect, kill and spread to neighboring cancer cells.

This image shows dying cancer cells being fused together in a formation known as “syncytia”. anticancer drugs. Much work remains, but we’ve demonstrated the tremendous potential of our approach.”

Vyriad is developing the next generation of targeted cancer therapies using engineered viruses that selectively attack cancer cells and ignite robust immune responses to prevent cancer recurrence. Its oncolytic viruses have tremendous potential to improve the lives of patients, inspire hope and change the way cancer is treated.

Strategic Research Collaborations Vyriad’s research has attracted major pharmaceutical companies interested in developing combination cancer therapies with its technologies. Vyriad has a major clinical research and licensing agreement with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., as well as other research collaborations with Mayo Clinic, Merck KGaA/Pfizer and leading universities and medical centers.

One reason that cancer remains one of medicine’s biggest challenges is that it is a continuously evolving disease with seemingly endless ways to evade the body’s immune defenses. But researchers at Vyriad, Inc. see potential for cures in what may seem an unlikely source: viruses.

Vyriad currently has several clinical trials underway in patients with a wide range of cancers, including metastatic colorectal cancer and nonsmall cell lung cancer. The studies are evaluating Vyriad drug candidates as monotherapies and in combination with other cancer drugs. The company believes its best-in-class oncolytic viral platforms will become a backbone therapy for numerous cancers and ultimately may provide patients with a single shot cure. “Not every patient may be cured, but we think that there’s the potential to cure and certainly to achieve positive outcomes for many patients,” says Dr. Russell.

The Rochester-based biotechnology company is a leader in the development of oncolytic or cancer-killing viruses that are genetically engineered to specifically attack cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed. Highly promising preclinical animal data and early clinical results in humans show that oncolytic viruses could change the way cancer is treated.

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Kah-Whye Peng, PhD, chief technology officer, and Stephen Russell, MD, PhD, president and chief executive officer.

Scientific Approach The potentially life-changing oncolytic viral technologies of Vyriad are the result of decades of research. The Company has exclusive licenses to technologies discovered and validated at the Department of Molecular Medicine that Dr. Russell founded at Mayo Clinic, along with its comprehensive oncolytic virotherapy program.

Oncolytic viruses turn one of cancer’s most effective survival tactics against itself. Cancers have evolved to evade the human immune system, rendering tumor cells particularly vulnerable to viral attack. Oncolytic viruses exploit this weakness by infecting cancer cells and replicating until the cells burst (lysis). Virus progeny is released, enabling the infection to propagate to other cancer cells. The destroyed cells also release tumor antigens or proteins that enable the immune system to recognize the cancer and join the fight.

Through 2020 Vyriad will evaluate new clinical data from ongoing cancer studies while continuing to enroll patients in new phase 2 clinical study with Regeneron. The data will help guide future drug development, both therapeutic combinations and target cancer indications.

Vyriad enhances the potency and precision targeting of its oncolytic viruses through genetic modification. These cancerkilling viruses do not harm normal cells, pose no risk of transmission to the population, and can generate immunological memory to protect against cancer recurrence. Vyriad is currently developing two viral platforms with natural characteristics that are ideal for creating a generation of safe, trackable and effective oncolytic viruses.

Vyriad, Inc. info@vyriad.com +1-507-289-0944

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CHANGING THE WAY THE WORLD CARES OMCARE IS TRANSFORMING THE CARE AND CONNECTION EXPERIENCE WITH ITS WEB-ENABLED, ®

AUDIOVISUAL, MEDICATION-DISPENSING REMOTE CARE SYSTEM FOR THE HOME

Care. From anywhere. Aging in place and managing chronic health conditions can be complicated – especially for people taking multiple medications. Today, millions of older Americans depend on home health aides or family caregivers to help manage their medications. But even with this personal support and access to assistive tools like electronic pillboxes, apps, or calendars, only half of patients follow their medication plans correctly and consistently, according to the American Pharmacists Association.

Failure to manage medications is the single biggest reason people cannot remain in their homes as they age, which can ultimately impact their financial well-being and quality of life. Currently, the only way to confirm exact medication adherence is to hand-deliver medication and watch a person consume it. But the cost of doing so can exceed $150 per day.

Omcare is on a mission to change this dynamic.

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Enter the Omcare Home Health HubTM, a web-enabled platform that dispenses medication and provides two-way, audiovisual confirmation of medication adherence while facilitating social interaction and remote care.

Utilization of this type of remote monitoring, wearables, and interactive audio-visual technology is increasing due to the rapidly aging population; a shortage of family and professional caregivers; continued increase in healthcare costs; consumer preference for in-home care and aging in place; changing reimbursement for home care services; and advancements in remote monitoring and wearable technology.

What we do Omcare is a digital health company breaking new ground with its technology platform called the Omcare Home Health Hub. Omcare’s patented audio-visual technology extends the reach of caregivers and creates a central point of communication to gather and share information across care teams with the shared goal of improving medication adherence and overall health and well-being.

Non adherence with medication plans is most often a result of forgetfulness and difficulty managing the consumption of numerous medications. This often results in illness, hospitalization and potentially lost independence.

To address this, Omcare partners with pharmacies to deliver and securely dispense medication in multidose pouch packaging, which can reduce errors in medication consumption and maximize treatment plan adherence. The end goal is to improve patient outcomes and lower healthcare costs, while advancing industry standards for medication adherence.

The Omcare Home Health Hub provides a foundation for connecting a growing portfolio of tech-enabled devices and services that will support a community of family and professional caregivers who can work together to increase independence and vitality for older adults and people with chronic conditions. +1-952-456-6843 info@omcare.com Omcare Omcare_Health

At Omcare, we believe the right balance of high-touch, high-tech care can help people retain their independence and positively impact healthcare spending for individuals, families, and the broader healthcare industry.

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OneOme helps providers personalize medication decisions

Vision and Mission

Pharmacogenomics and precision medicine

Imagine a world where medication decisions are optimized to each patient’s genetic profile. It’s a lofty goal but one we are working to achieve every day at OneOme.

Pharmacogenomics is a branch of precision medicine that combines the sciences of pharmacology (the study of drugs) and genomics (the study of genes and their functions). At the core, PGx testing analyzes a patient’s DNA and provides genetic information that may help healthcare teams make more personalized medication decisions for them.

A leader in precision medicine co-founded by Mayo Clinic, OneOme is moving the world closer to this vision by enabling healthcare teams with high quality pharmacogenomic (PGx) testing and analytics that help improve outcomes and reduce costs through more personalized medication decisions.

The challenge in prescribing Medication therapies are key to treating many conditions, but not all medications work well for all patients. Research indicates that response rates for many medications are only between 50 and 75%.1 This variation in response can cause significant expenditures. One study found that 57

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the healthcare costs related to non-optimized medications were $528 billion2 above and beyond the $400 billion spent annually on prescription medications in the US.3 Patient outcomes are also at stake. Between 2013 and 2014, adverse drug reactions ADRs precipitated an estimated 4 emergency department visits per 1,000 individuals.4 A study evaluating 4,802 hospital admissions found that 3.2% experienced ADRs during the hospital stay while 6.2% of admissions were related to an adverse event.5

OneOme responds to the challenge There are a number of factors that can affect the way an individual may respond to a medication, one of which is genetics. More than 90% of people have at least one genetic variant that may affect the way certain medications work for them.6,7 These genetic variants can be identified by PGx testing.

Electronic Health Record (EHR) integration options for hospitals and health systems and population solutions for payers and PBMs.

References

OneOme offers the RightMed® Test to help providers optimize prescription decisions based on individual patients’ DNA. This PGx test analyzes a carefully curated, evidence-backed panel of 27 genes that may affect a patient’s response to certain medications used in the treatment of mental health conditions, cancer, pain, and more.

1. Spear, BB. Trends Mol. Med. 2001; 7: 201-4.

2. IQVIA Institute. (2019). Medicine Use and Spending in the U.S. 3. Watanabe, J. H., et al. (2018). Annals of Pharmacotherapy, 52(9), 829–837.

4. Shehab, N. et. al., JAMA. 2016; 316(20): 2115-2125.

5. Giardina, C. et. al., Front. Pharmacol. 2018; 9: 350.

6. Van Driest, SL, et. al., Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2014; 95(4): 423–431.

7. Yuan, J. et. al., Jmol Diag. 2016; 18(3): 438-445.

8. Perlis et al., 2017; Depression and Anxiety, 35(10), 946–952.

Access to the genetic information contained in the RightMed Test results may help providers reduce medication trial and error and lower the risk of adverse drug reactions. This can lead to lower healthcare costs and improved outcomes. One study found that patients who underwent PGx testing had 40% fewer emergency department visits and 58% fewer hospitalizations compared than those who did not.8

genetics@oneome.com +1-844-663-6635 OneOme: How to provide your RightMed sample

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NeuroOne Medical Technologies Corporation is leading the next frontier in neuroscience with pioneering the first FDA cleared thin film electrode

THE CHALLENGE Epilepsy affects more than 3 million people in the United States and is the fourth most common neurological disorder. It is a spectrum condition which means it affects each person differently but is characterized by unpredictable seizures. A seizure is a sudden rush of electrical activity in the brain. Seizures can be managed with medication for about 60% to 70% of people. When someone’s seizures can’t be managed by medication, they are diagnosed with “drug resistant epilepsy,” also known as refractory epilepsy. A few options to control seizures for refractory epilepsy include diet changes or surgery. A surgical option may be to remove the area of the brain initiating the seizure, an ablation of the brain tissue initiating the seizure, or an implant of a stimulation device that sends electrical signals to the area of the brain initiating the seizure.

Success rates for seizure freedom one year after surgery range from 50% to 70%. Only about 25% of people who experience seizure freedom can discontinue their seizure medication. Physician feedback suggests the success rate can be improved by providing better electrodes to precisely pinpoint the problem area to guide the treatment of the patient.

they drive our actions, thoughts, feelings, and memories. The brain’s neurons interrupt signals from the other areas of the nervous system.

Any disruption or interrupted signal in neural communication can be detrimental. In addition to the brain surface electrodes, we are working on innovative solutions for the broader nervous system. The neuroscience field is rapidly expanding, and we are in the forefront with solutions to improve neural network function and control of neuron activity throughout the nervous system.

Our initial products are designed to monitor, record and stimulate electrical signals on the brain’s surface. They are used to identify seizure onset areas for epilepsy, brain mapping for language and motor function, and interoperative monitoring of the brain’s surface.

Vision

The brain is the most complex organ in the human body. There are over a billion neurons traveling around the brain’s neural network and

Our vision is to improve people’s control of their neurological disorders by providing personalized flexible electrodes designed to monitor and deliver therapy to highly specific areas of the nervous system.

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Our History

Next Steps

Our thin film electrode technology is the result of years of research by neuroscience engineers, neurosurgeons, and neurologists from the University of Wisconsin and The Mayo Clinic, whose passion is to bring thin film printed electrode circuit technology to clinical use. Our partners, many of which are affiliated with leading medical institutions in the United States, are experts in neuroscience technology, and we continue to work in close collaboration with them. Together we are developing highdefinition, minimally invasive diagnostic and treatment devices based on our unique thin film electrode technology. Our initial focus is on epilepsy and the fast-growing neurostimulation device market. We have built an experienced management team, world-class board of directors, and assembled impressive scientific and artificial intelligence advisory boards.

We aim to revolutionize the standard of care for patients suffering from conditions such as epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, dystonia, essential tremors, back pain due to failed back surgeries and other related nervous system disorders. We will expand our thin film electrode portfolio beyond recoding and short-term stimulation. We are exploring permanent electrodes that provide stimulation for chronic conditions. We are also investigating combining our electrodes with surgical treatments such as ablation of brain tissue. This approach would offer the potential to reduce the number of surgeries a person needs to endure.

We will continue to investigate complementary technologies which align with our strategic plan. We are well positioned to provide innovative solutions to propel the expansion of artificial intelligence in neuroscience.

WHAT SETS US APART Current Technology We are the first thin film electrode manufacturer to receive FDA clearance to commercialize an electrode to monitor and stimulate the brain for short term applications. Our Evo™ Cortical Electrode is used in electrocorticography procedures to record electrical brain activity and stimulate brain tissue after being surgically placed on the surface of the brain. The electrode system includes an electrode and a disposable cable assembly which connects to a separate monitoring system. The Evo Cortical Electrode portfolio is comprised of strips and grids with a variety of contact configurations for placement on targeted areas of the brain as determined by the physician.

We believe our Evo Cortical electrodes will be able to be placed with minimally invasive procedures to reduce surgical complications and eliminate the need to create a standard craniotomy. Additionally, we believe that the lower impedance in our electrodes and our ability to create high density electrode arrays could enhance artificial intelligence research into areas such as artificial neural networks and new algorithm development.

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A LEADER IN THE DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT OF GENE-EDITING SOLUTIONS

Delivering viable products and generating revenues today, Recombinetics (RCI) is rapidly growing to broadly commercialize the sale and distribution of its gene-edited animals. RCI far outpaces its competitors in intellectual property with a global patent portfolio of 33 issued US patents, more than 200 additional applications filed, and first-use and enabling patents for livestock for both CRISPR and TALENs gene-editing technologies.

PRECISION BREEDING FOR HEALTHY, SAFE, ABUNDANT FOOD RCI’s agriculture and aquaculture subsidiary, Acceligen leverages RCI’s DNA toolkit and expertise to develop precision breeding solutions for healthier food animals raised more humanely and sustainably. Precision breeding benefits animals, producers, retailers, consumers, and the environment.

Recombinetics aims to provide gene-editing solutions for some of the world’s most intractable challenges, from improving human health to sustainably feeding an ever-growing population. Founded in 2008, RCI is widely recognized as the global thought leader in livestock gene editing and applied technology. RCI has developed a proprietary DNA toolkit for use in biomedical research, regenerative medicine, and agriculture through its subsidiaries Acceligen, Regenevida, and Surrogen.

Acceligen delivers high-value, naturally occurring traits in elite livestock and aquaculture populations to achieve genetic progress in a single generation. For farmers and genetics companies seeking animal health and welfare improvements, this provides a complementary and safe approach to conventional breeding—which can be difficult, time-intensive, and cost-prohibitive.

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PIG MODELS OF HUMAN DISEASES RCI’s disease model subsidiary, Surrogen, leverages RCI’s DNA toolkit and expertise to develop custom-tailored pig models that simulate the onset and progression of human disease. These models enable more efficient and effective basic, preclinical, and transplant research which accelerate the conversion of science to medical solutions.

Surrogen is currently developing pig models in these focus areas: cancer, cardiovascular, congenital/heredity/neonatal, diabetes/metabolic syndrome, and neurodegenerative.

HUMAN CELLS, TISSUES & ORGANS GROWN INSIDE OF OINKUBATORS RCI’s regenerative medicine subsidiary, Regenevida, leverage RCI’s DNA toolkit and expertise, including advances gained through Surrogen, to develop pigs as production systems for cultivating cells, tissues, and ultimately organs for human therapeutic applications.

Recombinetics 3388 Mike Collins Dr., # A Eagan, MN 55121 +1-612-727-2000 recombineticsinc Recombinetics 1821552 recombinetics.com

Regenevida’s creation of identical replicas of a patient’s own organs with their own DNA, has the potential to transform the face of modern medicine, drastically improve the quality-of-life for millions and redefine what is considered “possible” in medicine.

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HEALTHCARE & HEALTH TECH

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“The aim of medicine is to prevent disease and prolong life. The ideal of medicine is to eliminate the need of a physician.”

—WILLIAM JAMES MAYO

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MOVING HEALTH FORWARD We aspire to improve experiences and outcomes for everyone we serve while reducing the total cost of care.

to bring simplicity and effectiveness to the system while also making healthcare more compassionate and human.

At the company’s core is data and analytics, including the deepest proprietary datasets in health care that drive insights for a more complete view of the health system—helping those the company serves to make better health decisions.

Clinical expertise enables Optum to create a holistic view of an individual’s health, ensuring that the patient is getting the most accurate health care advice.

Through a growing footprint in local health care delivery and pharmacy care services, embedded technology in hospitals and health systems drives more connectivity, giving patients and doctors the tools to help manage health and its costs.

Consumer experience is structured around meeting the needs of each member at an individual level, by giving them guidance and support throughout their entire health journey.

As a health services innovation company, Optum is dedicated to helping people live healthier lives and helping make the health system work better for everyone. Our team of over 190,000 professionals deliver simple, effective and comprehensive solutions to organizations and consumers across the whole health system.

Transforming health care together Optum serves many constituents of the health system—government agencies, care providers, health plans, life sciences organizations, employers and consumers. These long-standing relationships provide a unique perspective, helping us to forge connections, recommend best practices, and increase efficiency in a way that is hard to match.

“Connect and serve” is the operating philosophy. The Optum approach starts with a deep understanding of customers’, members’, and patients’ needs, and putting them at the center of everything we do. We then connect our competencies of data and analytics, clinical expertise, embedded technology, and consumer experience, setting up partnerships 65

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Helping people live their healthiest lives Optum team members are fully committed to making the whole experience of healthcare more compassionate and human for everyone.

Collaborating with visionary, motivated individuals and organizations, together we can tackle the biggest challenges in healthcare and accomplish results that move health care forward.

Improving performance with health care intelligence and technology

“Optum leaders are working across the health industry and with tech innovators to approach healthcare with practical AI and emerging technology applications that augment human skill and solve real industry problems.”

Data-driven insights are changing healthcare. While the universe of data in health care is incredibly complex, Optum is fluent in all types of data and knows how to extract value from the data and guide the next best step. For example, we apply advanced analytics, including artificial intelligence (AI), to streamline administrative tasks, personalize care and create a better overall experience for patients.

—Kerrie Holley, Senior Vice President and Optum Technology Fellow

To uncover insights and drive action, industry organizations turn to Optum’s research, consulting, technology and managed services solutions which include OptumIQTM—the unique combination of curated data, leading analytics and applied health care expertise infused into all Optum products and services. This health intelligence supports smarter technologies and services that help our clients across all sectors of healthcare solve their unique challenges to achieve the Triple Aim and make meaningful differences in people’s lives.

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ESTABLISHED LEADERS IN DIGITAL HEALTH ENGAGEMENT

Medicom Health turns 19 years old

Medicom empowers health engagement through our world-class digital solutions.

Health Assessments Hundreds of hospital marketers use our condition-specific health risk assessments (HRAs) to engage millions of patients. Our SaaS HRAs effectively convert web visits to office visits through personalized, evidence-based feedback. The Management Portal provides a wealth of mar-com automation tools and integrations.

Health Assistants Our new clinical SaaS platform integrates with EHRs to mine the medical record for actionable data. We want to tackle the thorniest of patient and provider issues. The first module, Rx Savings AssistantÂŽ, takes on medication adherence by connecting patients with Rx discounts at the point of care.

Sample health risk assessment

Barb Goergen & Tony Huth, Co-founders 67

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Past Founded in 2000 as a custom development shop, we initially built big-budget disease-awareness applications for a Who’s Who of influential health organizations. This included many pharmaceutical companies and national medical associations.

We want to chip away at the problem of medication adherence.

Over time, our little think tank developed 300+ wide-ranging projects in-house. Soon, health systems took notice of our high-profile, awardwinning work, especially an assessment for the American Heart Association for a 2007 Super Bowl commercial. But providers have much smaller budgets than pharma. To help them, we had to draw upon our years of custom assessment experience.

Our disruptive solution is comparable to GoodRx, but with key advantages for patients and providers.

We built the first flexible, white-labeled SaaS platform for non-clinical health assessments.

It allowed us to rapidly develop feature-rich products, yet keep the price points palatable.

Present Ten years on, we are still the acknowledged leaders in the space. Custom development is long past. Our feature-rich 3rd-gen platform is now HITRUST® Certified and will soon include 21 assessments. Hundreds of hospitals generate significant revenue and engage a million consumers each year using our solutions.

We’ve launched a very promising second SaaS platform that bi-directionally integrates with EHRs like Epic and Cerner. With direct access to patient data, we can better tackle various complex healthcare problems at enterprise scale.

When patients can’t afford their medications, they don’t fill and follow Rx as prescribed. This results in financial consequences for health systems.

Future This new clinical vertical is a game-changer for us. It opens up many possibilities. Accordingly, we’ve got big plans for growth and innovation.

New clinical engagement SaaS

We’ll continue to leverage our position in the marketplace to establish new partnerships and break new ground. We may seek additional investment to help us do more, faster.

Acknowledgments Of course, none of this is possible without our team of rock stars. Ultimately, our success is due to the dedication and talent of our incredible staff.

Lastly, we’re followers of the Entrepreneurial Operating System, a business framework that helps us build a company that fosters our core values: • Be passionately excellent • Be positively resilient • Be dedicated to the customer and company

The first module on this new platform, Rx Savings Assistant, aims to revolutionize the penetration of pharma manufacturer discounts.

Will Sigsbee, Chief Executive Officer

Medicom Health 400 1st Avenue N., Suite 550 Minneapolis, MN 55401 sales@medicomhealth.com +1-800-971-0785 Medicom.Health.Interactive medicomhealth medicom-health-interactive

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Helping accelerate biomedical research and innovation to deliver precision care.

In response to this need, Wandell partnered with his colleague, Gunnar Schaefer, to develop a system that captures images from MRI scanners, organizes and curates the images into a database, and provides users with a web-interface for viewing, computing and sharing the data. The result was so successful that other collaborators and post-doctorates leaving Stanford wanted to take the system with them. Wandell and Schaefer knew they had something that could fill a real need and help accelerate imaging research and collaboration world-wide.

Flywheel is the leading research data platform that’s transforming the way biomedical and imaging data are managed at life sciences, clinical, and academic institutions globally. Flywheel streamlines the entire research workflow including data capture, curation, computation, and secure collaboration. By leveraging cloud scalability and automating workflows, we help organizations scale research data and analysis, improve scientific collaboration, and accelerate discoveries.

Dr. Brian Wandell is the Director of the Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging at Stanford University, a shared research facility that provides imaging and compute resources to more than 40 research labs. A number of years ago, Wandell recognized that the growth and complexity of research data sets posed a challenge: labs needed a better way to carry out advanced medical imaging research.

In 2015, Wandell and Schaefer partnered with Minnesota-based Invenshure to create a product based on the idea born at Stanford.

Since then, Flywheel has grown into a comprehensive solution for life sciences, clinical research, imaging research, and artificial intelligence (AI) developers to manage their research workflows. The company now works with over 30 clients and grew from 15 to 50 employees in 2019. We expect to employ 100 highly-skilled people in 2020.

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WE ARE EXCITED TO BE PART OF TODAY’S HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY AT A CRITICAL POINT IN HISTORY TO TRULY TRANSFORM THE WAY HEALTHCARE IS DELIVERED AND IMPACT THE LIVES OF SO MANY PEOPLE. —TRAVIS RICHARDSON, CEO Local and Global Innovation

“With Flywheel on Google Cloud Platform, we can stay closely connected with labs down the street or around the world, greatly increasing the efficiency of our collaborations by simplifying the process of data and computational sharing,” says Dr. Wandell. “We’re helping to keep our researchers focused and productive.”

Flywheel is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with offices in the Bay Area, Texas, Boston, Canada, and Hungary. Being located in “Medical Alley,” the center of so much health technology and care innovation, provides access to a community of health leaders and an incredible pool of talent to help us grow our organization and make a bigger impact globally.

Accelerating the Future of Healthcare

Flywheel has long been forging partnerships with top academic research institutions around the world. These institutions are driving forward important discoveries to help provide better treatment options for people with neurological and cognitive disorders. In more recent years, we’ve expanded our footprint to include partnerships with life sciences organizations and AI companies that are driving forward important innovations to discover and deliver new precision care and AI applications. Travis Richardson, CEO of Flywheel: “Flywheel is an incredible place to work. Where else can you help researchers around the world solve critical healthcare challenges while developing truly innovative, world-class technology?”

As healthcare continues to evolve and innovative care models like precision care become more of a reality, the need for scalable data management and a collaborative approach to research are critical.

Precision medicine relies on having a 360-degree view of a patient with all of the relevant data in one place. Flywheel offers researchers a system that can scale data capture, curation, and computation for machine learning and help drive the development of AI applications that can truly change the way healthcare is delivered to patients around the world.

Additionally, collaboration is increasingly important to solve today’s healthcare issues. Researchers must work across historically-siloed disciplines and organizations to share data and analysis in a secure, compliant and reproducible platform. Flywheel provides a comprehensive research data solution with all the tools needed for curation, image processing, machine learning workflows, and secure collaboration.

+1-612-223-7359 Email: info@flywheel.io flywheel-io Flywheel_io

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REINVIGORATING NEUROMUSCULAR CONDITIONS WITH TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION

Angie Zavoral Conley, Founder & CEO

The Abilitech Assist device is designed to support patients in activities of daily living, engaging with loved ones and their communities, and living more independently.

offering a one-of-a-kind wearable assistive device that allows its user to perform independent activities of daily living.

Hundreds of thousands of people in the United States are affected by upper-limb weakness caused by neuromuscular conditions such as Muscular Dystrophy, Multiple Sclerosis, and Spinal Cord Injury. With no good solutions currently on the market, many people with arm weakness are unable to perform activities of daily living such as eating, using a phone or computer, or completing tasks of self-care. Faced with the loss of physical strength, independence, and ability to fully engage with friends and family, their quality of life declines.

“We are creating a powered orthotic brace with an intelligent design that enhances the patient’s mobility,” says Conley. “There is a wheelchair for those who cannot use their legs, there is a prosthetic solution for those who do not have arms, but there is not a solution for the weak or injured arm. Abilitech’s vision is to create a device to restore independence for those with upper-limb neuromuscular conditions. The Abilitech™ Assist device has the potential to become the ‘wheelchair for the arms,’” adds Conley.

Recognizing the need for advancements in the treatment of neuromuscular disability, and relying on her experience as a senior product manager at Medtronic, Angie Zavoral Conley founded Abilitech™ Medical in 2016 to create a solution. The company’s mission is to restore independence to patients with upper limb neuromuscular conditions by

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Abilitech Medical won grand prize and top women-owned company in 2020 by the Minnesota Cup, the largest state startup competition in the country.

in an animal lab and simulate different etiologies with varying levels of progressive degeneration—likely why no other company has succeeded in filling this market need. A successful solution must be safe, user-friendly, lightweight, and work with patient strength.

care for the patient, the costs can be astronomical,” states Dr. Gormley.

A personal care attendant averages $30,000 per year for eight hours a day and a skilled nursing home can cost up to $250,000 a year. “Beyond the economic impact, the personal satisfaction and joy a patient has in regaining some level of independence is invaluable.”

The Assist device is engineered with guidance from physicians, occupational and physical therapists, and patients and their caregivers, differentiating it from many technologies developed in a research lab.

Multiple prototypes, bench testing, and designs were developed to determine how to best create one device that can be custom fit without needing to be custom-fabricated.

In 2020, the company plans to bring the device to market with FDA registration. It will also initiate a 75-patient multi-center clinical study of Muscular Dystrophy patients to measure patient outcomes and the impact on their quality of life. In the future, Abilitech is planning to develop its technology platform to create solutions for patients with stroke damage, Brachial Plexus Injury, Parkinson’s, and rotator cuff injuries.

Conley adds “Our clinical relationships in Minnesota at the University of Minnesota, Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare, HealthPartners Neuroscience Center, and Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute, Allina Health have been incredibly supportive in helping us to understand the patient population needs to develop a meaningful clinical device. They recognize the unmet patient and clinical needs and have been very collaborative in our development efforts.”

The breakthrough year comes on the heels of major recognition throughout the country for Abilitech. The company earned historic back-to-back wins in Minnesota—named top among the state’s med tech companies by the Minnesota High Tech Association at the 2019 TEKNE awards and 2019 grand prize winner and top woman-owned business at the 2019 Minnesota Cup competition. Abilitech was also named a Top 20 Healthcare Startups in flyover country by J.P. Morgan, was part of the Texas Medical Center Accelerator Program (TMCx), was recognized as a Top 10 Medical Device Startup by MedTech Outlook, a “20 Medical Device Startups You Need to Know” by MassDevice, and a “Top 20 Startup” in Flyover Country by The Observer.

The Abilitech Assist device will be the first in-home device on the market to provide functional assistance and support to both the elbow and the shoulder. Requiring minimal muscle strength from the patient, the unique assist allows for supported range of motion for the shoulders and elbows.

The device itself is lightweight, easy to use, and comfortable.

Dr. Mark Gormley, Associate Medical Director of Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine at Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare, sees patients every day who could benefit from such a device. “Patients with neuromuscular conditions have historically relied on a family member or other caregiver to help feed and care for them. If there is not a family member who can

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info@abilitechmedical.com AbilitechMedical

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MEANINGFUL INNOVATION: THE SPIRIT THAT DRIVES US

PATIENT-INSPIRED TECHNOLOGY FUELS 21ST CENTURY HEALTHCARE

With costs on the rise and a focus on delivering better outcomes, a new era of healthcare is upon us. Powered by an unwavering Mission to improve lives, Medtronic teams are uncovering the potential that today’s technology offers, both near and long term. Together—with partners spanning disease states, industries, and geographies—we combine a patient-centric mindset with the expertise and application needed to make a difference for patients, providers, and health systems around the globe.

The number of people who use connected devices to monitor their health is forecast to grow to more than 50 million by 2021. With the advent of remote monitoring, wearables, and telemedicine, and 30% of today’s healthcare spend attributed to administrative costs, the potential is high to significantly impact cost—and outcomes—through monitoring and treating patients in new and different ways.

Co-founder Earl Bakken etched the concept of meaningful innovation into everything at Medtronic. His passion to “put things together, differently” inspired Bakken to develop the first wearable, external, battery-powered, transistorized pacemaker in 1957. That passion—combined with a Mission to improve the lives of patients—remains strong at Medtronic seven decades later.

Our teams have developed technologies and solutions that help anticipate, adapt to, and react to patient needs beyond the hospital setting. Like artificial intelligence (AI), great potential exists in areas such as biosensors, augmented reality, and material science. Additive manufacturing (3D printing) in the industry, alone, is expected to nearly triple by 2021.

Navigating this new era of even more personalized, precision medicine, our people work with patients and clinicians every day to identify and address unmet needs across the healthcare system.

Today, our therapies help two people every second. With 90,000 employees working across 160 countries, developing patient-focused innovation—and strong partnerships—remain key to an even better, more impactful future.

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A partnership between Medtronic and Mercy Health established a data sharing and analysis network that will help record clinical evidence— using anonymous patient data from implantable devices—to further medical device innovation and patient access to care. The partnership combines Medtronic knowledge of medical technology with Mercy’s expertise in integrating data analytics to care delivery.

potential benefits to patients if implantable devices could be 90% smaller.

Now, the world’s smallest pacemaker and an insertable cardiac monitor that is the size of a small battery—both built on the technology the teams developed—are helping patients around the globe.

Working with patients to advance our technology, we see great promise in wearable and implanted devices. While many are already smart, connected, and controlled by patient input, we expect AI will help them to automatically adapt and anticipate patient needs in the future and provide a new approach to chronic pain management. This could significantly reduce the need for prescription painkillers among certain patient populations—reducing hospital admissions due to overdose and helping address a nationwide opioid crisis.

INNOVATION HAPPENS BEST WHEN IT HAPPENS FAST The advent of big data and the evolution of scientific discovery has caused exponential growth of human knowledge. The key to innovation is harnessing this new knowledge in ways that provide meaningful value to patients. Collaboration is essential to the effort.

Backed by teams of experts spanning disciplines and cultures, Medtronic creates forums intended to accelerate R&D. Internally, the company’s Knowledge Center team built a communications infrastructure for technical experts across the organization. Internal scientific conferences and symposiums facilitate critical in-person teamwork, while supplemental online platforms like MIX (Medtronic Information Exchange) fill the gaps. In one year, more than 2,000 questions were posted to the company-wide online collaboration tool, and our experts generated nearly 6,000 responses.

Advanced design continues to enhance the safety, quality, and durability of products. We already see significant progress in this space, with Medtronic minimally invasive tools that help surgeons with early detection and more targeted treatment of conditions like lung cancer and Barrett’s esophagus, a leading predictor of esophageal cancer.

Innovation in the surgical space continues, and in the future, we believe more surgical procedures will be facilitated by robotic, navigational, or automated technologies. Research by Cambridge Medical Robotics suggests robotic surgery will grow to five times its present scale by 2025.

As more procedures become facilitated by this kind of technology, we see great potential across the care continuum for patients and intend to be a leader in advancing computer-assisted minimally invasive procedures well into the future.

Externally, we’ve seen firsthand how patients benefit from accelerated innovation. In 2016, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved our latest technology for type 1 diabetes—the world’s first hybrid closed loop system—with unprecedented speed. The system features a highly advanced sensor, the latest in insulin pump technology, and a dynamic algorithm working together to help patients manage their disease.

REAL-WORLD APPLICATION HELPS EXPAND INNOVATION

A PROMISING FUTURE OF BETTER HEALTH

Our growing global network of innovation centers—from Brazil to China— provides critical insight into the nuances that exist in healthcare delivery from one region to another. What patients and providers in India need, for example, may be different from what is needed in the Netherlands. Even within a single region, needs can vary. Our newest center, in Chengdu, China, is strategically located to serve the needs of Central and Western China. Compared to more developed countries, the region lacks sufficient clinical training for healthcare professionals, with less than half the number of on-the-job medical training organizations compared to the eastern parts of the country.

For many patients and their caregivers, Medtronic is already making a difference. But there is tremendous opportunity ahead. We envision a day in the near future when capabilities like 3D printing will allow physicians to order customized devices manufactured for specific patients, and training on the latest surgical procedures will happen using augmented reality. Longer term, with the help of our partners, we anticipate a day when chronic disease management becomes effortless for patients, cancer treatment is nothing more than a day procedure, and debilitating heart and brain conditions are not only more treatable but entirely preventable. For the millions of patients we serve, the future starts today. We invite you to share in the possibilities and help us take healthcare Further, Together.

When we cannot physically be in a healthcare setting to experience what challenges exist, we rely on technology to bridge the gap. At our Applied Innovation Lab in Minnesota, a 360-degree “holodeck” video screen provides an immersive experience that helps scientists and engineers understand the needs of healthcare providers in remote regions and identify the root causes of barriers to care. Such technology played a key role during a 2016 pilot program in Ghana and Kenya that addressed a high prevalence of hypertension in the region. The pilot has since led to the creation of Medtronic Labs Empower Health™, a novel hypertension management model intended to reduce the burden and improve the efficiency of managing hypertension for both patients and clinicians in emerging geographies.

Medtronic MedtronicCorp

DATA AND EXPERTISE UNCOVER POTENTIAL The massive amount of data collected by today’s wearable and implanted medical devices provides insight into the healthcare realities of the future.

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FIXING THE BROKEN MEDICATION EXPERIENCE TO ENSURE YOU’RE NEVER ALONE

Today’s medication experience is broken. It’s a $500 billion problem that affects employers, health insurance companies, and individuals. The good news is that it’s fixable.

Picture this scenario that happens millions of times every day. Your doctor prescribes a medication and you go to the pharmacy to pick it up. When you’re there, you may get some advice, and then are sent on your way with an amber-colored bottle in a white bag, along with an intimidating piece of paper full of fine print. Now, you are on your own; it’s just you and your pills because you already recycled that piece of paper. What do you do? Enter MyMeds.

Rajiv R. Shah, MD, Founder & Chief Executive Officer

MyMeds is bringing to market a patented suite of solutions unlike any other in the digital health space. Its best-in-class, Digital + Human ACE platform (Adhere, Connect, Engage) is redefining the medication experience in real-time and ensures people are never alone:

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Adhere—the Whole Family solution that allows people to manage themselves, their kids AND their elderly parents, all in one place. It includes prescription information, access to multi-modal education (Mayo Clinic content, videos, WhyMeds), identify better prices and have a telephone or video chat with expert pharmacists.

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Connect—real-time data connectivity to pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs) + CMS (Medicare). MyMeds is the only company in the country with this capability.

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Fixing the Broken Medication Experience to Ensure You’re Never Alone In 2000, while finishing medical school, MyMeds Founder Dr. Rajiv R. Shah was doing his clinical rotations. He noticed that people came in with messy, illegible handwritten notes listing their medicines. Having an accurate medication list is important for doctors to know a person’s conditions and the severity. Unfortunately, most lists in the medical records are wrong, even today. And, when people see multiple doctors who prescribe meds, they don’t always communicate with each other. The patient is usually the only one with a complete record.

“This was the dotcom era; there were point-and-click solutions for everything and I thought to myself, why didn’t we have something better?

In addition, I’m a firm believer of the Patients as Partners philosophy and know that most people want to be more involved in their care. With my background in Cognitive Psychology and as a kidney doctor taking care of patients with multiple conditions and meds, we were able to design something that we know would help the people who needed it most and their caregivers,” he says.

Engage—connected clinical platform powered by data and insights to proactively identify and engage people before it’s too late

MyMeds has now partnered with some of the world’s most respected health companies to provide a solution that improves patient satisfaction, health outcomes, and cost savings.

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Initially, Dr. Shah created MyMeds for his patients to improve their experience. “In a typical 20-minute appointment, patients were using 15 of those minutes providing medication and allergy data to a nurse and not talking to a doctor. With MyMeds we were able to cut it down to 3 minutes, and as a result, I had more time with my patients—leading to better patient-doctor experience.”

That experience helped Dr. Shah understand how much of a difference his solution could make to patients everywhere, and in 2012 when medication non-adherence (not taking medicines as directed) became a major issue, he was contacted by clinicians around the country stating that MyMeds was the best solution for patient engagement with their medicines. “At that point, I was surprised that people knew about MyMeds since it was just for my patients and we didn’t do any publicity.”

It was then that MyMeds became a business. He created the first prototype of the solution we see today and field-tested it in rural Minnesota. “We really wanted to create a solution that worked for everyone and we wanted to meet people where they were.”

MyMeds 807 Broadway Street NE Suite 206 Minneapolis, MN 55413

Today, MyMeds is recognized as the market in its space and is used by some of the most respected companies and healthcare systems across the US.

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Rajni Shah rajni.shah@my-meds.com MyMedsInc mymeds-inc-

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Zipnosis revs up the slow-moving machine of traditional healthcare.

The Zipnosis team judges five different burgers for the 1st Annual Zipnosis Pre-Labor Day Grand Burger Cook-Off Extravaganza (Over Lunchtime) Extraordinaire.

The company was born in 2009, when co-founder and CEO Jon Pearce was an MBA student at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. Pearce was driven by two things: 1. The idea that the mobile phone would be the future of healthcare, and 2. A Big Hairy Audacious Goal of getting the transactional cost of healthcare down to $0.

convenient user experience for patients. However, Pearce’s vision was ahead of its time. In the early 2010s adoption was low in the D2C space. In 2015, Zipnosis made a pivot to become a white-label virtual care platform for health systems across the country, one designed with empathy for the end users of virtual care—providers and patients. Zipnosis keeps healthcare local by empowering physicians and their health system partners to connect with and treat their patients virtually on a platform that is user friendly, modern, and brings radical efficiencies to their health systems. The device-agnostic virtual care also offers patients greater choice and convenience.

Zipnosis launched as a D2C virtual urgent care company, partnering with healthcare entities like Minute Clinic, that focused on an easy and

Today, Zipnosis is an industry leader in virtual care and giving health systems a holistic Digital Front Door®, helping patients navigate the

The Zipnosis team believes that healthcare shouldn’t have to settle for the status quo. As their Manifesto reads, “We thought there had to be a better way. So we’re doing it. And we’re teaming up with leaders who know it’s time for the traditional healthcare model to get out of its own way.”

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Dr. Lisa Ide, Chief Medical Officer

Catherine Murphy, COO, discusses virtual care strategy with Ethan Otterlei, Director of Strategic Sales.

The Zipnosis office is entirely dog-friendly, and rarely a day goes by where the team isn’t joined by at least one furry friend. complexities of healthcare and get to the best point of care within a health system. That means less wasted time, energy, and resources for health systems. And it means face-to-face help when patients need it, and virtual solutions when they don’t. The Zipnosis platform is flexible, enabling healthcare organizations to create virtual care workflows to meet their unique needs and integrate digital tools into any line of care.

Zipnosis customers also get a team of relentless allies committed to helping their organizations continue to evolve their virtual care programs for the future, manage change when doing so, and meet their end goals.

Pearce still has a BHAG of getting the transactional cost of healthcare down to $0, but feels pretty great about the progress we’ve made getting it down to $5. And he feels even better about Zipnosis being an agent of change in healthcare, pushing health systems to not only treat patients like consumers but to improve the human experience by integrating digital tools into their care models.

The Zipnosis team takes pride in their office in the North Loop district of Minneapolis, and this mural can be seen from nearly every desk.”

Zipnosis, Inc. 323 N. Washington Avenue, #300 Minneapolis, MN 55401 +1-612-512-1650 78

info@zipnosis.com Zipnosis

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CHAPTER 6

BIOTECHNOLOGY

IMAGE COURTESY OF REBIOTIX

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“Listen to anyone with an original idea, no matter how absurd it may sound at first.

If you put fences around people, you get sheep. Give people the room they need.”

—WILLIAM MCKNIGHT

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TREATING COMPLEX DISEASE THROUGH THE POWER OF THE MICROBIOME The human body is an amazingly complex system, reliant on each component to work together for us to lead healthy lives.

One of the most fascinating and fastest-growing frontiers in human health is that of the human microbiome. What if the power of the microbiome could be harnessed to provide new and innovative ways to treat complex diseases to meet unmet medical needs?

It is this very question that we at Rebiotix, a Ferring company, set out to answer.

The ability to use the microbiome as a therapy is supported by a wealth of historical anecdotal data. However, the past approaches used by healthcare providers and patients were uncontrolled and difficult to repeat, and, without validated data, broader patient access would remain limited. Through extensive and rigorous scientific and clinical research, Rebiotix, in 2012, approached the US FDA with a standardized, stabilized microbiota-based drug technology platform that could be studied in clinical trials to treat disease. If approved, the technology platform would be poised to be the first of its kind in the world that would be accessible to patients like any other medication.

Backed by safety data and quality control, the complexity of our gut communities could be provided consistently, eliminating the need for a ‘do-it-yourself’ last option.

Prior to our initial conversation with the Agency in 2012, there was no regulatory pathway for our type of product.

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As we progressed through our clinical development, the FDA built new pathways to accommodate the growing interest in using the microbiome as a therapy. Now considered a live biotherapeutic, we are paving the way for a new therapeutic paradigm. With careful clinical studies and sound science, the potential for this new therapy is vast.

Lee Jones, Founder, President & CEO Our company was built from the ground up in Roseville, Minnesota. To date, we have completed three clinical trials with an extraordinary team focused on improving patient lives. As of 2018, we were acquired by Ferring Pharmaceuticals and have joined forces with our new parent company to bring microbiota-based therapies to a wider audience. Ferring is the first major pharmaceutical company to believe enough in the potential of the microbiome to acquire an industry leader.

Our microbial passengers may be small, but their impact on our lives is enormous. At Rebiotix, with Ferring, we hope to transform the healthcare landscape by harnessing the power of the human microbiome and the only limit is our imagination.

Fast Facts: Founded: 2011 in Roseville, Minnesota Clinical development stage: Phase 3 pivotal Employees: 80 Acquisition Date: April 2018 (Ferring Pharmaceuticals)

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Rebiotix Inc., a Ferring Company cjones@rebiotix.com +1-651-705-8774 Rebiotix

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TRANSFORMING HOW NEW MEDICINES ARE DISCOVERED. StemoniX develops and manufactures living human microOrgans using advanced human stem-cell technology, micro-engineering techniques, and high-volume bio-manufacturing processes to help our pharmaceutical customers overcome traditional drug discovery hurdles. By combining these microOrgans with innovative analytics to identify new medicines, we can significantly shorten the time to finding new and potentially better therapies. The end result is creating medicines that are safe, effective, and more quickly available to patients.

Multicellular microBrain 2D grown on flat culture plates showing neurons (green) and astrocytes(red).

Developing new drugs is incredibly inefficient. For each drug approved by the FDA, a dozen fail in the clinic, and thousands are discarded during the course of discovery and development. This process can take a decade and cost over a billion dollars for a single approved drug. A significant driver of these inefficiencies is that the simple cellular and animal models used in the early phases of drug discovery and preclinical development, before drugs are tested in human clinical trials, do not accurately represent human biology. Furthermore, approved drugs may not be as effective as demonstrated in clinical trials and may cause serious adverse events, both of which can result in unnecessary suffering, death, emotional toll, and financial and resource losses for both patients and developers.

StemoniX developed its innovative human microOrgan® platform to overcome these hurdles. Our microOrgans more accurately represent human biology by using human stem cells, derived from skin or blood, and micro-engineering techniques to generate multicellular 2D and 3D tissue structures (microOrgans) that mimic the biology of the target tissue. We supply these microOrgans to pharmaceutical customers around the world in ready-to-use high-throughput labware formats to enable simultaneous testing of thousands of drugs using standard laboratory equipment.

Our first two microOrgan products, microBrain® and microHeart®, were among the world’s first ready-to-use cell-based products containing living, functional human cardiac and neural tissues, respectively. To do this, we developed industrial-scale bio-manufacturing capabilities that are guided by a rigorous quality system, yielding consistent products that deliver reproducible results for our customers.

Human cardiomyocytes cultured on an engineered microHeart culture plate. (Insert: Digital rendering of microHeart high-quality human biology to discover effective and safe compounds with greater confidence for further development.

The StemoniX mission stems from our CEO and co-founder’s battle with cancer. Ping Yeh was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and it was unknown whether he would be cured or even survive the multiple rounds of chemotherapy.

We also partner with pharmaceutical companies and research organizations, large and small, to develop disease models based on our microOrgan technology and test their compounds and drug libraries. We then use innovative analyses and apply machine learning techniques to make informed decisions on the generated data. Our products and services enable our customers and partners to truly study “human disease-in-adish,’ such as epilepsy, neurodegeneration, and drug-induced toxicities to the heart and brain, identify novel disease targets, and implement

“I experienced the anxiety of not knowing if the chemo would heal me, damage my heart, or kill me. Our goal at StemoniX is to ensure patients don’t experience the anxiety I suffered by helping the pharmaceutical industry to develop drugs that are safe, effective, and able to cure diseases the first time,” says Yeh. Eye to the future 83

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Multicellular microBrain 3D spheroid showing

StemoniX currently provides products and services for diseases of the heart and brain. We are applying our microBrain platform to tackle the most difficult neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, pain and addiction, as well as rare neurodevelopmental diseases such as Rett Syndrome.

We are working with our pharmaceutical partners to implement the microBrain and microHeart platforms for toxicity and safety evaluations earlier in drug development, which will not only more accurately identify potential drug toxicities before human clinical testing but also reduce the use of animal testing in preclinical research. We are also continuing to develop innovative analytics techniques to process, analyze, and learn from the large amounts of data generated from our microOrgan products. Finally, we are expanding the microOrgan platform into other organ systems to study metabolic diseases, as well as diseases that affect multiple organs. Our team will continue to grow and apply innovative technologies to developing new medicines. It is a continuing and rewarding journey as we contribute to improving patient lives.

Ping Yeh, CEO and Co-founder of StemoniX

FAST FACTS: Incorporated: 2014 Locations: Maple Grove, MN and San Diego, CA Funding Stage: Series B Employees: 43

StemoniX info@stemonix.com ryan.gordon@stemonix.com +1-952-923-7182 blake.anson@stemonix.com +1-608-345-1267 stemonix

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BRINGING THE CLOUD TO HEALTHCARE

The healthcare industry often struggles to incorporate modern applications that spur the transformation required to compete in the new digital business era, affecting healthcare stakeholders and patients alike.

This is in large part due to the levels of complexity and risk involved, as protected health information plays a key role, and as such, there is the obligation to protect that data. However, the cloud accelerates transformation more than any other technology paradigm today, and as a result, healthcare is also now rapidly migrating to the cloud.

In the world of healthcare today, leveraging patient data and context has become essential to deliver effective digital health solutions that improve outcomes and reduce costs. However, healthcare regulations create a number of integration and compliance issues. To solve these challenges, Datica simplifies and speeds the development process for those that need end-to-end security and scalability to integrate health data from any source into the cloud.

Datica provides the most complete, cloud-based platform available to accelerate healthcare’s transformation to a data-driven future. It achieves this by mitigating the complexity and risk of integrating and using health data in the cloud.

Unfortunately, using patient data has frequently blocked cloud application development because of data integration and compliance requirements.

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Datica Cloud Compliance

to meet HIPAA compliance and HITRUST certification needs, and wrestle with data exchange using HL7v2, X.12, DICOM, FHIR, proprietary APIs, etc. To accelerate healthcare’s transformation to a data-driven future, developers require a platform that allows them to adopt any cloud service while securely integrating clinical data from any source.

Fully managed, end-to-end cloud managed services

With Datica, these complexities are solved. By offering a fully managed, end-to-end cloud compliance solution, developers can scale and grow at their own pace—without worrying about the complexity of cloud HIPAA compliance or HITRUST certification. Developers are free to choose any HIPAA-eligible AWS service and Datica will help ensure compliance.

Datica Integrate Exchange patient data in any format, with any EHR

Jeremy Pierotti, Co-founder and CEO Dave Levin, Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer Ryan Rich, Chief Product Officer

Datica hello@datica.com +1-888-988-5202 daticahealth datica-health

Date Incorporated: 2014 Stage (Development/Seed, Startup, Growth/Establishment, Expansion or Maturity /Possible Exit.) Early Stage Venture Status Funding Received: $14.8 Million Employees: 52

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ACCELERATING NEUROSCIENCE LEVERAGING ADVANCES IN STEM CELL BIOLOGY FOR THE TREATMENT OF NEUROLOGICAL DYSFUNCTION.

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Sensory neurons capture and relay information from the skin and other organs to the brain and spinal cord, which allow people to experience such things as pain, itch, temperature, and pressure, among other things.

Anatomi Corp. manufactures advanced models of human neurological disease for the development of new treatments for conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and chronic pain. Its proprietary technologies drastically accelerate the manufacture of genuine human nervous tissue, which will democratize drug discovery for academics, contract research organizations, and pharmaceutical companies.

Founders of Anatomi Corp. have been performing academic research into gliogenesis, which is the embryological process the body uses to produce glia, key cell types that support neurons in the nervous system. Many groups are interested in manufacturing glia from human pluripotent stem cells, which are the “master stem cells” capable of producing any cell type of the body. Unfortunately, these processes require anywhere from 75 to 180 days to complete using state-of-the-art technologies.

Anatomi’s first product, Senso™ - DM, for use in the pain research space.

Senso™ - DM produces sensory neurons in only 8 days, faster than any protocol currently on the market.

It was the goal of the laboratory at the time to accelerate the manufacture of glia to make the process less cumbersome and failure-prone. In approaching this problem, Anatomi Corp. founders developed key

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Anatomi can produce billions of sensory neurons, which are useful to pharmaceutical companies and contract research organizations, who are developing new pharmaceuticals for the treatment of acute and chronic pain.

technology that allows human pluripotent stem cells to differentiate faster into ectodermal lineages in general, which solves a larger, more important problem applicable not only to gliogenesis but neurogenesis as well. In simpler terms, this technology is a fast-lane for human development that can rapidly produce human nervous tissue in a dish for drug discovery and potential diagnostic and therapeutic applications.

Anatomi Corp is founded by inventors of its core intellectual property, the Chrono™ Platform. CEO Patrick Walsh and COO Vincent Truong developed this IP over the course of 5 years while performing research at the University of Minnesota. After completing MBA coursework part-time in Minneapolis at the Carlson School of Management, they spun the venture out as a university startup through the Discovery Launchpad Program at the University of Minnesota Venture Center. Supported by an experienced team of business and scientific advisors, Patrick and Vincent have been making inroads into the commercial ecosystem and have developed a substantial interest in the Chrono™ Platform with industry partners.

Patrick Walsh (right) and Vincent Truong (left) founded Anatomi Corp. in the pursuit of accelerating new treatments for neurological diseases.

Date Incorporated. June 2018 Stage.

Startup

Funding Received. $125,000 Funding Required. $750,000 Employees. 2

Currently, Anatomi Corp. is focused on scaling commercialization of its first product, Senso™-DM, for use in the pain research space. Major growth opportunities exist in the dementia space, diseases which combine to be 4 to 5 times greater in magnitude given the prevalence of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases within the general population. Anatomi Corp. is constantly developing use-cases for its intellectual property, including potential uses as a platform for cellular therapeutics.

Patrick Walsh: patrickwalsh@anatomicorp.com Vincent Truong: vincetruong@anatomicorp.com

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CHAPTER 7

ENERGY, GREEN TECH & SUSTAINABILITY

“We have to feed 10 billion people by 2050.

That means we must do more with less.

Implementing innovative agriculture technology solutions will be a big part of that.”

—TEDDY BEKELE, SVP & CTO, LAND O’LAKES, INC.

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DELIVERING REAL-WORLD SOLUTIONS TO AMERICA’S FARMERS Teddy Bekele, Chief Technology Officer

Teddy Bekele

Raised on a farm in Ethiopia, Land O’Lakes, Inc. SVP and Chief Technology Officer Teddy Bekele grew up with firsthand knowledge of farming, working side-by-side with his agronomist father. But after the turbulent 1980s, he was encouraged not to go into agriculture.

crop protection products from Europe into eastern Africa. Ten years later, Teddy’s family moved again, this time to North Carolina.

At first, it looked as if Teddy was following his father’s advice. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from North Carolina State University. After college, he worked in a variety of positions at Ingersoll Rand, including Global Director of Engineering Systems and Director of IT Program Management.

“[My dad] loved farming, but he always told me, ‘Go be an engineer, go be a lawyer, do something else that’s outside of the agriculture industry,’” says Teddy.

When he was two years old, a dictator came into power and nationalized the country’s land. In the blink of an eye, Teddy’s family lost everything.

After five years of dealing with a corrupt government and determined to make a fresh start, his family moved to Italy, where Teddy’s father sold

Teddy would soon realize that his future did lie in farming—and that it would be different from his father’s path, thanks to the advancement of ag technology.

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A NEW DIGITAL AGE OF AGRICULTURE Teddy’s team actively reaches out to farmer-customers and ag retailers directly to get real-time input on how the tools and technology are performing. With Land O’Lakes’ strong nationwide network of more than 300,000 producers—representing approximately half of US harvest acres—the team understands the value and impact of the data and insights they gather.

THE ROLE OF TECH IN AG

“The scope and scale of the Land O’Lakes network is truly incredible, and it’s why we’re able to work directly with real farmers and solve real problems for them,” he says. “As a farmer-owned cooperative, we recognize we’re in a new digital age of agriculture because we’re living it every day.”

When a friend mentioned a job opportunity at Land O’Lakes, Teddy was initially hesitant. But learning more about the farmer-owned cooperative and its view of agriculture brought him around.

Happy to be “back home” in the agricultural space, Teddy understands how important his team’s work and the co-op’s mission are for the future of agriculture.

“It was super exciting to me to see how agriculture technology—ag tech— was not just going to transform Land O’Lakes but the whole industry and how we will be farming in the future,” he says. “Like a lot of people, I thought of Land O’Lakes as a butter company—but of course it’s so much more.”

“Land O’Lakes has surprising technology and extraordinary talent,” he says. “We’re on the front lines of advancing agriculture, every day.”

Teddy on 60 Minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHj82oR1hSU&feature=youtu. be&t=12

Teddy and his Ag Tech team develop, refine, and deploy technology applications that help farmers make decisions such as which product(s) to use for pest control or the best corn seeds to plant. The team works closely with WinField United, the crop inputs and agronomy business of Land O’Lakes. Tools such as WinField United’s R7® Tool and the Answer Tech® portal compile data from the field and use it to deliver the information farmers need to get the most out of their fields in the form of reliable crop outcomes, productivity and profit potential.

Teddy as a guest on our Something Greater podcast: https://www.landolakesinc.com/Members/Member-News/ March-2019/something-greater-podcast-episode-four-ag-tech

While WinField United has been a core focus of the Ag Tech team, their work spans the Land O’Lakes enterprise.

Land O’Lakes, Inc. 4001 Lexington Ave N. | Arden Hills, MN 55126 +1-800 328 9680 | +1-651 375 2222 TeddyBekele landolakesinc LandOLakesinc

“Ag tech touches all of Land O’Lakes and it’s central to how we do business,” says Teddy. “For example, we are doing some exciting work in the feed business, Purina Animal Nutrition, asking how we can support dairy and livestock farmers through nutritional insights. It’s really about using data in support of what we call ‘intelligent nutrition.’”

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Our Living Design philosophy seamlessly incorporates sustainability, resilience, regeneration, inclusion, and well-being into each of our projects.

Our self-designed Minneapolis studio now embodies our core values through a transformative workplace strategy that introduces a wider variety of workplace and meeting settings, a material palette that offers optimal indoor air quality, and responsibly sourced materials that minimize our planetary impact.

Through research, teaching and practice, Perkins and Will’s Minneapolis Studio has actively worked to recognize, identify and alter a design process that was stifling sustainable innovation. Project by project, they deliberatively re-shaped collaborative design teams to follow a holistic interdisciplinary integrative design process that has transformed how high-performance buildings engage with people, how sustainable buildings fit with bio-diverse environments and how design best serves the greater public good. Through this effort, they have achieved some exceptional performance metrics with strong award-winning design solutions that speak to their communities.

reputation for challenging the status quo and blazing trails into uncharted territory.

Perkins and Will has been at the vanguard of the sustainability movement for nearly a quarter of a century. Passionate about designing places where human life thrives and entire ecosystems flourish, they’ve developed a

Witnessing the June 20, 2012 extreme rain event in Duluth led to their innovative work on REsiLience Design Guidelines (RELi). Damage from that torrent of water and the damage from other contemporaneous

Why? Because, as global weather patterns change and trigger more extreme events, Perkins and Will takes these risks seriously. They know climate change exacerbates natural disasters and existing chronic stressors within communities. In response, they’re researching, developing, and adapting strategies to increase the resilience of buildings and communities so that—even in the face of acute and chronic events—they survive, recover, grow, and flourish.

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Our studio is 100% free address—a testing ground for workplace research where health and well-being are prioritized

extreme weather events like superstorm Sandy convinced them that climate change was no longer just a concern for the future, but a crisis happening in real-time.

Perkins and Will have historically been leaders in driving green policy change and developing new industry standards, like RELi to effect change.

It’s part of their DNA to responsibly shape the space they practice within.

RELi became a design revolution/response in a box. It’s comprehensive, covering everything from sea level rise and extreme weather to social cohesion and equity along with all the classic sustainability topics like energy, water and materials. It is an actionable checklist that helps designers create resilient communities, buildings, and infrastructure to withstand shock. In 2018, RELi was adopted by the U.S. Green Building Council, becoming the world’s first resilient design standard.

Today, Perkins and Will’s Minneapolis Studio continues that trajectory by advancing integrated systems thinking with their emergent Living Design philosophy. Living Design seamlessly incorporates sustainability, resilience, regeneration, inclusion, and well-being into every project helping sustain life on earth—today, tomorrow, and beyond. +1-612-851-5000 perkinswill_MIN

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INCREASING SUSTAINABILITY AND BUSINESSES’ BOTTOM LINE

“I firmly believe if more companies understood the value of energy efficiency, it would be a top priority in the business world,” said Matt Haley, Vice President and founder of Energy Insight. A US Navy veteran with decades of experience in commercial energy analysis, he formed Energy Insight as a new kind of company in the energy-efficiency field—one committed to demonstrating the business case for energy efficiency along with its sustainability benefits.

Energy Insight’s mission can be summed up in seven words: Delivering energy savings that make business sense. This simple phrase drives every aspect of its work. The Chanhassen-based company designs, administers, and implements innovative utility energy conservation programs and works directly with businesses of all sizes to reduce energy usage and lower costs for sustainable savings and long-term financial success.

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Energy Insight takes an innovative approach to energy conservation and management with targeted services that strengthen the bottom line of businesses while helping utilities meet mandated efficiency goals and reducing the need for new generation plants. It specializes in utility energy efficiency program development and staffing, commercial and industrial energy analysis, project design reviews, rebate and incentive calculations, ENERGY STAR® benchmarking, building operator and contractor training, research of energy-saving technologies, and measurement and verification to validate energy savings.

The company currently works with more than two dozen electric and natural gas utilities in Minnesota, delivering effective conservation improvement programs that empower commercial and industrial utility customers to use energy more effectively. Its team of engineers, energy analysts, project managers, direct install specialists, and support personnel interacts with more than 10,000 commercial and industrial utility customers each year, helping them identify and implement energy-saving projects. Combined annual energy savings are around 80 million kilowatt hours of electricity and 50,000 dekatherms of natural gas. This is the equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions from 12,574 passenger vehicles driven for one year.

Strong communication is vital. Energy Insight takes considerable time during on-site walk-throughs to educate customers about their existing systems and point out potential energy-saving opportunities.

This educational component is critical to any successful energy audit and greatly improves the likelihood that recommendations will be implemented.

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Another key to Energy Insight’s success is an extensive professional network that includes hundreds of working relationships with vendors, manufacturers, engineers, contractors, and utilities. Its base of experience, connections within the local industry, and commitment to impartiality keep Energy Insight well positioned to successfully carry out services for some of Minnesota’s largest public utilities and numerous municipal utilities across the state.

“It takes a lot of hard work to build relationships, get to know customers’ needs, and earn their trust,” Haley said. “We are working with utilities, customers, and other stakeholders, bringing people together, so they are comfortable doing projects today and perhaps in the future as well.”

In addition to utility conservation programs, Energy Insight works directly with businesses and organizations that want to make energy-efficiency improvements, access conservation rebates and incentives, or simply understand and better manage the way they use energy. A growing slate of specialized services includes predominant use/sales tax exemption studies, compressed air leak studies, steam trap studies, and ASHRAE assessments, analyses, and audits.

Honest energy assessments and detailed analyses can be powerful tools for improved profitability. This is how Energy Insight demonstrates the connection between energy efficiency and good business.

Energy Insight, Inc. 7935 Stone Creek Drive, Suite 140 Chanhassen, MN 55317 +1-952-767-7455

info@energyinsightinc.com energyinsightEI energy-insight-inc 244724892

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PLANTING YOUTH IDEAS, LIKE SEEDS, & WATCHING THEM GROW

customized to fit workshops, classes, and schoolwide initiatives, such as garden-to-cafeteria campuses. Spark-Y currently partners with fifteen Twin City area schools with many more on our waitlist. In the coming years we hope to continue to grow our organization and annual budget while serving more youth and expanding our impact.

Spark-Y is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that empowers youth through hands-on education rooted in sustainability and entrepreneurship. At Spark-Y we serve our mission of youth empowerment through three branches: school programs, an annual internship, and an urban agriculture lab. These initiatives work together systemically, creating multiple touch points for youth engagement. We do this work to create a more sustainable future while bridging the achievement gap and addressing the workforce shortage here in Minnesota. We believe that our programming has the power to change the trajectory of youth lives.

At Spark-Y we believe in planting ideas, like seeds, and watching them grow. Spark-Y was founded with this thought in mind when Founder, Mary Helen Franze, was inspired to create an organization where youth could give rise to their own enterprising ideas. After years of experience in service learning, Franze felt that youth were floundering in an adult- driven world, detached from their communities and their natural environment.

Collectively, our three branches serve over 3,000 youth annually. We pair hands-on agriculture systems, such as aquaponics, with STEM-based curriculum focused on sustainability and entrepreneurship. Programs are 97

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“I had a vision for an organization that empowered youth, a place where their authentic ideas and voice could be heard,” said Franze.

Today this idea has become a 501(c)(3) nonprofit where over 3,000 youth each year put their ideas into action through hands-on learning experiences centered on STEM and environmental education. Our students, interns, and partners are responsible for bringing to life the greenest school campuses in Minnesota, developing and implementing commercial- scale sustainable projects throughout the Twin Cities, and for passing on the seeds of environmentally- minded ideation to the next generation of empowered youth. high school credit. Both of these models showcase the innovative ways our organization seeks to empower youth while providing real-world and sustainable experiences that create a lasting positive impact in our communities, the environment, and the lives of youth.

Spark-Y Today Today at Spark-Y we continue to provide powerful, hands-on experiences for Twin Cities youth, from preschool to college, while innovating ways to expand our reach and deepen our impact. One example of this is our Credit Recovery program, a robust work-based learning opportunity for high school aged youth. In partnership with the Minneapolis Foundation, this program allows 9th and 10th grade students to recover science credits while receiving job-life skills that prepare them for graduation and beyond.

Spark-Y 681 17th Avenue NE, #101 Minneapolis, MN 55413 +1-612-821-6390 info@spark-y.org SparkYouthActionLabs sparkyorg

Another initiative we are excited about is our youth employment pathway. Our job pathway allows young people the opportunity to engage in real-world, sustainable projects while getting paid and receiving 98

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CARRYING OUT ITS MOST AMBITIOUS GOALS YET TO ADDRESS THE RISK OF CLIMATE CHANGE

We understand this interest. That’s why for more than a decade, Xcel Energy has achieved increasingly ambitious carbon reduction goals and has led the industry on clean energy. We also know that we can do more— despite the significant progress that our company and the industry overall has made in delivering cleaner energy.

Xcel Energy is the first major utility in the nation to announce a vision to provide its customers with 100% carbon-free electricity by 2050. We’ve also set a goal to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2030 across the eight states we serve.

When it comes to curbing carbon emissions and addressing the risk of climate change, the electric power sector and energy companies have an opportunity to lead. We understand that climate change and the transition to clean energy is top of mind for many of our policymakers and other stakeholders. Today, the customers and the communities we serve want clean energy, and in many instances, they are setting their own goals and commitments.

To help shape the industry and prepare Xcel Energy for the future, we are investing in innovation across all areas of our business. Steel for Fuel is an example of this; we are capitalizing on high-quality wind resources in the states we serve while giving customers a clean product at a lower cost. Steel for Fuel compares the forecast for natural gas prices—the “fuel”—to the cost to build a wind farm—the “steel.” The strategy is fairly 99

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straightforward but requires planning to execute on it. That’s where the innovation comes in—from contracting, to the speed to market to take advantage of federal tax credits, to efficiently integrating a tremendous amount of renewables on the grid while ensuring reliability—it all must come together.

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2030, our annual carbon emissions from the electricity that serves our customers will be about 17 million tons, or 80% lower than in 2005.

We believe these emission reductions can be achieved cost effectively with continued fleet transition and operational changes and with the renewable, carbon-free generation and energy storage technologies available today.

Our CAPX 2020 project helps deliver the new wind energy to customers.

We worked effectively with industry partners starting back in 2004 to construct nearly 800 miles of new transmission lines, a massive undertaking completed in 2017.

By 2050, we aspire to provide our customers across all states with 100% carbon-free electricity. In the next 30 years, we will transition to serve our customers with electric resources that emit zero carbon dioxide emissions.

To fulfill this aspiration, we will continue to increase renewable energy sources on our system, as well as technologies that enable renewable integration. We will need new carbon-free dispatchable technologies— technologies not yet commercially available at the cost and scale needed to achieve our 2050 aspiration. Because of this, there needs to be significant research and development to ensure we have these technologies to deploy in the coming decades.

In 2018, we became the first utility in the nation to routinely fly unmanned aircraft beyond the operator’s line of sight. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced it authorized the flights, an unprecedented decision in the utility industry. This year, Xcel Energy is working with the FAA to fly unmanned aircraft over populated areas.

Our Renewable*Connect program—first launched in 2017—gives our customers more renewable energy choices beyond our basic service. For instance, the customer can choose a three-, five-, or ten-year contract to purchase carbon-free wind or solar energy. This year, the program became an option for our Wisconsin customers. Customers in Wisconsin and Minnesota can also now claim the renewable energy we deliver to them through Certified Renewable Percentage. This allows customers to count the renewable energy portion of electricity delivered to them from our regular energy mix toward their energy goals.

These are our most ambitious goals yet and achieving them requires working closely with our stakeholders. We need our partners to help develop advanced technologies that may not exist today and to work with us on comprehensive, long-term policies that provide a more certain path.

Xcel Energy Inc. xcelenergy

Xcel Energy’s vision for the future includes new industry-leading goals announced in December 2018: By 2030, we aim to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 80% below 2005 levels company-wide. This means that by

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TURN YOUR DATA INTO A POWERFUL ASSET WITH HAI.

Data exchanges are regulated programs created by business associations that are used to measure or index the activity of an industry or sector.

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) is a large industry association representing companies that build farm, mining, and construction equipment. They turned to Hargrove and Associates over 30 years ago to design and manage a customized data exchange to track the sales and shipments of hundreds of products across North America and beyond, representing an accurate snapshot of their industry.

Data may be the most valuable asset in your organization. Answers to almost all business challenges can be found directly in your data or by comparison to common standard benchmarks. By working with companies, manufacturers and trade associations we turn raw market facts into powerful, actionable business information.

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This data is valuable for many reasons. Unlike other common public information sources, it comes directly from the association’s largest and most important members. It is compiled and anonymized in compliance with federal antitrust regulations and shared with a tightly controlled audience using the latest security protocols. Members use this data to negotiate agreements with dealers and suppliers, structure incentive programs, and forecast production.

Large businesses need to know where they are relative to their industry.

“It is critical to making quality business decisions. You know what you are doing, but don’t know what you are doing relative to others in your industry. You need a benchmark,” says Brian Seebacher, CTO, Hargrove and Associates.

Over the past 30 years, providing a robust data exchange has helped AEM grow from 15 to over 100 employees, and over 1,000 members.

Derivatives of this data are used to shape and drive policy so equipment manufacturers can be successful in the global marketplace. Recent surveys have ranked the data exchange as one of the most valuable benefits of membership to the Association, and it has helped solidify the relationships to many of the largest companies in the industry.

Hargrove and Associates provides much more than data management: they are a trusted third party who applies the complex governance and

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policy rules established by the association to safeguard access to the data. Associations are built on trust and need the accountability of a knowledgeable third party who can manage the privacy of sensitive information that can affect a wide range of external factors from international negotiations to stock prices for their members.

Hargrove’s ability to bring industry-leading technical solutions to bear in solving this unique business problem has set it apart from other tech consultants. Thirty years of experience has also helped it provide valuable consultative advice to newer, younger associations in fast-growth industries who are considering the value of establishing new data exchanges for their members.

Innovations such as the establishment of best practices for governance, architecture, and security are helping these newer associations create value for their members with compliance approved processes and technology that dramatically shorten the learning curve and provide a path to greater relevance in their industries.

Hargrove & Associates, Inc. +1-612-436-5500 100 N. 6th St., Suite 306B Minneapolis, MN 55403

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EVERYTHING and EVERY PERSON has VALUE Tech Dump is a certified electronics recycling and refurbishing social enterprise. As one of the largest collectors of e-waste in the state of Minnesota, we have processed more than 25 million pounds of electronic waste—all while adhering to the highest standards of data security, employee safety, and environmental standards. We use our business model to provide job opportunities for adults facing barriers to employment, such as previous incarceration, addiction, or homelessness. We believe that everything and every person has value.

Tech Dump (originally called Jobs Foundation) was started to meet the needs of unemployed adults in the Twin Cities who experience barriers to employment. At our inception, we accepted donated items residents no longer wanted or needed, ultimately realizing there was a need for electronic recycling services within our region. As our world continues to rely on electronics more and the rate of adoption of new devices increases, the need for our services continues to grow.

partners, and employers. In 2015, we secured our R2 (Responsible Recycling) certification, where a third-party auditor verified that our environmental, data security and employee safety processes meet the highest industry standards.

In addition to our proven track record of providing seamless electronics recycling services for businesses and organizations of all sizes, we are also a social enterprise that provides jobs and training for people who have faced challenges such as addiction, incarceration, and homelessness. We believe that everything and every person has value.

Tech Dump is an industry leader in electronics recycling. As one of the largest collectors of e-waste in the state of Minnesota, we have processed more than 25 million pounds of electronic waste—all while adhering to the highest standards of data security. We undergo an annual R2 certification—one of the few recyclers in Minnesota to receive it—which requires a rigorous third-party audit of all our processes and procedures.

Tech Dump’s job training program is 18 months and includes paid employment, customized development plans based on their career goals, and ongoing coaching and support. Trainees acquire internal and external certifications, complete regular reviews with feedback on their hard and soft skills, and job search assistance. The skills trainees acquire are in demand in today’s workforce and with their successful employment at

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FAST FACTS: Date Incorporated: 2011 Stage: Growth Employees: 64

Tech Dump, employers can be confident in trainees’ abilities to do their job well and stay employed.

We are thrilled to have received many civic and business awards and are proud of our engagement in the fight for the “Right to Repair” in local and national legislative efforts. Among other accolades, Tech Dump received a Leadership in Business award from the Midway Chamber of Commerce in 2014, and 2016 Minnesota High Tech Association’s Tekne Award for workforce development, and in 2019 was the only American organization to be given the international “Be the Change” award from Ethical Hour.

This underscores our experience in balancing our social mission with the complex, fast-moving electronics-recycling business.

Additionally, we helped found the Impact Recyclers, a national group of social enterprises, certified electronics recyclers, with the shared mission of employing people who have faced great challenges.

Future Plans We recently moved into a new building, doubling our size and setting us up for continued growth. In 2020, we will open a branch of our retail arm, Tech Discounts. At this location, which will provide further jobs and will increase access to low-cost tech items to the local community, thereby opening new opportunities for consumers and breaking down barriers once again.

Our whole team was excited to welcome Mayor Melvin Carter as he attended our “Wire-Cutting” Grand Opening ceremony, and declared March 27, 2019, “Tech Dump Day” in the city of Saint Paul.

Tech Dump Electronics Recycling info@techdump.org +1-763-432-3117 TechDump TechDumpMN techdump-org techdumpmn

CEO Amanda LaGrange, a 2018 Bush Fellow, was recently chosen to participate in the REDF Accelerator program, a specialized program that provides training and connection for social enterprise entrepreneurs. This will support our growth plan to again double in size by 2024 to address the community’s need for electronic recycling and skilled workforce from previously overlooked pools of talent.

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CHAPTER 8

MANUFACTURING 1 0 5

“What is now proved was once only imagined.”

—WILLIAM BLAKE

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The world’s most automated control panel builder

Design Ready Controls was established in 1989 through a radio-station giveaway credit card. In the 30 years since, the business has expanded by an average of 20% per year. From one employee in a garage, it has grown to more than 400 people in four locations.

Design Ready Controls makes control panels and wiring harnesses for commercial and industrial customers, serving original equipment manufacturers in multiple markets. It is the world’s most automated control panel builder, and the leading supplier of control panels and wiring harnesses in North America. The company has achieved industry leadership in engineering capabilities, process efficiencies, national presence, and responsive service—all through innovation.

In addition to its headquarters and flagship production building in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, Design Ready Controls has plants in Oregon, Oklahoma, and Virginia. The company follows best practices in supply chain management and pursues continuous improvement in systems from collaborative engineering to process automation to communication accuracy.

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Innovation: Process Automation and Workforce Development Design Ready Controls has always pursued improvements in accuracy, reliability, safety, and speed. The company invests in automation and training to help production employees achieve consistently high-quality results. Every project is inspected and documented at critical stages, and every control panel receives 100 percent full function testing.

Company engineers have expertise in electrical and mechanical panel design, communication protocols, programming, and development. The strategic use of robotics and software helps enhance human skills, and a single point manufacturing flow means each function in the building process is performed without handoffs.

Advances in technology such as virtual reality, 3D printing, artificial intelligence, and automation require new and different skills. Design Ready Controls helps people get the education and training they need to qualify for more interesting and rewarding careers. The company provides multiple pathways for new employees to succeed in manufacturing.

Design Ready Controls 9325 Winnetka Avenue N. Brooklyn Park, MN 55445 +1-763-565-3000

Design Ready Controls has a culture of curiosity, creativity, combined with consistent hard work that has elevated continuous improvement from a competitive requirement to a way of life.

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From dinosaur bones to paper straws, H.B. Fuller perfects adhesives, sealants, and other specialty chemical products to improve products and lives.

Examples of H.B. Fuller innovation on display: Dinosaur Bones As the home of one of only four real Triceratops on display in the world and the largest complete specimen on display, the Science Museum of Minnesota needed expertise when it came to hairline cracks developing in the fossilized bone of the four-ton skeleton.

Since 1887, H.B. Fuller’s commitment to innovation has brought together people, products, and processes that answer and solve some of the world’s biggest challenges. The company’s reliable, responsive service creates lasting, rewarding connections with customers in electronics, disposable hygiene, health and beauty, transportation, aerospace, clean energy, packaging, construction, woodworking, general industries, and other consumer businesses.

Headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota, H.B. Fuller has technology centers around the world directed by over 500 field and lab-based technical experts, who drive their culture of innovation. H.B. Fuller also has more than 70 manufacturing factories, which produce thousands of different adhesives that are sold to customers in more than 125 countries across the world.

“One concept at the core of how we will win in the adhesives business centers around innovation. We will win by providing superior products and services that meet our customers’ specific needs. This requires innovation.”

—Jim Owens, President & CEO

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The Curator of Paleontology at the museum set out to find a solution to seal the cracks, knowing that certain minerals in the fossilized bone would crystallize when exposed to the air and could eventually force the fragments apart.

He solicited the help of H.B. Fuller scientists to recommend an adhesive that would fill the cracks and prevent crystal formation.

H.B. Fuller’s scientists knew that the highly porous nature of the bone and plaster meant that the most acceptable system would be a 100% solid epoxy that would not shrink or expand with aging or temperature variation.

After testing many formulas in the lab, it was decided that FE 6084, a low-viscosity epoxy with good flow properties, would allow sufficient open time to remain fluid during the slow, precise application. The most difficult task was to devise a method of injecting the adhesive into each of the delicate cracks. Scientists decided on a hypodermic needle, and spent long hours at the museum painstakingly applying the adhesive into the gaps.

Today, the museum’s horned reptile remains the best and most complete reconstruction of this ancient plant-eater. Had it not been for H.B. Fuller scientists, the Triceratops, which roamed North America about 70 million years ago, might have been lost forever.

Paper Straws Single-use plastic products have become a major focus of environmental conservation efforts as concerns have grown about the accumulation of plastic waste around the world. In 2018, plastic straws drew attention as a contributor to unsustainable levels of waste. Despite pledges to phase out usage and customers’ work to reduce

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reliance on single-use plastics, there is still a demand for straws.

Paper straws quickly emerged as an alternative.

To be a competitive alternative, paper straws need to be strong, food-safe, water resistant, hygienic, and biodegradable. At the same time, to enable wide-scale adoption, they must also be competitively priced. H.B. Fuller’s adhesives can make sustainable alternatives, like paper straws, a reality—today. Their expertise means that employees can collaborate with customers to choose the right adhesive to efficiently manufacture paper straws. Straws are just one example of everyday products being reexamined and replaced by more sustainable alternatives.

The Future As consumers increasingly demand more environmentally responsible products, new adhesives can help manufacturers minimize resource use and enable downstream recycling or reuse. H.B. Fuller adhesives have helped produce more energy-efficient windows, offer light weighting solutions for motor vehicles, and reduce the amount of material used in electronics. The company is proud to play a role in bringing sustainable alternatives to market.

At any given time, dozens of projects are advancing through the various phases of H.B. Fuller’s innovation pipeline. Annually, the company introduces more than 100 new products and currently has more than 600 patents (granted and pending).

H.B. Fuller extends its internal commitment outward by helping to inspire and develop future innovators through its STEM and leadership development programs for youth, providing more than $1.3 million annually through the H.B. Fuller Company Foundation.

Innovation is the lifeblood of H.B. Fuller.

Through innovation, H.B. Fuller provides better, more affordable products that answer some of today’s toughest consumer demands—all while serving their manufacturing customers better than anybody else in the industry.

“Our customers are innovating, and we must innovate with them. As we partner together, we develop solutions to meet their evolving needs, and enable innovation for every manufacturer of goods in the world.”

—Ted Clark, COO

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Developing Solutions to the World’s Most Pressing Challenges

new and increasingly complex challenges for businesses. By 2030, it is estimated that the world will need 40% more water, 35% more food, and 30% more energy to meet demand. Ecolab delivers innovation and expertise to help companies effectively navigate the challenges ahead.

A trusted partner at nearly three million customer locations, Ecolab Inc. is a global leader in water, hygiene, and energy technologies and services that protect people and vital resources. Headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Ecolab’s 50,000 associates work to make the world cleaner, safer, and healthier by delivering comprehensive solutions, data-driven insights, and personalized services to promote safe food, maintain clean environments, optimize water and energy use, and improve operational efficiencies for customers in more than 170 countries.

Innovation has always been a cornerstone of Ecolab’s success. From its very first product in 1923—Absorbit™—which enabled hotels to clean guest room carpets without needing to remove them, to the broad range of innovative technologies offered today, Ecolab’s solutions are designed to deliver exponential customer value.

Many of the world’s most recognizable brands rely on Ecolab to help ensure product integrity, brand reputation and guest satisfaction. The company’s innovative solutions and services touch virtually every aspect of daily life and are used in hospitals, hotels, restaurants, schools, commercial buildings, food processing facilities, breweries, light and heavy manufacturing plants, refineries, power generation facilities and a host of other locations throughout the world.

Ecolab’s 1,600 scientists, engineers and technical specialists work to create industry-leading solutions that help companies reduce their reliance on finite natural resources and achieve the best results at the lowest total cost. With expertise in several core technologies, including antimicrobials, dispensing and monitoring, hygiene, polymers, surfactants, solid chemistry, water management, and digital solutions, Ecolab’s innovations are designed to solve its customers’ most pressing challenges.

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Ecolab is a pioneer in utilizing remote monitoring, diagnostics and controls to help customers operate more efficiently. Through its digital solutions, Ecolab captures real-time intelligence and utilizes predictive analytics to drive smarter execution and deliver superior outcomes for customers.

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to more than 19 trillion BTUs, avoid more than 2.4 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions, and eliminate 54 million pounds of waste.

Ecolab’s ultimate competitive advantage is found in its industry-leading sales-and-service force. Backed by expert training, superior knowledge of industry best practices and Ecolab’s innovative solutions, the 27,000-strong field team provides personalized service and customized solutions to solve a customer’s specific operational challenges. These service visits help the field team gain insights into customer operations, and these insights help with the development of additional innovations.

Ecolab is helping companies throughout the world achieve their desired business results while minimizing environmental impact. The company’s work to help ensure clean water, safe food, abundant energy and healthy environments benefit us all.

In addition to Ecolab’s internal research and development capabilities, the company also pursues external innovation partnerships to enhance its technology offerings. One example, the Techstars Farm to Fork Accelerator, was co-funded by Ecolab and Cargill in 2018 to identify entrepreneurs and start-up companies with innovative ideas around food safety and security, agtech, consumer goods, and supply chain management. The startups receive mentor support and access to the companies’ market expertise, global connections, and investment capital.

In turn, Ecolab receives access to emerging technology and innovative ideas that can spur new business opportunities.

Sustainability is central to Ecolab’s purpose to make the world cleaner, safer and healthier. The company takes a comprehensive look at the environmental, economic, and social impacts of its products and service offerings, and considers how each solution increases efficiency, minimizes the use of natural resources, and improves safety, from sourcing to manufacturing, to use and disposal. And Ecolab’s solutions help customers conserve more than 188 billion gallons of water, reduce energy use

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CHAPTER 9

SOFTWARE & HARDWARE

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“If you look at history, innovation doesn’t come from giving people incentives; it comes from creating environments where their ideas can connect.”

—STEVEN JOHNSON

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The leader for in-season agronomic insights

Sentera to provide in-season, actionable crop-health insights, improving scouting efficiency and precision. Our FieldAgent™ Platform—coupled with data from Sentera’s ag sensors, satellite imagery, weather and more— takes users beyond aerial photos and into actionable data with tangible economic value, like NDVI management zones, stand count, weed density mapping, and simple Rx generation.

Sentera is the market leader delivering in-season agricultural insights to growers that maximize yield, profitability, and help create a sustainable, secure global food supply.

Crop scouting is essential for in-season crop management, but most methods are time-consuming and don’t provide an accurate whole-field picture. Sentera has developed faster and more accurate solutions to manage crops. For over 5 years, growers and ag professionals have trusted 115

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Sentera is the in-season agronomic insights leader. Sentera’s integrated software and sensor products deliver fast, accurate information that improves outcomes for growers. Our solutions integrate with virtually every digital agriculture platform, efficiently delivering critical measures of real-time crop performance directly into the tools that ag professionals already use.

From basic imagery, accurate NDVI, and Red Edge products, to the most sophisticated multispectral, thermal, and machine learning technologies, Sentera gives users cost-effective, high-performance tools to continuously improve their operations, on and off the field.

Founded in 2014 and based in Minneapolis, Sentera drives innovation with a team of science and engineering professionals in remote sensing, data science and data analytics. They’re technical and business leaders with years of experience at Lockheed Martin, UTC Aerospace Systems– Collins Aerospace, and other world-class organizations.

The Sentera Difference Sentera engineers an integrated set of software and sensor tools from the ground up to enable ag professionals to gather accurate, precise, and actionable whole-field data. The data products can then be integrated with the digital platforms that ag professionals use to help growers achieve the best possible outcomes for their operations.

FieldAgent focuses on time-sensitive data collection and processing to drive in-field insights around weeds, disease, pests, nutrition, and seed performance. From basic imagery to the most sophisticated multispectral, thermal, and machine-learning technologies, Sentera FieldAgent delivers cost-effective, high-performance tools to continuously improve operations, on and off the field.

Our FieldAgent software platform is the easy-to-use, yet comprehensive hub that unifies our product line—mobile, web, and cloud-based software, sensors, and drones—behind a powerful user experience. A single mobile app manages the entire data collection process in just a few taps, from flight planning to sensor management. The same simple process can be used whether a customer is using an entry-level sensor with a lowcost drone or our most sophisticated equipment and analytics on an industrial UAV platform.

FieldAgent manages tasks and workflows that integrate satellite and drone-based imagery, collects data, and integrates with broader digital platforms that see more frequent, more meaningful engagement because FieldAgent delivers a steady stream of time-sensitive data that supports the most important in-season management decisions.

Sentera Sensors

FieldAgent’s web, desktop, and mobile tools provide in-field and cloudbased data visualization, exploitation, sharing, and collaboration tools. FieldAgent’s data repository and APIs set the industry standard for simplified integration of sophisticated measures of crop performance.

Sentera offers integration support for virtually every major digital agriculture platform and in-field, space-based, equipment-based, and historical sources of data.

Sentera’s sensor products range from entry-level and consumer-focused multi-band agriculture index products to the most radiometrically accurate, high-throughput sensors in the world.

For consumers, seamless integration with DJI SkyPort hardware, standards compliance and API integration make our Single, Double 4K and AGX710 sensors the leading choice of drone users in the retail channel, selling higher volume and producing more data than any other brand.

For enterprise-scale farmers and consultants, Sentera offers more solutions for more use cases than anyone else in the world. These solutions result from unmatched technical performance and priceperformance ratios, the seamless integration of extremely complex multiband products and a unique ability to fuse data measurement with experience and expertise in onboard machine learning, computer vision and precision navigation.

In addition to our standard products, Sentera provides very highperformance software and hardware solutions to some of the world’s largest seed, nutrition, and crop protection manufacturers. These cuttingedge technical capabilities translate directly into superior performance and features for our consumer products. The result: every Sentera customer receives accurate, precise, and actionable data—immediately at the field edge and as an integrated component of the full-scale digital platform they’re already using.

Sentera FieldAgent™ Sold in more than 53 countries, Sentera FieldAgent delivers insights derived from machine learning, computer vision, and other AI techniques at scale to agronomic professionals around the world. Our platform delivers fast, accurate information, boosting productivity and lowering costs for growers and ag professionals.

Sentera info@sentera.com +1-612-204-2000 or +1-844-SENTERA (736-8371)

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ENABLING THE FIELD SERVICE WORKFORCE OF THE FUTURE Field Nation is the world’s most active field service marketplace and software solution. By connecting technicians to organizations in one easyto-use platform and mobile app, Field Nation solves a critical challenge all service leaders worry about: accessing skilled labor, when and where you need it. Unlike traditional staffing companies, Field Nation is built specifically for quick-turn, onsite service work. Businesses can post projectbased work, scout potential service providers in every postal code, and organize go-to service crews fast. Technology professionals can search for work that fits their schedule and skill set, builds their reputation, and offers them payment within days of project completion. Because contractors are essentially interviewing for their work each time they go out in the field, companies continue to be impressed with the consistent high-quality work.

It’s a real win-win situation for everyone.

change in the technology marketplace. Instead of hiring permanent employees, companies started using contractors to deliver onsite labor. Simultaneously, full-time employees were looking for flexible work opportunities. Recognizing the growing need for companies and independent workers to easily connect with one another, Khan launched Field Nation, creating a new way to get work done.

Companies use Field Nation to reduce overhead and simplify project management. Today, the Field Nation marketplace has more than 100,000 technicians and 1,000 active companies posting work on the platform. To reduce the time it takes to find a technician, Field Nation created a proprietary matching algorithm using more than ten years of data to automate the process of finding the best technician for a job. For companies using the algorithm, it provides three to five recommended technicians once work is posted. To aid companies in meeting their Service Level Agreements, the Field Nation team takes additional measures to

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maintain top-notch technician quality. They have developed programs to help manage technicians with at-fault issues, as well as recognize top service providers across a variety of categories. Together, Field Nation’s algorithm and programs ensure the work gets done by the right technician at the right time.

Fun Facts • Employ almost 200 individuals between Minneapolis and Dhaka, Bangladesh • Field Nation is the 7th largest gigeconomy platform in the US • Company established in 2008 • Field Nation’s first office was in a petfood warehouse • Founder and CEO Mynul Khan was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and moved to the US to attend St. Cloud State University, majoring in computer science

Ten years in, the Field Nation team again noticed an emerging market shift. With the rise of the gig economy, businesses were introducing blended labor—instead of strictly using W2 employees or 1099 contractors, companies were using a blend of both. To help clients manage both employees and contractors, Field Nation launched Field Nation ONE. Through Field Nation ONE, companies gain total visibility into their blended workforce and optimize labor allocation accordingly.

Field Nation has been intentional in supporting innovation by creating a company that reflects the behaviors of creative problem-solving.

An open office and open culture encourage employees to be who they are, fostering diversity and inclusivity. The open office space in downtown Minneapolis fuels frequent, spontaneous collaboration. Field Nation employees all go through a training seminar in design thinking, which encourages team members to use creative, innovative solutions to solve users’ problems. The company also promotes a healthy work/life balance, reflected in generous benefits including unlimited PTO and vacation bonuses. Ensuring staff arrive 118

at work fresh and ready to do their best has always been part of the secret recipe for continued excellence.

Beyond investing in employee engagement, Field Nation also gives back to its local communities in Minneapolis and Dhaka, Bangladesh. Field Nation plays an active role in supporting younger generations as a sponsor of Girls Who Code at the University of Minnesota and Dream for Tomorrow in Bangladesh.

Moving forward, Field Nation aims to be an even bigger catalyst for companies and technicians looking to evolve. With a huge untapped market for this business, Field Nation’s teams are ambitious and ready to put in the work to get there, moving forward with confidence as they strive to innovate and excel as the industry’s strongest field service platform.

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SOON, TECHNOLOGY WILL NOT JUST BE “NICE TO HAVE.” COMPANIES WILL NEED SMARTER PRODUCTS TO COMPETE.

Co-founders Justin Grammens and Troy Pongratz outside of the Lab651 office at Vandalia Tower in Saint Paul.

Before they founded Lab651—named, locals will recognize, after Saint Paul’s area code—Justin Grammens owned a software consulting organization, while Troy Pongratz separately owned a mechanical engineering firm,and they found themselves getting asked to create a lot of connected (IoT) devices.

Lab651 provides engineering services to companies that range from startups to the Fortune 100. They provide both physical product development (mechanical and electrical engineering) and software engineering services. This can involve everything from UX and user interface to mobile, cloud, and voice-controlled applications.

“I ran a software company for many years,” says Grammens, “and I started to be asked, Could you make a physical thing, Could you design the electronics inside that thing?” Meanwhile, Pongratz, who has a mechanical background, was starting to work on a lot of projects that involved electrical work and was constantly seeking out subcontractors.

“Because we have all these disciplines in-house,” says Pongratz, “we can be a one-stop-shop for this kind of product.”

They now develop software and firmware, and the physical devices themselves, for the consumer, industrial, and medical markets, and help companies get their products to production and help to support and maintain them as well.

“These devices are so interdisciplinary,” says Grammens. “You need a physical device to generate the data, which means you need mechanical and electrical engineers to make the device. But you also need to process that data and present it in a way that people can interact with it, or have it automatically acted on, so you need a mobile app, and then you also need software developers.” Grammens and Pongratz recognized that the diverse needs of this space would reward a single company that could do all of this, and so Lab651, which combines all of these specialties, was born.

Lab651 has now worked with a multitude of major brands, including Craftsman, Anytime Fitness, Cirrus Aircraft FOB (EE, ME), 3M, and Kenmore. But some of the work they’re most proud of is the work that combines technological innovation with social good.

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SkyPro is a new way to improve your golf swing. It is a small sensor that fits imperceptibly below your grip and monitors your club’s motion during a swing. This information is then transmitted wirelessly to your smartphone or tablet, which provides instant feedback on key features of your swing.

Abilitech Medical brings innovative solutions to the market that allow people living with upper-limb neuromuscular conditions to function independently. The company’s first product, the Abilitech™ Assist, will be a one-of-a-kind powered orthotic device providing functional assistance and support to both the elbow and the shoulder, to improve the lives of people in the US affected by neuromuscular weakness.

Vitals enables safer community interactions by allowing individuals with visible and invisible conditions and disabilities to create and share a personalized digital profile with authorized first responders via a secure, online portal and mobile app—improving real-time communication, reducing the risk of misunderstandings, and promoting greater independence.

Craftsman Smart Lawn talks directly to your mower using Bluetooth technology.

It provides up-to-date information about your mower’s battery, blades, air filter, and engine oil, then notifies you whenever something needs attention, making maintenance simple. There are many features to Craftsman Smart Lawn, all with protecting your investment in mind.

Kenmore® Smart connectivity transforms your relationship with your home. Link, control, and monitor your Kenmore Smart products all from one app.

Lab651 specializes in being able to work within their clients’ culture while at the same time helping advise and steer. The founders also note that Minnesota’s economy has many sectors—technology, agriculture, retail, medical, and more—that need new and innovative products, and Lab651 provides the perfect combination of product development and software development services in one company. “This is a powerful and rare combination,” says Pongratz.

The Kenmore Smart app allows you to personalize the way your Kenmore Smart appliances operate based on your schedule and daily routines, making life easier and providing greater peace of mind.

The demand is only growing. As the world becomes more and more connected, say the founders, the products and devices in our lives are going to get more and more intelligent. “It’s no longer going to be just ‘nice to have,’” says Grammens. “Companies are going to need to make their products smarter to compete.”

One of their earliest clients was Vitals Aware Services (TheVitalsApp. com), who wanted people with cognitive and emotional special needs like autism and PTSD to be able to have better interactions with law enforcement. So Lab651 built them an app that police have on their phones, and a corresponding device for the individual to carry, which emits a signal to the app when a first responder comes within a hundred feet. The signal can convey any kind of information, typically instructions on how to interact with this special needs individual, and sometimes a video of their mother, or a Disney song to comfort them.

Lab651 is perfectly positioned to support those companies. “The crossover between our UX/UI, software app, and voice-controlled experiences group on the one hand,” says Pongratz, “and our Product Development group on the other, allows us to work on projects that most companies just don’t have the capabilities to do.”

“This is now being used by one in four police departments in the State of Minnesota,” says Grammens, “and we’re running pilots in several other states.”

Lab651 is at the forefront of this evolution in products, and, as Pongratz says, “We have the skills to help our clients dream big, and we’ll be there to help make it happen.”

There’s also an exoskeletal device that assists individuals to perform daily tasks who have suffered an injury or have an upper-limb neuromuscular condition for Abilitech Medical. It’s still in product development, but Lab651 did early-stage development with them, building up an application and working on controlling the motors.

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We design & build digital products.

We help companies build remarkable experiences on phones, tablets, smart speakers, IoT devices, & wearables.

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Our digital product studio Since 2001, Livefront has crafted mobile experiences across platforms, form factors, and screen sizes to help our clients meet their customers any time, anywhere.

Dedicated teams.

Designing for people.

We believe world-class digital products are built by dedicated, crossfunctional teams. We assemble senior-level designers, engineers, and product managers who give their undivided attention to each engagement.

Designing products that fit seamlessly into people’s lives requires understanding the quirks of human behavior. We put working products in real people’s hands early and often to learn what we can’t know up front.

Products, not projects.

Software delivered weekly.

Releasing a product into the wild is a beginning, not an end. We view products as living things that require continuous iteration to thrive in an increasingly competitive digital landscape.

We work in one-week sprints to release working software every single week.

We see shipping, learning, and acting quickly on what we discover as the keys to a successful product development cycle.

Partners, not clients.

We can’t create great products together by staying in our respective corners. We ask our partners to create one team with us to iterate and build together.

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THE WORLD’S A BETTER PLACE IF WE CAN ALL TALK WITH EACH OTHER. AT SPEECHGEAR, WE’RE MAKING THAT HAPPEN. NOW EVERYONE CAN COMMUNICATE WITH ANYONE, ANYWHERE, AND ANYTIME IN MOST ANY LANGUAGE. Our “James Bond” Background: The CEO of Auditory Sciences is Robert Palmquist. For twelve years he led the United States government team that developed advanced technologies for the intelligence community.

If you’ve ever watched a James Bond movie and noticed the character called Q, the one that makes all the cool tech stuff for the agents, well, in the United States Robert was the real-life Q. While the science and tech were challenging and interesting, this application of his skills was not what he wanted to do for the rest of his career. So, he left. He started a new firm with the simple thought that if everyone could talk with each other, the world will be a better place. That’s what SpeechGear has done.

Anything you say, type, or write is simultaneously translated into over one hundred languages. This is complete multidirectional instant translation of conversations and documents. Plus, if you are Deaf or Hard of Hearing, anything said is instantly captioned. If you are Deaf/Blind, that captioning is presented to you in braille. If you are not able to speak, you can use SpeechGear’s software to speak for you. And, you can do this anywhere and anytime by either connecting to the SpeechGear communication website, which is www.streamer.center, or by running the software on your own platform. Back in 1883, the editor of the American Annals of the Deaf wrote, “It is not unreasonable to hope that some instrument will yet be contrived that will transcribe ordinary human utterance.” After a wait of over a century, Streamer™ has made the dream a reality. You can give it a try for yourself; it’s free, and easy to do. Just go to www.streamer.center and click on the More Information link. That’s all it takes to make it so you can talk to anyone, anywhere, and anytime and in almost any language.

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It is so rewarding to see a student’s reaction when they realize their listening comprehension has just been boosted. While sitting in the back of a classroom with a Hard of Hearing student, I said, “I didn’t get that, did you?” The student acknowledged that he too missed the content, but with just a glance at the Streamer™ captioning he was able to tell what both of us had just missed. You could just see it in his eyes—he knew he now had access that was not possible with his personal FM or his hearing aids. Success stories like these are what lead me to focus my work towards making Streamer™ available for all students.

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SpeechGear, Inc. info@speechgear.com +1-507-664-9123 speechgear interact.streamer

Mike Massine, Classroom Consultant, Boulder, Colorado

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“Over 70% of IT budgets are spent just keeping the lights on.”

How will you get there?

P3 is curious to know. off to help others going through the same issues. This organization was in the middle of multiyear acquisition strategy that was great for top line revenue and expanding the business, but costs, complexities, and compliance burdens prevented the full realization of the merger values. This company needed to “Transform” its business, pay off its IT debt, and simplify operations. So the founders created an application decommissioning “factory” that would take legacy and duplicate systems and retire them from production in a compliant fashion. This saved the company millions (many millions), simplified their operations, and allowed investment back into innovations.

We are headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota, as we found Minnesota to be a state that has many desirable qualities for a small startup: a large diverse and educated workforce, a strong work ethic, a focus on family, good cost of living, and many colleges and universities to keep fresh ideas and talent available and a unique quality of life. Since our founding, we have grown to over 100 people worldwide.

The company’s focus is built on a set of service offerings to help companies set up their own “factory” to rationalize existing systems (applications) focusing on cleaning up old legacy systems. Once they’re set up, we teach them “how to fish”—to run the program for themselves—or we run it for them as a service. Over time, through the experiences of archiving and retiring so many applications, we noticed a pattern. One of the longest and costliest parts of the application retirement process is understanding and collecting the source data and understanding the relationships within the data and the context of the data so once it is archived, the business logic and “referential integrity” is maintained.

“Digital Transformation” is the buzzword bingo answer of the day. The marketing terms keep changing over time, but the question remains, “HOW WILL I GET THERE?” Platform 3 Solutions’ heritage stems from a team of people that solved challenges that face all companies. How does a company continue to grow, expand, and innovate with the mandate to cut costs, simplify business, and meet compliance needs?

This was a key component in our journey as the data we are working with is under heavy compliance and governance. As a result, we invested into encapsulating all these laborious best practices into building an end-to-end proprietary platform that grows —we call it ARCHON. We use Automation and Machine Learning (ML) skills to resolve complex data discovery and relationship identification problems and we use Micro services architecture to provide scalable solutions to handle high volumes of data processing as part of the ARCHON Platform.

Let’s break this down. Transforming your business “digitally” generally refers to innovation, automation, and the proverbial “better, faster, cheaper” through embracing newer technologies. Today cloud, mobile, artificial intelligence. and IoT are driving transformational change in many organizations. You might be in an acquisition mode, maybe moving to a cloud platform to simplify your IT operations and reduce costs, or maybe your old tired legacy systems are not able to support innovations.

There are many reasons you are “transforming” your business and it all revolves around technology.

Besides the practical reasons in retiring older systems to save money and strive for better data governance, there is also the privacy and security concerns. Base platform technologies have gone end-of-life.

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Windows Servers 2008, SharePoint 2010, SQLServer versions, Oracle databases—the list goes one. All security breaches and ransomware intrusions have been through the oldest and least secure operating platforms—but you still need that data.

Archon’s ability to analyze data, to reverse-engineer legacy application knowledge through the interrogation of the system, to help show what should be kept versus deleted, and to set up and migrate to an inexpensive archive repository is turnkey and repeatable. We have also created end-toend capabilities to fully retire more complex enterprise technologies like SAP, PeopleSoft, JDEdwards, Oracle EBS, and mainframe- and AS400based solutions.

Whether it is traditional, structured data (order data and numbers) or less structured (emails and documents), the ability to place all of this into a modern and secure archive platform is now possible with Platform 3 Solutions. Using our solutions, we enable our customers to achieve significant operational cost reductions in managing legacy data and legacy IT systems and help them to achieve various data management related audit, data compliance, and data protection requirements, including CCPA and GDPR regulation requirements.

Platform 3 Solutions is here to help you bring great evolution with your technology spend by cleaning out what makes sense from technology and underlying costs so that as you look to grow and evolve, you can clean out what is not necessary. From our humble beginnings within a big company to becoming the world’s largest company focused on the “application transformation” market, we are proud to call Minnesota home.

Learn more at www.platform3solutions.com

Platform 3 Solutions 601 Carlson Parkway, Suite 1050 Minnetonka, MN 55305 +1-952-449-5225 sales@platform3solutions.com

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INDUSTRIAL INNOVATION LIVES AT THE CONVERGENCE OF THE PHYSICAL AND THE DIGITAL WORLDS.

For over 30 years, PTC has helped its customers stay ahead of the competition. As a digital transformation technology leader, PTC’s mission and product portfolio are aligned on the following concept: opportunities for industrial innovation lie at the convergence of the physical and digital worlds.

PTC unleashes industrial innovation with award-winning, market-proven solutions that enable companies to differentiate their offerings, improve operational excellence, and increase workforce productivity. With PTC and its partner ecosystem, manufacturers can capitalize on the promise of today’s new technology to drive digital transformation.

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Executive Team

Deeply rooted within the company’s culture and framework is its connection to Minnesota. Born and raised in the state is PTC’s president and CEO, Jim Heppelmann. A few years out of college, Heppelmann and two colleagues founded Windchill Technology. The new internetbased technology, called product life cycle management (PLM), enabled companies to better manage and organize complex computer-aided design (CAD) files and automate many of the tasks associated with product development. A resounding success, Windchill attracted the eye of PTC, and was acquired by the latter along with its founders, including Heppelmann.

Led by President and CEO, Jim Heppelmann, PTC’s executive team includes: Kristian Talvitie, EVP and Chief Financial Officer Barry Cohen, PhD, EVP and Chief Strategy Officer Kathleen Mitford, EVP of Products Michael DiTullio, EVP of Sales and Commercial Marketing Eduarda Camacho, EVP of Customer Operations Steve Dertien, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Managing Director of the Office of the CTO Craig Melrose, EVP of Digital Transformation Solutions Aaron von Staats, EVP and General Counsel Eric Snow, SVP of Corporate Marketing

In taking the reins as president and CEO a few years later, Heppelmann and the PTC executive team understood that digital transformation would become the top business imperative for industrial enterprises. To support companies facing increasing customer expectations, uncertain trade and cost pressures, and mounting workforce shortages, PTC’s technology helps them become more innovative, agile, and adaptive with their product and service offerings, operations, and workforce.

Future Plans As one of the top software companies in the world, PTC is committed to its customers’ success today, and continues to invest in new technologies and various deployment options for tomorrow. Over the past several years, the industry has applauded PTC and its offerings through independent analyst reports and awards. The company, never complacent, continues to evolve on all fronts with a deep focus on constantly enhancing its culture and ceaselessly driving value for customers, employees, shareholders, and others.

Today, PTC continues to invest significantly in the research and development of its award-winning legacy suite of products as well as complement that suite with new, cutting-edge technologies, such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Augmented Reality (AR). Supported by a robust Minnesota-based team, Vuforia, PTC’s industry-leading AR solution suite, offers an easy way to capture, create, and deliver content for industrial AR experiences, empowering organizations to digitally transform their products, processes, and people. The feature-rich Vuforia enables workers to visualize digital information in a physical context for many use cases, including training employees, reviewing new designs, creating operator and service instructions, and more.

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PTC’s heritage of innovation and a comprehensive technology portfolio provide the necessary vision and capabilities to aid customers throughout their own digital transformation journeys.

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“By building on the Microsoft Cloud for Government platform, our clients gain a reliable, stable solution that is backed by the company’s ongoing commitment to serve the government community.

These cloud-hosted solutions further support the changing federal, state, and local government requirements as well as the ongoing changes in business and technology trends in the public sector.”

—DAVID MINKKINEN, SENIOR PARTNER, SAGITEC

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ELIMINATING THE RISK OF TECHNICAL OBSOLESCENCE.

Sagitec is a global software provider focused on solving complex problems with domain experts and proven technology. We provide innovative benefits-administration solutions to clients in the retirement, labor and employment, and healthcare industries. We build and support our business solutions on a continuously evolving software platform, which is integral to helping our clients adapt to change in product and service lines, communication channels, user experiences, and of course, technology.

With deep industry experience in software implementation and systems integration, project management, consulting, hosting, and software support, Sagitec is a partner clients can trust to deliver mission-critical IT projects.

enterprise software using a low-code development platform that withstands shifts in underlying technologies. Improve enterprise software, not by focusing on point-in-time business functionality, but by eliminating the risk of technical obsolescence.”

Not many software providers have a solution that delivers a Commercially Off The Shelf (COTS) solution and can be tailored to meet requirements.

Most enterprise offerings are not flexible enough to cater to frequent changes in business rules and don’t evolve with changing technology.

Our pension and labor and employment solutions allow us to deliver a COTS solution that meets most of our clients’ requirements out-of-the-box and can be configured to execute multiple business rules without complex programming.

“We started Sagitec in 2004 because we believed the pervasive vendor strategy of ‘ripping and replacing’ enterprise software every few years was a flawed business model,” says Sagitec’s co-founder and senior partner Rick Deshler. “It didn’t warrant state and local agencies paying millions of dollars for software solutions that were destined for relatively short lifespans. We entered the market with a distinct objective: create

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response to their changing environment. For example, our first client, Kansas Public Employee Retirement Systems in the US, has been successfully using our pension system for the past 10 years—and our innovative, adaptable solution will allow us to continue supporting them for the next 10 years and beyond.

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In 2016, we launched our Healthcare practice to bring our mobile and web products to a broader market.

In 2019, Sagitec was named part of the top 100 companies focused on making a difference in, and selling to, state and local government agencies across the United States by GovTech. The GovTech 100 companies represent a growing set of scalable, digital solutions addressing the tough, complicated problems that governments face—from healthcare and public finance to pension administration and labor and employment.

We have been helping benefit administrators who are inhibited by obsolete software systems, limited functionality, and a heavy reliance on manual processing. We’ve helped them modernize their capabilities, automate business processes, improve access to and reliability of data, improve customer service levels, and quickly adapt to changing rules, laws, policies, and operational needs.

Sagitec is currently the largest provider of Microsoft Azure in the Health and Human Services industry. “By building on the Microsoft Cloud for Government platform, our clients gain a reliable, stable solution that is backed by the company’s ongoing commitment to serve the government community. These cloud-hosted solutions further support the changing federal, state, and local government requirements as well as the ongoing changes in business and technology trends in the public sector,” says David Minkkinen, Senior Partner at Sagitec. In recognition of the company’s excellence in providing public sector customers with innovative and unique solutions, Sagitec was awarded the Microsoft State and Local Government Solution Partner of the Year in 2016.

Today we have over 31 clients, we have also grown globally with 13 offices and over 900 employees worldwide.

For the first 10 years, Sagitec focused exclusively on creating scalable solutions for the pension and benefits industry. We’ve enjoyed a track record of proven success—winning work with large, medium, and small organizations.

In 2013 we launched our Unemployment Insurance (UI) Practice. We started by adding seasoned leaders who had proven track records implementing Unemployment Insurance for large System Integration firms. Today we have solutions for the entire Labor and Employment industry—unemployment insurance and workforce, disability insurance, and paid family leave.

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VSI LABS

Supporting the development of automated driving technologies.

Established in 2014 by Phil Magney, VSI Labs is a Minneapolis-based research and advisory firm specializing in active safety and automated driving technologies. With a team of just 12 employees, VSI offers unique and flexible services to companies throughout the AV ecosystem.

VSI Labs is not trying to build a better self-driving car, but rather support the companies that are. VSI’s applied technical research pertains to the design and development of active safety or automated driving functions.

Their reports and research repositories contain technical information about the integration of hardware and software components used for these applications. While many companies subscribe to VSI’s syndicated research platform online for industry insights and technical information, others who supply the components and systems that go into self-driving cars can have their technology implemented into one of VSI’s research vehicles.

VSI Founder Phil Magney’s Tesla Model S. VSI does extensive research and benchmarking on Tesla.

VSI AV Solutions Engineers Developing Algorithms for AV Applications.

VSI’s primary vehicle, a 2018 Ford Fusion, is the main platform for the team’s applied research. Aptly named the “Capability Demonstrator,” the vehicle travels to conferences throughout the year to expose people to autonomous driving while exhibiting the systems enabled by the sponsored components. These components are integrated by VSI’s AV Solutions Engineers to test and demonstrate the capabilities enabled by their technology.

VSI’s primary research vehicle, a 2018 Ford Fusion, on the Automated Drive West.

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VSI Founder & CEO, Phil Magney

Earlier in 2019 the Capability Demonstrator logged over 3,000 miles in a first-of-its-kind cross-country drive to Santa Clara, and later to Washington, DC. These two long-distance testing projects, the Automated Drive West and East, provided VSI with an invaluable opportunity to test automated driving applications under conditions they couldn’t otherwise replicate. The goal of these drives was to evaluate the benefit of using precision lanes models and enhanced GPS technology to improve the performance and safety of highway autonomous driving applications.

The team also sought to better understand how these technologies operate across varying terrains, weather, and driving conditions.

Being in Minnesota, VSI is developing automated driving applications in one of the country’s toughest climates. There are a host of issues in getting autonomous systems to work amidst inclement weather. For example, automated vehicles typically rely

on lane markings to control their positioning and trajectory, but this functionality is compromised if the lanes are covered with snow. To combat this, the VSI team has developed an alternative solution with precise localization methods that help the vehicle know exactly where it is and where it is going even if the lanes are obscured.

Automated vehicle systems are a rapidly emerging global technology. Partial automation is already commercially available in passenger cars, while fully automated vehicles will start emerging in major cities in just a few years.

Due to such rapid advancements in automation, consumers must keep up with the benefits and limitations of this new technology. As an industry-leading researcher of automated vehicle technologies, VSI is able to provide critical insights to industry leaders, state and federal government agencies, and anyone else looking to understand the ecosystem of automated driving.

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ENTERPRISE VIDEO AS A SERVICE™ FOR THE INTELLIGENT ORGANIZATION

Video : A More Effective Way to Share Knowledge With the growing demand for video in the enterprise, business leaders are looking for solutions that support a variety of use cases, such as easy-to-use video streaming frameworks for live webcasting.

Providers like Qumu offer a full suite of capabilities that allow enterprises to effectively manage video across their organization—a vital component of customer and employee engagement.”

—Jim Lundy, CEO and Lead Analyst at Aragon Research

The world’s largest organizations leverage the Qumu platform for a variety of use cases, including self-service webcasting, internal collaboration, employee training, onboarding, corporate communications, regulatory compliance, and customer engagement. Qumu’s customer base spans the Global 2000 in six key verticals including Financial Services, Manufacturing, Healthcare and Life Sciences, Professional Services, Telecom and Technology, and Government.

Qumu is the leading provider of a best-in-class platform to create, manage, secure, distribute, and measure the success of live and on-demand video for the intelligent enterprise. Backed by the most talented and experienced team in the industry, the Qumu platform enables global organizations to drive employee engagement, increase collaboration, and modernize the workplace by providing a more efficient and effective way to share knowledge—via live and on-demand video interaction.

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Qumu is consistently named a leader in the Enterprise Video Platform space by analyst firms like Gartner, Forrester, Frost & Sullivan, Aragon Research, and Wainhouse Research, and is unique in its ability to provide end-to-end internal and external video communications solutions for global enterprises.

Qumu was born in 2002, when Yahoo purchased the dot com–era search engine company Inktomi. As part of that transaction, Yahoo received a technology for managing and publishing video assets called Media Publisher, which Inktomi had invested significant dollars into developing.

Two entrepreneurs made an offer for the Media Publisher product, and spent the next six years developing it into a fully fledged enterprise video platform—which they rebranded as Qumu in 2008. Between 2008 and today, the Qumu technology has developed into the leading enterprise video platform in the world.

Although it is an international organization, Qumu is proud to call Minneapolis its home—and maintains a global headquarters in the Warehouse District on First Avenue, exactly two floors above the historic Loon Café. Qumu is thoroughly committed to fostering advancement and growth in the Twin Cities’ tech community and continually strives to be one of Minnesota’s most innovative technology firms.

Qumu marketing@qumu.com +1-612-638-9050 Qumu

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VIRTUALZ COMPUTING:

Female Founder Brings Innovation to Mainframe Computers with Cloud Technology and Software as a Service

A team of collaborators and innovators with over 150 years of mainframe experience. L to R standing: Christine Glynn, Dustin Froyum, Marc Sokol, Vince Re. L to R seated: Jeanne Glass, Mark Combs, Lisa Wood

VirtualZ creates innovative software to powerfully enable mainframe clouds, automate mainframe optimization, and reduce mainframe software license fees. The company is the inventor of IBM Z Workload as a Service—zWaaS™— innovative cloud redirection software that saves customers hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars per year.

For Founder Jeanne Glass, a native of Columbia Heights, Minnesota, starting VirtualZ was a longtime dream. Encouraged by family, she started a career in mainframe computing at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire while enrolled in Management Information Systems focused on COBOL programming. Early in her career, she was appointed to senior leadership positions at VC Kleiner Perkins–funded and other tech startups including prominent companies such as FICO, Tripwire, and CA Technologies (now Broadcom). During 11 years with CA Technologies Jeanne fell in love with the mainframe—helping mainframe customers solve their most complex technical and business challenges. Today, focusing her entrepreneurial energy on VirtualZ to develop new mainframe technology brings Jeanne’s high-tech expertise full circle.

Founded by a team of professional collaborators and innovators with over 150 years of mainframe experience, VirtualZ is dedicated to improving, automating, and optimizing mainframe computers with innovative software. The company is proudly headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for decades recognized as the global epicenter of computing, birthplace of the supercomputer and home to Univac, Control Data, IBM Rochester, and Honeywell.

As consumers, we don’t see or touch mainframe computers like we do our mobile and home devices, but we all use mainframe computers daily. The last time you used your credit card, bank ATM, or made airline or hotel reservations you used a mainframe computer.

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VirtualZ empowers mainframe users to approach cost-saving efforts differently. Using VirtualZ’s automation and intelligent programming, customers can reduce the number of expensive software licenses running in their environments, and for the first time, they can license mainframe software as a service with zWaaS™.

What we now know as cloud computing was commercially popularized about 15 years ago by Amazon. However, the benefits of cloud computing have eluded mainframe environments and applications. This gap in the market—the ability to dynamically use cloud resources to execute mainframe workloads—presents a tremendous opportunity in mainframe computing.

Without some of the analogous cloud technologies available on other platforms, mainframe leaders are faced with the same old choices for cost reduction and operational efficiencies. Some manually move data and/or workloads off the mainframe, migrate to a managed service, outsource, or attempt to re-platform applications. This creates substantial challenges in time, cost, and risk and if completed, proves difficult to retain or regain control of systems, data, workloads, and costs, not to mention the comparative compromises to security and availability.

Instead, VirtualZ’s groundbreaking technology replaces those strategies with the benefits of cloud computing on mainframe computers: pricing flexibility, scalability on demand, and accelerated time to market.

Now mainframe users can maintain mission-critical mainframe workloads on internal mainframes as appropriate for their FAST FACT: business, but with new flexibility to dynamically select when, VirtualZ is early-stage, where, and how to automatically and securely move individual privately held and the first IBM Z workloads to private or public clouds. and only women-owned independent software Mainframes are the most secure, reliable, and scalable By bringing cloud flexibility to the mainframe, VirtualZ vendor in the history of platform in the world. They are designed to support enables customers to easily shift workloads to clouds to achieve the mainframe. cloud computing, big data and analytics; technologies of lower costs, fulfill excess capacity needs, flexibly test, and deploy today and the future. It’s estimated that up to $3 trillion in applications and also execute mainframe applications in the cloud, commerce flows through mainframes daily: still controlled by the user but managed by a service provider.

• Running 30 billion transactions per day • Holding 80% of the world’s business data Given today’s high-volume, transaction-based world, VirtualZ believes • Handling 90% of all credit card transactions; hosting more transactions rethinking how and where mainframe software is licensed, priced, and daily than Google deployed will enable the mainframe to continue its reign as the most • Processing nearly $5 billion in ATM transactions daily secure, reliable and available platform in the industry.

This power, reliability, and security comes at a cost: the mainframe is one of the most expensive computing platforms in the world. As a result, mainframe customers hire teams of people and spend millions of dollars trying to cost-optimize their environments. At a time when we need mainframes more than ever, many companies are looking for ways to reduce costs, including moving from the mainframe to more vulnerable and less reliable computing platforms.

VirtualZ Computing +1-800-930-0416 info@virtualzcomputing.com virtualz-computing

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Company culture and core values drive 25 years of success at Coherent Solutions

Training is key for the Coherent team. Monthly team meetings offer an opportunity for ongoing training for the latest technology and software advancements.

Coherent Solutions is a custom software product development and consulting company whose cross-functional global delivery model reduces development costs while increasing speed to market. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with locations in Sofia, Bulgaria; Minsk and Brest, Belarus; and soon New York, Coherent has been named one of the fastestgrowing companies in America by Inc. Magazine and is a four-time honoree of the Minneapolis–St. Paul Business Journal’s FAST 50.

Coherent Solutions solves business challenges for companies worldwide through platform-agnostic software development, deployment, and consulting. Offerings include custom digital solutions, web and mobile application development, DevOps and data services, and emerging technologies such as blockchain and IoT—with 1,000+ completed projects going back to the company’s inception in 1995. 2020 marks Coherent Solutions’ 25th anniversary. The company has consistently grown 20% year over year for the last eight years with office expansions worldwide. Its global staff grew from 560 in 2015 to over 1,100 in 2019. In 2019, Coherent Solutions was named an Advanced Consulting Partner by Amazon AWS— one of only a few Minnesota-based companies recognized.

The average team members has been with the company 7+ years. Longevity is key to forming a great team. an adventure travel enthusiast who has climbed mountains on five continents.

Coherent Solutions is relentless about creating a cohesive and cool culture that spans its worldwide locations and employees. Leaning into its global footprint allows Coherent to build an outstanding team dynamic through extreme activities that its employees enjoy—extreme sports, specifically.

Whether it’s bike races—cycle and motor, Tough Mudder obstacle courses, 5K, 10K, or marathon runs, kickball matches, kayaking events or car competitions—Coherent team members infuse the same sense of going all in and always “game on.”

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The Minnesota-based headquarters for Coherent Solutions includes a staff of 30+ team members – executive leadership, sales, marketing and project managers.

Building a cohesive team culture—despite global office locations—is a top priority for Coherent Solutions. A group from the Minsk office shares their love of motorcycles on team-building rides.

CEO Igor Ephsteyn (right) and General Manager of Belarus Development Centers, Alexandre Schneerson, celebrate the 15th Anniversary of the Minsk Office.

Coherent Solutions 1600 Utica Avenue S., Suite 120 Minneapolis, MN 55416 +1-612-279-6262 coherentsolutions coherent-solutions CoherentTweets

A group of Coherent Solutions’ team members pose for photos at the 2019 MinneInno Coolest Companies award recipient photo shoot.

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SPS Commerce is the world’s retail network, connecting companies with cloud technology and customer-obsessed service.

SPS Commerce connects more than 90,000 retail companies around the globe, optimizing supply chain operations for all retail partners. We support data-driven relationships with innovative cloud technology, customer-obsessed service and accessible experts so our customers can focus on what they do best. SPS has achieved more than 76 consecutive quarters of revenue growth and is headquartered in downtown Minneapolis.

SPS helped to pioneer cloud-based EDI, redefining a market that was traditionally served by on-premise software providers and replacing it with a more efficient way for retailers, grocers and distributors. The SPS retail network includes thousands of the world’s biggest retailers and vendors, so companies get connected to their retail trading partners with blazing speed.

Our customers have evolved. We’ve evolved to serve them.

SPS Commerce knew from the start there was a better way for retail trading partners to work together. Since 2001, we have helped thousands of companies successfully replace time-intensive, manual processes with automation.

Today’s digitally-native consumers have transformed the retail landscape.

They expect more options than ever—in the products they buy, where they buy them, and how their purchases will be delivered.

No matter how complex retailing becomes, we make the process of managing trading partner relationships simple with services backed by expert teams, using proven processes to handle all the technical details on your behalf. Our customers rely on us to support their e-commerce, dropship, buy online pickup in store (BOPIS) and other channels.

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What our customers say about SPS Commerce: “I love SPS as it works great, is very easy to use and user friendly. I wish more of my customers would use this software to make my life easier.”

—Jan G., Wholesaler, February 2020

Solutions to connect every retail trading partner.

SPS serves all types of companies in retail. Whether you’re a retailer, supplier, grocer, distributor or a third party logistics provide (3PL), our time-tested solutions and experienced staff will make the experience easy.

“I recommend this service to small and medium-sized enterprises that only seek the finest tools in their respective trades and fields to get the job done right.”

—Steven C., Food Production, July 2019

Best of all, the process to connect with more retail partners is quick and simple. Our solutions go beyond EDI to enhance visibility, collaboration and communication. So, retail companies can do more than just survive— they can thrive.

“Before using SPS Commerce, we had to do everything manually in the

We solve the data gap in retail.

tracking information and invoice information. Easy peasy!”

Virtually all buying organizations have one thing in common: they don’t have the data they need from suppliers to make effective supply chain decisions.

—Walter S., E-Commerce, July 2019

form of emails and our company software. Now whenever we receive an order, we just log in to the portal, process it on our end, and then enter the

“The majority of retailers require the use of EDI and SPS is able to integrate with everyone we’ve worked with, making it an enabler for

The lack of information leads to a host of problems that cost retailers time and money, such as ordering excess stock and hiring unnecessary staff.

opening new accounts. Their team is also great at setting up new accounts.

We send an email and everything gets taken care of.”

For more than a decade, SPS has delivered the technology, people and best practices that facilitate the exchange of order, shipment, sales and item data between trading partners. This data connection provides grocers, distributors, e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retailers the visibility and insights needed to optimize their global supply chain.

—Justin W. Food & Beverage, August 2019

“[With SPS, we can] embrace the ability to have speedy, relevant data in order to make quick, insightful decisions to grow our business. Dashboard insights provide tools to dig deep, deeper and deepest into root causes and opportunities.”

—Mark Z, Planning Manager, June 2019

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CONNECT WITH CONFIDENCE

Angie, a virtual greeter from Digi customer PRSONAS, offers site tours.

Open conference areas at Digi headquarters invite collaboration.

Digi’s Innovation Wall displays 30+ years of solutions and patents.

Trade show booth visitors learn about Digi’s connectivity and automation solutions.

When you hear about the Internet of Things, you might think of a fancy refrigerator that sends you text messages when the vegetable drawer is too warm. While that is certainly one example of the millions of connected devices you will find across the IoT, it is so much more.

Digi International is a long-standing, yet fast-moving Internet of Things (IoT) provider in the commercial, medical, and industrial spaces, as well as the public sector. Wherever data must move securely, wherever machines and vehicles must connect and communicate, and wherever the need to collect data and gain insights from temperatures and changing conditions is critical, Digi is there. We are a Minnesota-based company with offices worldwide, and with customer IoT deployments in every corner of the globe.

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Customers at Digi’s annual IoT conference learn how to leverage IoT to transform their business.

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Ron Konezny with an array of Digi IoT solutions.

Smart cities, where street lights, power, water management, city transit and traffic management are all automated for efficiency and safety.

including smart transportation, connected vehicle systems, food safety, and solutions that support compliance in medical and pharmaceutical applications. As we like to say, “Let your imagination run wireless!”

Agricultural applications, where farm workers can get notified if a watering system is malfunctioning many acres away.

Leadership:

Connected factories, where automation can provide predictive maintenance notifications and reduce risk.

Ron Konezny, President and CEO of Digi, joined the company with a vision—to lead Digi into new realms and untapped markets that are in need of critical solutions. He believes in building on Digi’s excellent talent and key strengths—from the company’s longevity to its strong financial standings, its devoted customer base, and the ability to pivot into high-demand markets. Since Mr. Konezny joined Digi, the company has performed six strategic acquisitions and has built out a business division focused on solutions for the temperature-sensitive requirements and compliance needs of the supply chain, grocery, food service, and pharmaceutical enterprises. The company is growing and recently had its highest-revenue year in the company’s history. We are proud to have Mr. Konezny at the helm.

Medical and pharmaceutical applications, where temperatures must be carefully maintained and treatments delivered with precision.

Industrial tanks, where checking tank levels formerly required staff to drive from tank to tank, but now the tanks report their levels, and personnel only need to visit remote sites for required maintenance.

That is just the tip of the iceberg. Digi provides the communications routing systems for critical infrastructure, highway construction projects, railway systems, and emergency communications, where it is paramount for data to be sent quickly and reliably. Think of police vehicles and ambulances moving through a city with precision and receiving rapid, accurate updates. Buses, trains, and light rail, transporting large populations of people safely, while communicating status with dispatchers, monitoring passenger security, providing WiFi access to all onboard, and reporting routing information via GPS. And connected vehicles, where automation will soon transform vehicle and pedestrian safety.

The devices at work in these applications include routers, cellular extenders, gateways, sensors, USB-over-IP devices, out-of-bandmanagement consoles, system-on-modules and radios—including cellular and radio frequency devices under one of our best-known brands—Digi XBee®. And the connected devices can all be monitored and managed from one secure management interface—Digi Remote Manager®.

Digi International Inc. +1-877-912-3444, +1-952-912-3444 digi.international, xbees, smartsensebydigi digidotcom, xbeewireless, smartsensehq digi-international, smartsense-by-digi

Since 1985, Digi International Inc. has been devoted to providing devices, components, and software tools that make IoT processes work reliably, securely, and seamlessly, often in the harshest environments, and in critical applications where failure is not an option. Through innovation and expansion, today our company is rapidly moving into new markets

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FINTECH

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“True technological innovation is rarely about creating something completely new.

It’s about seeing the one small detail others have missed and using available technology to expose it in a way others haven’t.”

—ADAM COYLE, CEO, DIGITAL RIVER

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COMBINING BEST-OF-BREED SOLUTIONS TO MEET COMPLEX SHOPPER DEMANDS Digital River, a leading provider of global e-commerce and payment solutions, has been transforming Minnesota’s tech industry and the global e-commerce market for more than two decades. As the company reaches its 25th anniversary, Digital River is celebrating by reflecting on how it has grown to become a worldwide solutions provider for leading enterprise brands, processing more than $3 billion in annual transactions, including 50 million annual orders, for companies around the globe.

Digital River was founded in 1994 with the goal of bringing software providers the ability to sell their products online through downloads— disrupting transactions that required consumers to shop at brick-andmortar stores. Software companies were quick to sign on because all they had to do was add a purchase button to their sites and suddenly they were selling direct to consumers while Digital River provided all the back-end support, including a unique Merchant and Seller of Record business model that exists to this day.

Digital River’s Chief Product Officer, James Gagliardi, has been with the company since its early days. He recalls the company’s true startup mentality where the speed of innovation occasionally collided with the realities of a fast-growing organization, which sometimes resulted in having to create ad-hoc solutions just to keep up. “Our space was so small, all of our servers were stacked up in what used to be a supply closet,” remembers Gagliardi. “One Monday we came in and realized not a single order had processed. We couldn’t believe it, so we investigated and discovered someone cleaning Friday night had accidentally unplugged the power. You better believe we found a safeguard to prevent that from ever happening again.”

is now aligned with strategic partners to offer API and microservicesbased solutions, allowing brands to accelerate expansion into new markets around the world. Digital River remains laser-focused on its core offerings of payments and risk protection, order management, and commerce services, enabling brands to combine best-of-breed solutions to meet complex shopper demands.

Digital River has stayed true to its mission of enabling e-commerce for the past 25 years, while still evolving its business strategy to meet new demands, including moving its data center infrastructure to the public cloud, ensuring high-availability and cutting-edge performance for clients.

This has been a big change that is causing many in Minnesota to take note. Following the pivot, the company was profiled in the Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal where Adam Coyle, Digital River’s CEO, reflected on his first year at the company and how now Digital River is “almost fundamentally a different company” from when he joined in July 2018.

To continue offering sellers better service and the agility to compete in the constantly changing e-commerce world, Digital River modularized its products in 2019, breaking down its full technology stack. The company

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hard-working and balanced. Weekly social hours and bring-your-dog-towork days have been company perks since the beginning, along with an unlimited vacation policy, paid parental leave, and community volunteer opportunities on company time.

With customers all around the world, the Minneapolis-based company has mastered the ins and outs of global e-commerce. Digital River’s Onshore Advantage™ allows companies to conduct sales in 244 countries and territories, supporting local languages, local currencies, as well as local acquirers and localized payment methods. At the same time, Digital River works behind the scenes to process payments, mitigate fraud, and handle all taxes and compliance, as well as manage orders and fulfillment.

Digital River 10380 Bren Road West Minneapolis, MN, 55343 +1-952-225-3985 publicrelations@digitalriver.com Digital River DigitalRiverInc

Digital River puts Minnesota on the map for global online retailers.

With approximately 60 patents granted, Digital River continues to break through with new ideas and innovations. Digital River currently employs more than 450 people at its Minneapolis headquarters and 1,400 worldwide. Additionally, the company nurtures a culture that is both

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Innovation is who we are, and who we’ve always been.

Real solutions based on innovative thinking are part of RSM’s history and how we are shaping the future of the middle market.

The business world is evolving rapidly. In this fast-paced environment, we understand that companies need an advisor who thinks ahead and rapidly responds to their changing needs. At RSM, the clients we serve are the engine of global commerce and economic growth, and we are focused on developing leading professionals and services to meet their evolving needs. RSM’s purpose is to deliver the Power of Being Understood® to our clients, colleagues and communities through world-class audit, tax and consulting services focused on middle market businesses. Our strong, client-centric approach is what differentiates us. It’s this drive for innovative solutions, combined with understanding our clients’ needs better than anyone else, that leads us to help them capture a competitive edge.

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Thousands of personalities make up RSM. Every member of our team brings unique insights and a passion for the middle market companies we serve.

Our inclusive workplace celebrates the differences among our talented employees, while enabling them to embrace full ownership of their work and personal lives. We are proud of our culture because our people stand out for how they live our values, exhibit behaviors that bring our brand to life every day and demonstrate the characteristics of being caring, curious, collaborative, courageous, and critical thinkers.

Since 2010, RSM employees have helped others through a coordinated firm-wide Volunteer Day. RSM’s day of giving back has grown so much that in 2019, the firm decided to expand it to an entire week to maximize the volunteer impact on our communities. Over the past ten years, RSM has donated more than $17 million to national and local charitable organizations that support youth in the areas of education, hunger, housing and health.

RSM’s Minneapolis office has a long track record of supporting and participating in fundraising activities and volunteer work to support the Twin Cities community. Over the last four years, hundreds of RSM Minneapolis employees have donated over 6,800 hours and more than $145,000 to support public schools in the area.

RSM US LLP traces its history to 1926, when Ira B. McGladrey started his own accounting firm in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, with a vision to treat employees well, serve clients with integrity, and bring leadership and innovation to his firm and profession. As a business owner, McGladrey was an early innovator who addressed real issues with real solutions. As an accountant, he championed original ideas that would come to define new accounting practice standards nationwide.

We believe innovation comes from everywhere and that anyone who has a big idea can drive transformative change. We support our professionals in and out of the office to further enhance a culture that embraces fresh perspectives and creative thinking. As our world continues to evolve at a rapid pace, new technologies and innovations are exponentially changing how we live, work and do business, domestically and around the world. It’s up to us to be first-choice advisors who empower others to meet the future with confidence.

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Silicon Prairie Portal and Exchange (SPPX) is a Financial Technology company that runs an Investment Crowdfunding Portal in St. Paul, Minnesota. It works like Kickstarter, except Campaign Companies can sell real financial securities such as Equity, Debt, or Convertible Notes— instead of just rewards like T-shirts. Regular people and the certified rich people can invest, but the Campaign Company (fundraiser) sets the terms.

We use technology to unlock capital, while providing industry-leading compliance and documentation. This is the Democratization of Capital.

“We say, if a business doesn’t have a Bank or Angel investor to back them for $100K, then investment crowdfunding will let them put together 100 people at a $1,000 each and get the same type of deal done.”

Transactions use US Dollars and US securities laws. We work carefully within the regulated industry: State Financial Regulators, Legislators, FINRA, the SEC, Securities Attorneys, real Banks and Insurance providers.

We are fully compliant for these deals using exemptions from registration with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC).

We handle Crowdfunding deals from $50,000 to $5 million, plus the mini-IPO up to $50 Million. We specialize in complex capital stacks and welcome clients that want to pair Investment Crowdfunding with Private Placement or Bank Loans. The Issuer can offer Equity, Debt, Convertible Notes, SAFE units, Revenue Share, really ANY financial instrument.

We use Blockchain Technology on the backend to track the shareholder registry so we can offer some advantages such as liquidity. This is because we are also a SEC registered Stock Transfer Agent under our Silicon Prairie Registrar and Transfer (SPRT) division.

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Silicon Prairie is breaking out to become the world’s next Goldman Sachs. The Democratization of Capital is here in the Prairie.

Don’t believe us?

Just watch!

legitimate business problems so we can offer alternative finance services at a reasonable price point.

Our Campaign Companies have raised about $6 million (2019), which is more than most angel groups in town. Our website doesn’t look flashy because we’ve been laser-focused on making a warhorse under the hood.

It represents about a million dollars’ worth software development in order to create a secure and robust infrastructure behind the scenes, including our crown jewel: the Geppetto Smart Document System.

Our team are actual blockchain experts: In Bitcoin since 2010, a dozen Patents from Wells Fargo for Blockchain in Banking, our own Proofof-Stake Coin (market high of $19 million) and teaching the Graduate Computer Science Blockchain class at the local Private College. Blockchain is uniquely suited for tracking financial securities, and we use it to solve

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Innovator or Facilitator: We have a unique role in our tech scene: we’re a breakout tech startup, but we’re so competent that our community seems to view us like an institution. On one hand it’s flattering, on the other hand it’s isolating.

We’re here to help other businesses with their funding needs, so the pageantry is just distracting from our core mission. Innovation is our beating heart; our daily grind is to solve complex problems.

Campaign Companies love the freedom to set their own terms, but the legal costs are a huge blocker. We require a securities attorney for qualitycontrol purposes, but most businesses can’t afford 50 hours of bespoke legal documents just to get started. We are problem solvers, so we created a proprietary one-to-many document automation system we call Geppetto to reduce the costs.

Geppetto uses the lawyer’s own documents to create new documents with just a few hours of review. Essentially, it uses onboarding documents as the data entry for every other required document. It’s like mail-merge on steroids, except the data and the forms are loosely coupled. The output can be a Word Document, but we can also output to many other formats such as QuickBooks, XML, EDGAR, Software APIs, and/or blockchain-enabled Smart Contracts. Our IP Attorneys have never seen anything like it!

Investment Crowdfunding is going to be a $3 trillion industry worldwide.

We’re well positioned to become an industry leader in the US because we’re a hardcore technology company with deep respect for compliance.

This new field requires a multi-discipline approach, but established players like broker-dealers can’t afford to entertain experimental products in place of known revenue. Large corporations also exclude themselves as internal politics kill innovation and top talent abandons rigidity. On the other side, new tech teams often severely underestimate the power of regulators, and the frustration pioneering laws. We might be the only people positioned to take advantage of the opportunity: we’re a nimble team of deep experts, with no egos and nothing to lose.

“You do NOT need a coin to operate a Smart Contract, but Smart Contracts do require Smart Documents!”

Geppetto effectively bridges the gap between lawyers and software developers to create the world’s best foundation for Smart Contracts (contracts that execute like software). Coders shouldn’t write legal contracts, and lawyers fall short of elegant code. Geppetto bridges the gap by leveraging the strengths of both. Geppetto has been live since 2017 and is quickly being applied to additional industries. If you’re suffering from redundant data entry, we want to help! Our roadmap includes enterprise services in Banking, Accounting, Insurance, and Medical Technology.

Beyond attractive investments, society needs these businesses to get a fair chance! Small business is the backbone of our economy, but new entrepreneurs are often un-bankable or can’t demonstrate the required return of 3x in five years. Honestly, entrepreneurs should be wary, bad terms are common! We’ve seen good teams trapped in abusive terms or quit in disgust from an overbearing investor. When they quit, we all lose.

Do we really want corporate middlemen, accountants, and bankers to be the gatekeepers for inventions and projects they don’t not understand?

Cryptocurrency/ tokens: Friends don’t let friends hold an ICO without getting an effective exemption or registration first! We were the first SEC registered Transfer Agent with a compliant pathway to create tokenized assets. We can clone our 2Give coin and bootstrap your network on a few laptops vs. underpowered tokens like Ethereum/ERC20. However, we make buy-vs-build recommendations based on what’s best for your company, not a hidden agenda or shilling. We have a 501(c)(3) nonprofit for Blockchain Education and Consulting, can donate 2Give for free for your Blockchain or Fintech project.

Unlike other Portals, we are not here to be gatekeepers. We’re passionate about equal access and free speech: If the business is lawful, pays our fees, and passes QC—we have no problem accepting headline risk of our Campaign Companies. We’re fastidious about compliance, but we don’t pass value judgements on the businesses. The whole point of Crowdfunding is so the CROWD can vote with their dollars! If other portals refuse to serve 98% of applicants, that’s not the spirit of innovation. We’re here to make the Democratization of Capital a reality— don’t believe us, just watch!

Our founder got into Bitcoin in 2010, and immediately realized the power of a distributed ledger—someday every business could issue their own financial security with liquidity, plus incredible transparency and traceability. But first, the laws would need to catch up….

Thank you for reading! We’re a small team and love support from the community. We’re here for business, so please reach out if you think we have overlap.

The JOBS act in 2012 confirmed that small businesses need a bridge across the funding “valley of death” created by the Securities Act of 1933. The old regulation was supposed to protect regular people from getting swindled, but it created a feedback loop that hurt small businesses AND hobbled economic mobility. The Investment Crowdfunding laws fix this flaw while still protecting investors. We became a Portal operator to host these deals so businesses cross the valley by raising funds from the crowd.

Jade Barker Business Systems Consultant at Silicon Prairie Jade.Barker@sppx.io jadebarker

We used our portal to raise $250K from about 60 people. We’ve run lean and built a million-dollar industry-leading software platform that should break even in 2020. Our customers have all been referral to date, so next step is building a marketing team, productize Geppetto, acquire a FINRA reporting broker-dealer and a community bank. The goal has always been the same: The Democratization of Capital.

David Duccini Founder and CEO at Silicon Prairie David.Duccini@sppx.io dvduccini

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FINANCIAL HEALTH FINDS ITS ROOTS IN WORK SATISFACTION AND PRODUCTIVITY

BRANCH IS A MOBILE-FIRST TECHNOLOGY THAT HELPS WORKERS GROW FINANCIALLY.

Accelerator program, the company decided to make the move permanent, given the Twin Cities’ proximity to many Fortune 500 employers of hourly workers, growing startup ecosystem, and great engineering and sales talent in the region.

Filling the gap for low-income working Americans that are underserved, Branch is a mobile-first technology that helps employees grow financially by providing transparent and equitable financial services. Starting in 2015, Branch has always built solutions with the needs of the hourly worker in mind. The company initially began providing hourly workers with technology to pick-up more shifts and communicate with one another all through their phones. The application also benefited employers, allowing them a way to optimize staffing levels and decrease overtime and administrative costs. Relocating from Los Angeles to Minneapolis in 2016 after its acceptance into the inaugural Target Techstars Retail

In its close work with employers and hourly workers, the Branch team realized how much financial health was intertwined with work satisfaction and productivity. Learning that about 80 percent of hourly workers experiencing some sort of weekly pay variance, the company expanded its scheduling and communication tools to include financial wellness offerings that could decrease the fluctuations in hourly employee finances and help users find greater financial stability. Especially with the cost of living outpacing wages and so many living paycheck to paycheck, users embraced the feature to afford basic expenses such as groceries and gas to get to work.

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For employers, turnover for hourly workers across industries has been notoriously high, with rates often reaching over 160%. And turnover is costly: replacing an hourly employee can range from $2,500 to $4,000 and that amount is even higher for managers. Record low unemployment rates over the past couple of years and especially high demand for hourly workers have led to fierce competition among employers. Because so many hourly employees were seeking workplaces that could help increase financial stability, companies have worked with Branch to offer employees the benefits they value most.

Employees who sign up with Branch receive a zero-fee bank account, free instant access to earned wages, and budgeting tools to help them manage their cash flow between paychecks. Employers are turning to Branch to help them attract and retain the best hourly workers, offering Branch as a free voluntary financial wellness benefit to their hourly employees.

They have partnered with some of the nation’s largest employers and are adding new employers daily in retail, restaurants, logistics, manufacturing, and healthcare. The company looks forward to continuing its growth and expanding the application to provide users more ways to grow their account balances.

Atif Siddiqi, CEO Branch 301 S. 4th Avenue Minneapolis, MN 55415 branch branch-app

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IT OUTSOURCING & MANAGED SERVICES

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“Exploration is the engine that drives innovation.

Innovation drives economic growth.”

—EDITH WIDDER

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CREATING DATA SOLUTIONS SINCE LONG BEFORE “APPLICATIONS” BECAME “APPS”

Performix leverages its rich experience in business intelligence to work on critical data-related projects. They understand data at a qualitative and quantitative level and can provide multiple channels of it efficiently.

Performix is a Minnesota-based software development and IT consulting company with global presence serving the community since 1997. They have passion and expertise in mobile apps delivery (connecting IoTs and other devices), Cloud (Azure and AWS), and analytics (including visualization, AI, and big data).

Performix has assisted customers in analyzing and structuring their data, whether it’s big data or small, and their mobile apps and web apps delivery make sure that Performix has considered all known end-user platforms to create an optimal solution.

Performix has been a long-time member and supporter of the business community—and has partnered successfully with many other corporations. They serve Fortune 500s, mid-size companies, startups, and various local and federal government agencies using their IT consulting and application development services.

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language processing applications; advanced techniques such as machine learning and deep learning for analytics or business-transforming applications; blockchain and other fintech technologies; and various aspects of Cloud Computing, such as hybrid clouds, containerization, microservices, and Hadoop/Spark-based applications.

In 1997 at Performix it was all about creating applications to bring clean data into data warehouses. This allowed Performix clients to have reliable data for reporting. In 2000, Performix started participating in the delivery of the data via web application/web portals. They also started working on delivering data on smaller Mobile devices (Palm OS/Windows Mobile at the time).

In 2018 the Performix mindset included a solution-oriented strategy benefiting clients and the end user. They have always looked for the most optimal and viable solution for their clients in their use of data.

Beginning in 2007, with the advent of Apple App Store—the Performix Mobile Application development journey got a big boost with the Android and began building comparable Mobile Apps. They built applications crossindustry, including engineering, manufacturing, healthcare, government, retail, and nonprofit.

+1-952-888-2791 +1-952-400-8008 Mobile: +1-612-804-5691 7400 Metro Blvd., Suite 390 Edina, MN 55439 sunil@performixbiz.com

Since 2016 Performix application-development experience and expertise evolved into several application areas that integrate well with traditional business. This includes areas such as Internet of Things; cognitive computing and Artificial Intelligence; smart chatbots and other natural

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BRAINWARE: THE SECRET TO OVER 30 YEARS OF INNOVATION. Thirty years in technology means there isn’t much we haven’t seen.

Consequently—and more importantly—there isn’t much we can’t address.

And if we’ve learned one thing, it’s that one size does not fit all. We have tailored ourselves to meet our clients’ needs; today, at our core, we are architects and engineers that specialize in delivering solutions for data centers, enterprise networking, cloud, cybersecurity, managed services, and innovative technology solutions.

It all starts with our team. We have a name for them, their collective talent, and the processes and our custom blend of processes and approaches to solving problems with IT solutions we call it brainware. As in: we utilize our brainware to enable unique solutions for our customers. 65% of us are engineers and technologists, and this brainware, combined with our unique assets—NOC, SOC, data center, and integration facility—help us deliver what customers, when they come to us, don’t always know what to ask for.

One example of our brainware’s prowess is when we developed and built in-house racks for use on a Fortune 100 oil company’s offshore rigs. We were even able to activate the racks remotely—meaning no IT staff needs to go onsite at an offshore rig—and the data they collect through IoT means no human error, which lets the company’s employees focus on more cognitive tasks.

In addition to oil & gas, Computex works with a variety of industries, from government to education, from manufacturing to healthcare. Another recent project was helping a financial institution as it acquired multiple locations. Our solution was an enterprise network called Branch Connect, which allowed us to set up and install gear in each location—all up and

Computex Solutions Room with a view of the NOC & SOC in Houston, TX

Integration Space located as a part of our Corporate HQ in Houston, TX

24/7/365 Network Operations Center in Minnetonka, MN

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Mike Wilson Regional Vice President

24/7/365 Security Operations Center in Houston, TX When Sam and his brother Jason started Computex, it was a PC business, but quickly expanded to sell enterprise systems and servers to help continue to grow the clients whose businesses they’d tech-enabled. And when virtualization became the norm, Computex led the charge by working with companies like VMware to test customer environments.

Computex also built its own version of the cloud and established a 24/7/365 Network Operations Center.

To stay ahead of the curve, Computex also recently built a Security Operations Center.

“We are fully committed to helping our customers with all aspects of cybersecurity, including threat hunting, threat intelligence, threat awareness and threat advisory services,” Haffar said. “All this is packaged into our total security offering, helping companies maintain peace of mind around security.” running within days. Additionally, our NOC supported the cloud platform, so our customers didn’t have to worry about purchasing expensive enterprise hardware or the manpower to sustain it.

Computex’s goal is to leverage its brainware to solve each customer’s most challenging business problems. Its 32-year history proves that it has done this well for a long time and suggests that it will forever have a place in the innovation ecosystem.

For more than 30 years, Computex has built its foundation on the following three simple principles: 1. Delight the customer 2. Develop a fun and creative workplace 3. Provide value to shareholders The first and third values are easy to see carried out in Computex’s elegant solutions for our customers, and the second is apparent through the company’s recent selection as a Best Place to Work by the Houston Business Journal.

Computex Technology Solutions 6103 Blue Circle Drive | Minnetonka, MN 55343 computexinc

“We know that brainware, our people, is the backbone of our success and is engraved into our guiding principles,” says Sam Haffar, Computex’s Chairman and CEO, who co-founded the company in 1987 with his brother Jason. “We are proud of every team member that contributed to this award and look forward to continue making the list year after year.”

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Cloud Technology

Sogeti is a leading global IT consulting company focused on helping companies leverage the latest technology to improve efficiency, strengthen customer loyalty, and grow their business at an accelerated pace. As part of the Capgemini Group, our team of 220,000 spans across more than 100 countries and has more than 50 years’ proven experience. We have also been a part of the Minneapolis IT environment since 1982.

The digital world is in the midst of a major cloud revolution and for good reason. The cloud offers scalability, responsiveness, and cost efficiency that have a tremendous impact on the way organizations operate and deliver products to customers. Cloud transformation solutions help businesses move faster and become more adaptive to changes required.

Our Cloud solutions include Cloud Strategy to help you plot your journey to the Cloud, Cloud Migration services, Cloud-Native Application Development services as well as Cloud Managed services. Sogeti created a cloud Center of Excellence for one of the largest agricultural organizations—which helped them reduce processing time from 30 days to just one day!

INNOVATION IN ACTION Right now, businesses around the world, including right here in Minnesota, are witnessing a dramatic paradigm shift in what is possible.

Radical and yet proven innovations in technology are helping clients adapt faster to change, eliminate monotonous activities, streamline complex processes, and reduce the potential for error by leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics Process Automation (RPA), cloud technologies, and automated Quality Engineering (QE) solutions. Sogeti turns these technology innovations into business value.

Quality Engineering Now more than ever, businesses are under tremendous pressure to perform, adapt, and evolve. From ensuring a seamless customer experience to racing against the competition to release the newest innovations, organizations need to be able to release new solutions quickly and with the highest quality—all while keeping costs down.

Testing has now moved from being merely a necessity to playing a critical role in a company’s overall success to a total quality engineering mindset.

According to the World Quality Report 2019-2020, business growth and end-user satisfaction are now top-quality assurance objectives for agile and DevOps adoption.

Listen to more of our clients explain how Sogeti has delivered significant value to their business: https://youtu.be/ZtBwfvyJv0c

THE FUTURE IS HERE. ARE YOU READY FOR IT? Artificial Intelligence & Robotics Process Automation Companies who trend ahead of the curve are already taking advantage of the time, labor, and cost-saving solutions that AI and RPA capabilities provide. For example, one of the most innovative aerospace companies in the world faced a common challenge—slow, manual-labor processes that significantly impacted data quality and efficiency. In just eight weeks, Sogeti created a fully functioning bot that reduced the time of their verification process from 160 days down to just 5 days, eradicated human error, and saved $500,000 in this initial phase of the project.

AI is making the same kind of waves across all business sectors. This past year several healthcare companies faced similar call center challenges.

“Nikki,” the bot, came to the rescue.

Take a look at how she reduced workloads, call times, and training requirements across the board, generating an impressive ROI: https://youtu.be/PlnUNBilXRQ

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As an example, a major Minnesota-based healthcare organization partnered with Sogeti to test crucial functionalities of their pharmacy and clinical systems. Its goal? To increase scalability, improve quality, and accelerate system changes while gaining year-over-year cost reductions through improved productivity.

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FOCUSED ON MINNEAPOLIS #SogetiGivesBack Sogeti’s strong core values are demonstrated in our commitment to the community! Every year, Sogeti supports local charities and the 2019 results show it:

Our team identified and implemented testing improvements including automation and process standardizations that resulted in more than $1 million in annual savings. Results like these are why Sogeti remains widely recognized as the world’s No. 1 leader in testing by Gartner, NelsonHall, Ovum, and other industry research organizations. Every year, we conduct extensive research on the latest testing trends—download a copy of our latest issue of the “World Quality Report” here: https://www. us.sogeti.com/explore/research/reports/world-quality-report-2019/

Raised $187,000 + for deserving charities.

Helped nearly 6,300 kids go back to school with necessary supplies.

Volunteered 6,100+ hours of community service.

The Ethisphere Institute has recognized Sogeti as one of the most ethical organizations in the world for seven years in a row!

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MINNESOTA IT SERVICES—CONNECTING MINNESOTANS TO A BETTER GOVERNMENT Minnesota IT Services (MNIT) is the information technology agency for Minnesota’s executive branch. Led by the state’s Chief Information Officer, MNIT sets IT strategy, direction, policies, and standards for enterprise IT leadership and planning. We build, maintain, and secure the state’s IT infrastructure, applications, projects, and services. Together, Minnesota IT Services and our government partners bring services to Minnesotans who live and work in our great state. Those Minnesotans are our friends and families, our neighbors, our colleagues and partners. They all benefit every day from the work we do to keep the business of government running.

MNIT employs more than 2,300 people across 90 physical locations.

• Our partnerships with more than 70 agencies, boards, councils and commissions help us meet their IT needs and strengthen the cybersecurity of the state every day.

• We serve Minnesotans in state, local, and tribal government, in education, and some nonprofit organizations.

• Through public-private partnerships, our team proactively protects the state’s information systems and the private data of 5.5 million Minnesotans.

Technology plays a powerful role in the state’s ability to solve problems for the people we serve. Over 2,800 applications at the state capture transactions and fuel service delivery to support Minnesota’s government services. The collective data and information from these applications connects people to jobs, healthcare, Minnesota’s great outdoors, environmental data, educational resources, and more. At Minnesota IT Services, our work fosters a better government—one that allows The mobile responsive website for MNsure, Minnesota’s health insurance marketplace.

Minnesota Department of Health lab technician using MNIT technology.

Enterprise Service Desk support staff.

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MNIT technician in the state of Minnesota’s enterprise data center. individuals to sign up for health insurance seamlessly, helps researchers produce reports that keep Minnesotans safe, and provides veterans with better access to education benefits, among much more.

Some applications like MNsure’s online health insurance marketplace help Minnesotans shop for affordable, quality health insurance. Others, like Workforce One, help job seekers, counselors, and employers network and explore current opportunities in one web tool. MNIT partners with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to provide online tools and resources that help Minnesotans prevent pollution, build healthier communities, and live more sustainable lives.

Traffic control room at the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

As change remains a constant force within the technology industry, MNIT works with its partners to research and implement emerging trends to deliver better results, data, and services for all Minnesotans. Through our partnership with the Minnesota Department of Health, the agency completed a cloud migration project, moving over 90% of its applications into cloud-based servers.

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Technology plays an important role in providing state-run services.

MNIT provides support across the IT spectrum, and that support enables Minnesota’s state agency partners to engage with the Minnesotans they serve and carry out day-to-day business. By keeping the people we serve at the center of our IT solutions, we make sure that the systems, networks, and hardware that we develop connect Minnesotans to a better government.

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HELPING ORGANIZATIONS SUCCEED WITH APPLE: FROM SCRAPPY STARTUP TO ENTERPRISE ELITE Jamf, the standard for Apple in the enterprise, extends the legendary Apple experience people love, to businesses, schools and government organizations through its software solutions and the more than 90,000 members of Jamf Nation, the world’s largest community of Apple IT administrators.

Jamf was born from the desire to create a better technology management solution for the hundreds of Mac devices on the University of Wisconsin– Eau Claire (UWEC) campus.

As a student at UWEC, Zach Halmstad, Jamf co-founder worked full-time in the IT department deploying, updating and tracking over 400 student and faculty Mac computers.

After years of wishing there was a smarter, more efficient way of doing his job, he decided to create one himself.

As Halmstad worked, went to class and studied, he coded a solution that revolutionized Apple management and changed the perception of Apple in education and enterprises around the world. Halmstad then met Chip Pearson, a Minneapolis IT consultancy leader, in 2002.

Around the same time Halmstad and Pearson met, Apple was leading an industry transformation. Through its focus on creating a superior consumer experience, Apple has revolutionized the way people access and utilize technology. Employees have come to expect the same highquality Apple user experience at work as they enjoy in their personal lives, but oftentimes these expectations are not met due to organizations 165

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using legacy, Windows-centric solutions or not offering their employees a choice in their workplace technology.

Jamf has a straight-forward mission: Help organizations succeed with Apple.

Jamf helps organizations, including businesses, hospitals, schools and government agencies, connect, manage and protect Apple products, apps and corporate resources in the cloud without ever having to touch the devices. Jamf solutions are purpose-built to provide both technical and non-technical IT personnel with a single software platform to administer their end-users’ Apple devices, while preserving the legendary Apple experience end users have come to expect.

• Jamf Connect: Provides secure user login and resource access with a single identity.

• Jamf Pro: Purpose-built enterprise device management, delivering everything IT needs to maximize Apple investments.

• Jamf Now: Simplified Apple device management so organizations can set up, manage and secure Apple devices with ease.

• Jamf School: Device management for modern classrooms and includes Teacher, Parent, and Student apps to simplify education technology workflows.

• Jamf Protect: Safeguards Mac users from malware and costly breaches with on-device activity analysis and real-time alerts to proactively block, isolate or remediate threats.

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Today, more than 34,000 global customers rely on Jamf. This includes: • 8 out of 10 largest companies, as ranked by the Fortune 500 • 22 of 25 most valuable global brands, as ranked by Forbes • 10 of 10 best global universities, as ranked by U.S. News & World Report • 10 of 10 largest U.S. banks, by total assets according to bankrate.com With 1,100+ employees in 10 different countries—and strategic partnerships and integrations with Microsoft, Google, Okta and many others—Jamf is positioned to remain the standard for Apple in the enterprise.

Jamf +1-612-605-6625 info@jamf.com jamfsoftware JAMFSoftware

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From the first commercial typewriter in the late 1800s to highperformance, security-centric digital solutions in the 21st century, Unisys has created game-changing innovations throughout the decades.

Unisys and our heritage companies have been innovating in Minnesota and across the globe for nearly 150 years. Innovation is in our DNA, and we take pride in working toward our vision of enhancing people’s lives by bringing technological innovation to businesses and governments around the world.

polls closed. In the 1970s and 1980s, we built the first multiprocessor system and the first desktop, single-chip mainframe computer.

That tradition of innovation continues today, as Unisys has evolved into a global information technology company that builds high-performance, security-centric solutions for the most demanding businesses and governments. Our offerings include security software and services; digital transformation and workplace services; industry applications and services; and innovative software operating environments for high-intensity enterprise computing.

Back in 1873, we introduced the first commercially viable typewriter, which used the QWERTY keyboard layout. In 1925, we introduced the first electric typewriter. In 1946, Unisys played a key role in developing the world’s first large-scale, general-purpose digital computer, the ENIAC, at the University of Pennsylvania. ENIAC was 100 times faster than any other computer on Earth. In 1949, Remington Rand designed the world’s first business computer, and in 1951, we built the UNIVAC, the first commercial computer. A year later, the UNIVAC made history by correctly predicting the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower as US president before

Unisys also has a storied history in Minnesota. In January 1946, several ex-Navy officers who had been involved with cryptologic research formed a pioneering computer company in St. Paul called Engineering Research Associates (ERA). ERA developed computers for the Navy’s cryptology 167

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requirements. ERA subsequently merged with Remington Rand, then Sperry Corporation, and then Burroughs Corporation to form Unisys.

ERA introduced the 1101 computer system in 1951. Today, the successor systems of the 1101 are a vital part of IT processing for banks, airlines, governments, the military, state and local governments, and federal agencies around the globe.

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We’ve flexed our innovation muscles over the past 150 years, delivering game-changing technologies to our clients and citizens around the world. As we grow and change over time, the one constant is our passion for innovation and helping our clients succeed.

For more information on how Unisys builds better outcomes securely for its clients across the Government, Financial Services and Commercial markets, visit www.unisys.com.

Unisys continues to have a significant engineering presence in Minnesota, focusing on high-performance transaction-processing systems, airline and airport solutions, and security solutions.

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CHAPTER 13

PROFESSIONAL CONSULTING

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“The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions.”

—ANTONY JAY

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TEACHING SMALL TEAMS TO TACKLE LARGE INITIATIVES IN TECH At MacIsaac Consulting we are changing the way companies manage technology projects. We do this by breaking down barriers that impede agility. Delivering value early and often through small cross-functional teams is our motto. It is imperative that business and technology units work together.

Technology projects are a means of solving business problems, and business units must play a key role in their success. We teach companies how to use small teams of 6-8 people to tackle large technology initiatives.

Delivering value through short iterations is our approach to product development. We believe human interactions are the key to success with technology projects. We value emotional intelligence and soft skills as much as technology skills.

MacIsaac Consulting was founded in 2015 by Mike and Tere MacIsaac.

A family business, Mike and Tere set out to create a firm that companies can trust to deliver complex projects. Tere has an extensive background in IT, consulting, and software QA. Mike as a background as an IT project manager and an MBA from Bethel University. Mike is currently in the executive leadership program at the Carlson School of Management.

Today, companies need to run projects that include AI (Artificial Intelligence), machine learning, and big data. These projects need top technical talent, but they also need more. Culture, structure, and new ways of working are just as important. We show companies how to be successful by connecting technologies to business value.

MacIsaac Consulting recently managed two large scale IT projects using an Agile practice. The first was a $6 million identity and access management (IAM) project. The multi-year initiative was for a large financial institution.

IAM is a specialty discipline within cyber security. It increases productivity while securely enabling access to systems. To deliver the project, a crossfunctional Agile team was used. The team used a Kanban process to integrate 30 legacy financial systems into one centralized IAM platform.

A separate project was led by Ryan Shea to improve dotcom operational efficiency for one of the nation’s largest retailers. Ryan led the initiative to migrate company applications from an internal data center to the cloud.

The cloud computing technology uses “container” virtualization technology to drive efficiency, save costs, and improve agility. Ryan also streamlined the process for delivering infrastructure faster and allowing for quicker deployments.

Future We plan to continue to grow the firm focusing on delivering IT projects using an Agile practice. We are also doing more work in the business analytics space. Companies are struggling to managing business analytics projects and we are here to help. We provide Agile techniques and the right technical skills so companies can be successful.

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Co-founders Mike & Tere MacIsaac

Mike MacIsaac Co-founder and Principal MBA, PMP, A-CSM

MacIsaac Consulting +1-612-670-9204 MikeMacIsaac@MacIsaacConsulting.com MacIsaacConsulting macisaacconsult macisaac-consulting

Ryan Shea ​ Agile & DevOps Delivery Lead CPPM, PMI-ACP

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WE PARTNER WITH OUR CLIENTS AT THE INTERSECTION OF BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY TO DRIVE REAL INNOVATION—THE KIND THAT TURNS AN IDEA INTO AN INDUSTRY—HELPING THEM TRANSFORM AND GROW THEIR ORGANIZATIONS. HOW WE WORK WITH OUR CLIENTS Growing customer expectations, market-shaping applied intelligence, selfoptimizing systems—the post-digital age shows no signs of slowing down, and the need for new ideas powered by intelligent technologies has never been greater. But a vision for the future can’t be realized without knowhow. That’s why Accenture invests again and again in specialized skills across more than 40 industries, all business functions and an innovation architecture spanning research, ventures, labs, studios, innovation centers and the world’s largest delivery network.

With more than 500,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, we drive innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. “It’s all about the wise pivot,” says Christy Sovereign, head of Accenture’s Minneapolis office, “and helping our clients in Minnesota and around the globe move from constant disruption to continuous reinvention. We help them look at the old, now and new simultaneously to unlock trapped value and implement a path forward.”

Minneapolis-based Brian Kalis, digital health expert at Accenture, travels around the globe to improve health experiences for patients, clinicians and employees noting “the reinvention happening right here in my own backyard stands out and is a true testament to the leaders and innovative DNA of our region.” Minneapolis-based Lori Zumwinkle, retail expert at Accenture agrees “there is a lot to learn from how our local retailers—large and small—have demonstrated customer relevance and delivered retail with a purpose.”

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WHAT WE BELIEVE How we grow matters, and we must create inclusive economic growth to achieve a socially equitable and environmentally stable world.

Jobs are changing, and we can’t leave people behind. Through our research on the impact of automation and augmentation on the Twin Cities workforce, we collaborate on accelerated pathways to emerging technology training and automation resilient jobs through the Accenture Apprentice Program. Inclusion and diversity make us smarter. In fact, our research shows equality is a powerful multiplier of innovation and growth. We hold ourselves accountable to a culture of equality and progress against bold goals—publishing the demographics of our US workforce annually.

As a professional services company, the most significant aspects of our environmental footprint are generated by travel and the electricity used in our office locations. We continue to explore and deploy innovative technologies to decouple business growth from emissions growth. And finally, we connect Minnesota to the world—bringing the full know-how of the Accenture global team and innovation architecture to deliver results for our clients.

Accenture 333 South 7th Street, Suite 1700 | Minneapolis, MN 55402 +1-612-277-0000 Accenture

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TECHNOLOGY AND DATA.

Both are powerful business tools. But not all companies know how to harness them. That’s where Charter Solutions, Inc., comes in.

Charter Solutions’ team of experienced consulting professionals solves complex business problems with customized solutions and right-fit technology to deliver actionable analytics for businesses. And because sometimes the answer is people-based, not tech-based, Charter Solutions provides short- and long-term IT staffing resources for companies of all sizes and a wide variety of industries.

technology experts, we understand that data and technology are only good if you know how to use them to capitalize on an opportunity or to identify and solve a problem. That’s why we use approaches like visual analytics and modern IT governance to help businesses implement strategies like data lakes, allowing them to collect and analyze the data that matters.

What we do Every business is unique, which is why we start by asking the hard questions and listening so we can assess client needs and chart the best path forward. By looking beneath the surface, evaluating current workflows, and analyzing the right data, we can create technical and data architectural roadmaps that give business and IT leaders a clear and easy-to-execute plan.

We back this up with change management guidance and leadership support for a successful implementation that stands the test of time.

At Charter Solutions, we understand there is no one-size-fits-all answer to business problems. Our management team, along with senior-level consultants, works hard to provide meaningful approaches that will achieve the biggest impact in the shortest time and with the most effective use of resources—for each and every client.

With more than 20 years of cross-industry knowledge and experience, we’re able to quickly and effectively craft best-of-breed solutions that deliver value and success for our clients. And as seasoned business and

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resources, or technical expertise to acquire and manage a proprietary data infrastructure, which is why we created Xplor!TM, our fully managed, cloud-hosted, end-to-end platform for data management and visualization.

Xplor! bridges the gap between raw data and business insights, which allows clients to improve the products and services they offer.

Dee Thibodeau Chief Executive Officer

need to navigate the complex technology landscape by designing and implementing solutions that make businesses run smarter now and for years to come.

And when it comes to managing and storing data, our team at Charter Solutions excels at helping companies understand what does and doesn’t belong in the cloud, and we can securely and safely transition companies of all sizes to a cloud environment. Our cloud architecture capabilities allow businesses to spin up new environments in minutes; access data anytime, anywhere; and lock down environments to protect critical data.

Charter Solutions CharterCSI charter-solutions

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HIGH-QUALITY, SCALABLE SOFTWARE —ON-TIME AND ON-BUDGET.

lucidLIFT is a company that helps businesses build predictable software development teams that deliver high-quality software on-time and on-budget. lucidLIFT clients avoid the perils of unpredictable software delivery that result in lost opportunities, missed delivery dates, and cost overruns.

lucidLIFT makes it easy for technical and business leaders to scale consistent, predictable software processes across their entire enterprise.

Paul Carlson and Mark Strange, both life-long Minnesotans, founded lucidLIFT in 2016. Prior to founding lucidLIFT, Carlson was a CTO at various Twin Cities companies, and he was often brought on to do technology team turnarounds. Strange was an independent consultant and an expert in modern, agile software development practices. The two worked together on several successful technology turnarounds.

Did You Know: lucidLIFT has developed a patent-pending, AI-driven software platform that monitors and guides team performance, collects hundreds of facts, and outputs a variety of actionable metrics and insights that help leadership keep the team on track. It’s like having a virtual agile coach 24/7/365!

Strange originally came from a lean manufacturing background. “When I moved into software development,” says Strange, “I was shocked that most software teams weren’t applying lean principles.” Even after the agile revolution of the late ’90s and early ’00s, most businesses still aren’t benefiting as they could be.

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In working together over the years, Carlson and Strange saw a pattern.

While most software teams said they were doing agile software development, very few were applying lean principles correctly and consistently. Most were still struggling with predictability. Business leaders were largely disconnected from the technical teams that were building their products and tools. Decisions were being made based on hunches and feelings rather than on facts and data. Late projects and missed deadlines were still the norm.

software processes and create teams that predictably produce high-quality software.” The software also prevents backsliding, so the teams continue to perform at a high level.

Carlson and Strange saw another pattern. “The problem was,” says Strange, “as soon as we would leave, the changes we put in place had a tendency to unwind.” The co-founders realized that it would be a great help if business leaders had the data they needed to understand what their teams were working on and how they were performing.

Companies in the Minnesota tech community have been willing to try out lucidLIFT’s method and pilot their software, for which lucidLIFT is grateful. Carlson and Strange say they appreciate the local support, and they hope to have a positive impact on software development across the country and around the world.

So, in 2016, Carlson and Strange founded lucidLIFT to address these problems and build solutions that scale well in large organizations.

For more information, visit lucidlift.com.

lucidLIFT shipped version 1.0 in 2018 and is currently incorporating customer feedback into version 2.0. Their first version of lucidLIFT has analyzed over 50,000 backlog items and generated over 1 million unique project insights into project and team performance.

Strange and Carlson have perfected a particular application of agile principles and scrum mechanics over the years, and they use these ideas to help their customers build higher quality software faster and at a much lower cost than with other methods.

Their special source is their AI-driven coaching software platform that provides agile training, tips, and alerts to team members while helping leaders understand how their teams are doing. As the team develops a product, data is collected and software generates readable, actionable alerts, reports, and dashboards which help the team and its leadership understand what improvements could be made or where corrective action is needed.

lucidLIFT questions@lucidlift.com +1-651-235-7883 lucidlift

In combination with consulting services, this software allows lucidLIFT to help their clients build a world- class agile software development practice at scale. “The overall effect,” says Strange, “is to squeeze the waste out of

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Embrace Change Evoke Transformation

Evocent offers tailored solutions for executives and businesses looking to better align human engagement with critical business objectives. Bringing tried and true leadership and emotional intelligence principles to diverse landscapes, Christine brings a diverse background working with global organizations and deep experience in STEM fields.

In business and life, growth and change have a way of stretching people and teams beyond what’s comfortable. Evocent offers tailored solutions for executives, leadership teams, and businesses, bringing tried and true leadership and emotional intelligence principles to diverse landscapes—aligning human engagement with critical business objectives and performance indicators so that people and businesses grow stronger together.

For Executive Leaders: While you’re focused on business execution, Evocent gives you an outside perspective on how best to lead effectively and optimize your most valuable and complex resource: people.

Leadership coach Christine Pouliot works with businesses and leaders who understand the value and complexity that people bring to an organization—leaders who want to eliminate losses and pain points, optimize performance and engagement, and elevate individuals who matter.

For Leadership Teams: You already know that aligning your team under a business plan and vision for the future is critical. Aligning your team under a people plan is just as—if not more—consequential.

Evocent will team up with you to equip your management team for critical conversations, cultural sensitivity, and resiliency with new levels of emotional intelligence and leadership skills.

Whether you’re integrating an acquisition, restructuring your organization, implementing a major systems change, or just looking for personal career growth, Christine and the team at Evocent can provide the support you need.

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As a speaker at the Bold Leadership Summit at North Hennepin Community College, and a member of the Allumni Leadeship Council.

Barbara McDonald (left), President of the college.

Executive Career Transitions: As a seasoned leader, your moves make waves—in your own life and the lives of others. Whether stepping out, stepping in, or looking for your next big role, Evocent will support you with the practicals and the intangibles—defining your personal brand, establishing a presence, and narrowing in on goals and harnessing your influence.

If you or your business want to grow or stay relevant, change is inevitable, and change affects people at every level. But navigating the human side of change requires much more than a business plan; it requires leadership that will support your team with a vision for the future that will help your people and your business grow stronger together.

About Christine Pouliot:

Christine Pouliot has spent over three decades of her career building and leading teams that are resilient in the face of change and uncertainty. She has experienced firsthand the effects that change can bring to a team or organization and is adept at supporting leaders in identifying and addressing pain points in a human-centered way. “I’ve sat in every seat.

As someone who has gone through and supported teams in navigating several transformational changes, I’ve seen firsthand when it’s gone wrong and when it’s gone right. I’ve seen the mistakes. I’ve learned that I have a passion and a talent for seeing how the unforeseen impacts people, and what it takes to be resilient and effective.”

Christine is certified by the Coaches Training Institute (CTI) and the International Coach Federation (ICF) and is a member of the Forbes Coaches Council.

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CHAPTER 14

EVENTS, MEDIA & MARKETING

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BLEACHR THE MOBILE APP GAME-CHANGER

“Mobile apps transform the ways we relate to others. We’re proud to be setting the standards for sports apps through rich, interactive experiences that connect sports organizations with their fans. Minnesota’s thriving sports tech ecosystem provides the perfect base to grow our team and build out the future of sports app technology.”

—KRISTIN GEER, CEO, BLEACHR LLC

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CHANGING THE GAME FOR THE MOBILE SPORTS FAN

The BleachrONE product is designed to solve the challenges facing every sports organization in the digital age across the full fan experience life cycle: 1) acquisition, 2) engagement, 3) monetization, and 4) retention.

Additionally, we’ve designed each feature set as optional plug-and-play integrations for clients who may be looking to round-out existing apps.

Most importantly, our gamification tools capture valuable Fan 360° profile data, which gives our partners actionable insight into their target audience.

Bleachr LLC elevates the fan experience through innovative, game-changing mobile sports apps.

Our BleachrONE white-label app platform provides the most comprehensive mobile fan solution for sports organizations and their sponsors. Our tech stack adapts easily across multiple sports verticals with a highly-customizable user interface.

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Brad & Kristin Geer, Founders

tight labor market in the highly competitive tech industry. Rather than outsource our tech needs to various low-cost overseas labor markets, we’ve committed to hiring a diverse group of talented individuals, based here in Minnesota.

Since our first app launch with the St. Paul Saints in 2015, we have made significant strides in the tennis and college sports verticals. We produce apps for the majority of US Open Series tournaments and other prestigious world-class tennis events, including the Rolex Paris Masters Miami Open and Swiss Open Gstaad. We’re proud to have been ranked the #1 sports app in Canada two years in a row during the Rogers Cup. Some of our largest college clients include Syracuse University, Virginia Tech, San Diego State, University of Miami, Tarleton, & Temple.

Sports organizations struggle to connect with fans in the mobile era.

Shorter attention spans, and a shift in how fans choose to receive their information, greatly impacts the traditional sports business model.

Bleachr tackles the challenge of engaging fans in innovative ways through gamification that helps sports organizations incentivize fan attendance and participation.

Our target client partners are professional and college-level sports organizations looking to increase revenue and engage their fan base in the mobile space. We’ve proven our performance in tennis, independent baseball, and college sports verticals, but see many opportunities in other verticals as we continue to scale.

Sports fans expect to find everything they need in one mobile app, and the BleachrONE white-label app platform artfully provides that. Our goal is to be an innovator in the sports tech space, continually seeking new ways to elevate the mobile fan experience with the most robust app platform on the market. We go beyond the typical sports app utility features of live scores, draws, players, schedule, and news. Our product includes a patented geofenced fan engine with a proven loyalty rewards program; data engine with gamification to entertain the fan while gathering valuable Fan 360° data; commerce engine for ticket sales, merchandise orders, and in-seat concession deliveries; and a player & volunteer engine that works as a valuable scheduling and communication tool.

With the growth in our white-label TennisONE sales vertical, we’ve been able to capture a critical mass of fans and also recognized a need to connect with them beyond an individual tournament. As a result, we’ve created a year-round hub for tennis fans that allows us to further engage and monetize through sponsorships, ticket sales, and social games.

Our mission is to be a noticeable disruptor in the sports tech space, by bringing increased value to client partners and sponsors, helping them further connect with the mobile generation and elevating the overall mobile sports fan experience.

Our white label app products are highly customizable and offer an affordable solution to sports organizations of varying sizes. Additionally, we have developed our feature sets as independent modules that can be licensed to sports organizations that may already have a mobile app but are looking for ways to increase their offerings to fans.

Bleachr LLC 250 Park Avenue, Suite 101 Minneapolis, MN 55415 +1-612-760-0806

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SUPPORTING INNOVATION, CREATIVITY, AND COLLABORATION TO ADVANCE THE WORLD’S TECHNOLOGICAL CAPABILITIES. As leaders in technology, fostering an environment supporting innovation, creativity, risk-taking, and collaboration is key to advancing the world’s technological capabilities, including here in Minnesota.

Innovation drives us all to imagine the future, shape the world in new ways, and see opportunities. At Comcast NBCUniversal, innovation brings out the very best in us—inside and outside our walls. As a company fueled by an entrepreneurial spirit Comcast knows innovation can start anywhere, anytime. That’s why we encourage our employees and partners to pursue what’s next, from advancements that delight customers to projects that move entire communities forward.

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entertainment options, and advanced video and voice technology for both residents and businesses of all sizes. We are committed to simplifying the customer experience and bridging the digital divide by bringing internet access to low-income residents.

Comcast is a global media and technology company with three primary businesses: Comcast Cable, NBCUniversal, and Sky. Comcast Cable is one of the United States’ largest video, high-speed internet, and phone providers to residential customers under the Xfinity brand, and also provides these services to businesses through Comcast Business. It also provides mobile phone and home security and automation services to residential customers under the Xfinity brand.

With Xfinity, Comcast delivers the best in TV, internet, voice, mobile, and home management, all working together to give customers instant access to the things that matter most—anywhere, anytime.

Sky is one of Europe’s leading media and entertainment companies, connecting customers to a broad range of video content through its pay television services. It also provides communications services, including residential high-speed internet, phone, and wireless services. Sky operates the Sky News broadcast network and sports and entertainment networks, produces original content, and has exclusive content rights.

And, Comcast Business offers ethernet, internet, WiFi, voice, TV and Managed Enterprise Solutions to help organizations of all sizes transform their business. Our fiber-based ethernet solutions can deliver speeds up to 100 Gpbs and provide a secure, reliable, high-performance service that helps companies manage data growth, drive application performance, and securely access data centers. Powered by the nation’s largest gigspeed network and backed by 24/7 customer support, Comcast Business provides companies with the solutions they need to help make their business more productive.

Comcast offers some of the world’s leading entertainment, communications, and information experiences, all made possible by our passion for innovation, and serving our customers and communities. For more information, visit www.ComcastCorporation.com.

NBCUniversal is global and operates news, entertainment, and sports cable networks, the NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks, television production operations, television station groups, Universal Pictures, and Universal Parks and Resorts.

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LIFE IS BETTER WITH BASEBALL Minnesota is powered by a vibrant culture and an intelligent business community. Our independent thought and natural curiosity stimulate brave and original ideas. Our incredibly strong and collaborative work ethic turn those ideas into reality. Our interest in promoting inclusivity fosters a connected and inspiring reality—regardless of the weather.

The Minnesota Twins and Target Field are lucky to be one of the common denominators in your community. Twins Baseball delivers life moments on an exciting stage promoting the cultural strength of your neighborhood—even if you don’t happen to be a baseball fan. We innovate on that stage every day with heart, hustle, passion, and fun!

Evaluating Human Performance Any business advertising innovation today will highlight a growing dependency on data analytics to focus strategy. While terminology and paradigms change over time, this has always been the case with baseball. Baseball statistics are a great example of our need to measure and satiate our fascination with human capacity.

New measurement tools bring new perspectives. Historical data stores from standard baseball statistics are dwarfed by the amplified data fidelity delivered by high-tech MLB ballparks, where multiple sensors guarantee measurement accuracy because they are fine-tuned with lidar.

While our internally developed scouting system acts as a responsive conduit communicating opinion and decision, those opinions and decisions continue to be informed in new dimensional ways—ways that require visual model exploration and a growing need to compute against an expanding array of massive and often extemporaneous data sources.

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The Business of Baseball The next time you are at Target Field, imagine the sections, rows, and seats as elements in an interesting database. What types of questions would you ask of such a database? Would your answers enable you to organize and enhance the game experience for what turns out to be a physical manifestation of multiple social networks?

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In 2018, the Twins were a Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA) Techne Award finalist for writing an application that combined existing multicast video capabilities (IPTV) with other content into an outdoor drink rail touch enclosure for control by individual fans.

Target Field: Greenest Ballpark in America In celebration of Earth Day 2019, the Minnesota Twins announced LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) Gold recertification. Target Field is also the nation’s first sports venue to earn three levels of LEED certification through Arc, the state-of-the-art digital platform that uses real-time data to help benchmark, measure, and improve sustainability performance.

In the early 1990s, Twins leaders took charge of the fundamental core of our business by purchasing the source code for a venue ticket system developed on an IBM AS400. We pioneered many innovative ticketing features and in a few short years, we were one of the first teams in professional sports to sell tickets digitally on a new thing called the Internet.

The real value of that business decision was what we culturally learned while developing a growth mindset that empowers our direction today.

“The Twins organization’s commitment to LEED demonstrates a tremendous amount of green building leadership within the world of professional sports,” said Mahesh Ramanujam, president and CEO, US Green Building Council (USGBC). “Target Field is a prime example of how innovative technology and sustainable solutions can create a better experience for everyone who steps foot in this stadium.”

Today’s digital ticket offers fluid opportunity and operational flexibility.

Coding with modern languages and frameworks, we build feature layers on top of existing third-party digital ticketing platforms to present unique experiences to Twins Fans.

High Tech Fan Experience Think of Target Field as a multimedia sentient being brought to life by robust converged, cellular, and Wi-Fi networks that are utilized by stateof-the-art systems. These systems enable the consumption of data and large-scale and highly produced video content for the benefit of 40,000 of your closest friends.

Your Community Off the field, the Minnesota Twins work to inspire your community through active and innovative business partnerships, through multiple associations like MHTA, and through efforts like the Twins Community fund: www.mlb.com/twins/community/fund.

To plant the seeds of technology innovation, we leverage our brand to spark the super-human power of curiosity in the minds of young people discovering STEM careers. For example: mnstateitcoe.org/sparcs-for-young-women-in-it/.

Synchronously, digital tickets are scanned, amazing food is being purchased, life moments are shared over mobile social media, virtual reality home runs are being hit, babysitters are being called, and the game is being broadcast to your neighborhood.

It is important that you also think about innovation as it relates to socially propagating new thought growth in Minnesota. The young minds you inspire will be next to Innovate Minnesota.

The trick is to introduce new capabilities by tying together disparate systems and to not get in the way of the human reasons that we should enjoy the game together.

Minnesota Twins Baseball Club +1-612-659-3475 MattHodson@twinsbaseball.com Twins Minnesota Twins

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REVOLUTIONIZING SALES TO BECOME AN IMMERSIVE, MEDIA-RICH, INTERACTIVE CONVERSATION.

Angelina Lawton, Founder and CEO

Sportsdigita’s story begins with CEO & Founder Angelina Lawton. Her career in sports began in 2008 with the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning as the Senior VP of Corporate Communications. Anything with a Lightning logo on it was fair game under Lawton’s leadership. It was during her time with the Lightning that her team created the first-ever in-house creative agency for a professional sports team. After witnessing the success she had with that decision, she gained the confidence needed to start her own business.

Lawton’s vision and commitment to technology comes during an exciting time for the industry: “The technology industry has limitless potential especially given the growing emphasis organizations are putting on their Digital Footprint,” Lawton says.

Lawton has been recognized for her leadership and entrepreneurial spirit, receiving many awards and accolades since founding the company.

Lawton’s most prestigious recognition came in 2018 when she was named to Forbes’ List of the Most Powerful Women in US Sports among the likes of Serena Williams, Billie Jean King, and other icons. Most recently, Lawton was awarded the 2019 Silver Stevie Award for Women in Business in the category of Female Entrepreneur of the Year – Business Products.

Lawton is also a Cynopsis Media, EY Entrepreneur of the Year, and Eureka!

Innovation Award winner, among others.

About The Technology Sportsdigita’s Digideck has revolutionized sales enablement for organizations leveraging its suite of features and functionality. The experience starts with the creation of a “Master Deck” that Sportsdigita’s interactive design experts help to create and tailor to each client’s brand standards.

Taking risks, Lawton founded Sportsdigita in 2011 with her experience at the Lightning top of mind driving her vision. Sportsdigita’s cloud-based presentation platform, Digideck, is now used by over 350 sports and enterprise organizations worldwide and is growing every year.

Digideck is helping organizations sell experiences, transforming their sales into an immersive, media-rich, interactive conversation. If you have something to sell and a story to tell, you are a great fit for Digideck.

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Each presentation functions like a website, but with extreme ease of use while providing a visually dynamic experience. Because Digideck is cloud-based, clients can upload an unlimited amount of rich multimedia such as videos, motion graphics, animated GIFs, and high-resolution images to bring their story to life and leave a lasting impression.

Sportsdigita’s innovation in technology allows for advanced reporting and analytics. Each organization can monitor and measure the effectiveness of their content through real-time alerts that will trigger each time a presentation is viewed and indicate how much time is spent on each slide or chapter. This provides actionable insight into what parts of each presentation prospects are the most engaged with and equips sellers with the necessary information needed to follow up with highly targeted, personalized messaging. Further optimization is gained through Digideck’s open API which allows for CRM integration driving greater sales adoption and automation of creation processes.

Looking to the future, Sportsdigita is positioned to help catalyst the Digital Footprint of its clients, which will be imperative to the next 5–10 years and beyond. With the constant evolution and proliferation of technology, Sportsdigita is poised for continued growth with the success of Digideck while influencing sales enablement best practices for clients on a global scale.

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AT PADILLA, WE CONNECT WITH PURPOSE – SO YOU CAN ACHIEVE YOURS. Great organizations often fail – not for lack of value – but for lack of understanding and appreciation of their brand. At Padilla, we realize that you have an important purpose, and our purpose is to help you achieve it through brand strategy, publicity, marketing communications, research and insights, employee engagement, advertising, social and other channels.

We build, grow and protect strong brands and reputations by creating purposeful connections with the people who matter most – your buyers and prospects, investors, employees, media, partners and more. Because we believe that when people unite and connect with purpose, anything is possible.

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We build brands from the inside out, marrying your true purpose with the interests of your stakeholders. We grow brands through proactive engagement and truly provocative thought leadership. And we protect brands by helping you prepare for the issues that inevitably arise, making sure that your reputation stays intact for the life of your business.

2. We build brands and protect reputations.

For more than five decades we’ve been providing our clients with a combination of brand development and critical reputation protection when they need it most. Our unique ability to deliver rich media relations, expert investor analysis and rapid crisis counsel – on top of award-winning creative thinking – means we’re by your side to see you succeed through the sunny days and the storms.

3. We bring the big idea.

You have a story to tell and we have a deep history of telling great stories. But sharing a compelling story is not always enough. We look to thread your message through big, multidimensional, cross-platform ideas that capture audiences and incite reactions. We’re not afraid to go big, and then go bigger. We do it every day.

BUILD.

Creating and crystallizing an organization’s brand, purpose and desired reputation.

GROW.

Stakeholder engagement through content and connectivity across all relevant platforms, with digital at the core.

4. We’re local. We’re global.

We’re local in six cities and global on one planet. Every day we collaborate across our offices coast-to-coast to provide the best client and creative service possible. And when needed, we have immediate, unfettered access to the resources of our global Worldcom partners in every region around the world.

PROTECT.

Anticipating and training for the inevitable. Responding to adversity.

Rebuilding in the aftermath.

5. We’re committed to your success.

We’re 210+ committed employees, each with a vested interest in your success. As one of the top independently operated agencies in the country, that commitment means we bring passion, energy and creativity to every project. For your benefit, and our own.

The Padilla Family We’re client partners, challengers, creators, connectors, collaborators, catalysts and much more.

The Agency for Challengers Don’t get us wrong, we love a good industry leader and startups flock to us to help them establish a brand presence. But every industry has brands that challenge them, that have compelling stories to tell and take a unique approach to the market. We actively seek out these “challenger brand” opportunities that are willing and able to go beyond tried and true communication. We love to work with challenger brands that aren’t afraid to go to market with an innovative and compelling point of view that helps them position their brand apart from the industry behemoths.

Padilla is an independently operated, globally resourced public relations and communication company with offices across the United States. The agency builds, grows and protects brands and reputations worldwide by creating purposeful connections with the people who matter most through public relations, advertising, digital and social marketing, investor relations and brand strategy. Padilla includes the brand consultancy of Joe Smith, the food and nutrition experts at FoodMinds, and the research authorities at SMS Research Advisors. Padilla is an AVENIR GLOBAL company and is a founding member of the Worldcom Public Relations Group, a partnership of 132 independently owned partner offices in 115 cities on six continents.

Connect with purpose at PadillaCo.com.

Five Strengths That Set Us Apart 1. We are industry insiders.

We believe in providing intimate industry expertise to the clients we work with. That’s why we’ve curated Ag + Environmental Sciences, Consumer, Financial Services, Food + Beverage, Health, Higher Education, Manufacturing and Technology teams. We’re champions of these sectors and we stay involved in the groups and associations that define these industries.

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Career Innovations Press is a publisher of relationship-developing career books that change the outlook on self value and the value of others.

Jack of All Trades, Master of Some. It’s probably something you relate to, too. Today, all that I have learned and done has led me to where I am now: creator of an independent publishing company intent on changing how we interact with one other. I am an executive career coach and professional speaker, too, but that’s now. My first career was as a professional actor for 20 years. Formally trained; BFA, Theatre Arts. TV, Film, Stage, Musicals, Commercials, Print. NYC and LA. SAG-AFTRA and Equity unions, too. But what this is all really supposed to mean is that I had dozens of day jobs to keep myself alive. Literally dozens. And they ranged from swim instructor, to biker bartender, to Executive Assistant in the Executive Office at Goldman Sachs, back when it went public. My first job was at nine years old, and since that time, I accrued a whole lot of skills, the way one does. Especially with people. Not easy for a hardwired introvert. Today I use all those skills in scaling a company and its

book products that happen to be mine. And though these same life and work skills continue to serve me day to day, they have also come together to serve others in books that have won six national and international independent book awards, with readers around the world. (Gratitude abounds!)

When it was first created, Press had in mind the re-innovation of jobseeking thinking. But the focus was more on how to do for others, not just do for yourself. Writing a book was one of several “bucket-list” items my co-author had in mind, and I jumped at the topic of networking. As a writer and former actor, I had been networking all my life. In my day jobs, too. And experiencing how these skills traversed the many (very many) jobs I had over 20 years, I knew it was something that would help virtually everyone. Their contacts, too. And if there could be tailored editions

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It may seem trite to say that innovation is also taking something old and making it forever new and relevant. And that it will stand the test of time, or even change man.

But it’s true. Pretty big claim, I know, but imagine what your world would look like if everyone said yes to every reasonable request you ever had. I mean every single one. Or gave you expert advice or guidance to support your or it. And then ask yourself: Would it change you as a person? And would that change your life?

My money is on Yes.

for every audience that could be referenced again and again over a lifetime… Yes. But what had to serve as its foundation, we agreed, was an attitude of gratitude and mutuality. (Key to succeeding in Hollywood, and every other industry, as it turns out.) We made it so. A publishing company was an unusual approach to personally making a mark and “changing the world,” but so were my many experiences that told me it would work.

Now we get to witness it every day. Eight years after the first publication, there are four editions that serve every professional out there. Professionals; Graduates; Veterans, Executives. The books are taught in universities, and given out at workforces. While an independent-publisher achievement is already rewarding, it’s the ripple effect the books have had in our very own Minneapolis-St.Paul business and philanthropy communities that brings such gratitude. On a regular basis I meet people who have found themselves using the same principles from the 20MNM books, with each other. And all have expressed what that feeling of purpose has done for them personally, by giving freely. And the gratitude for how others freely gave back has changed their approach to meeting people, in all respects. Knowledge, wisdom, experience. Shared.

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The best is yet to come when it comes to these ideas of mutuality (and for the books).

At a time when truth and honesty are increasing in demand, so is the practice of relationship-building and reciprocity to meet it. We want to do business with those we trust, and who keep their word. Other people feel the same about us. And while we now live in a time where technology is a primary connector, it is not responsible for the ever-important skill of making connections.

Meeting people eye-to-eye is what makes those connections real, and keeping touch is what keeps those connections alive.

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CHAPTER 15

EDUCATION, UNIVERSITIES & COLLEGES

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“While thousands of IT jobs are available in Minnesota, employers are struggling to find qualified, trained workers.

Minnesota has fostered new schools like CompTIA Tech Career Academy to give students the skills needed to launch and grow a career in technology.”

—CHARLES EATON, CEO, CREATING IT FUTURES

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With a shortage of trained and certified IT talent, CompTIA Tech is unlocking the potential for students around the country to gain the skills needed to launch and grow a career in technology.

Technology is woven into the fabric of our everyday lives. It impacts nearly all facets of our day to day existence—from the way we communicate to our work, transportation, education, entertainment, healthcare and beyond.

Businesses rely on technology as the cornerstone of their operations. Cloud computing and database services are streamlining procedures; cybersecurity is a top priority for companies, and automation and AI solutions are revolutionizing efficiencies.

Regardless of industry, whether it’s agriculture, manufacturing, automotive, retail, tourism, or banking, today every company is a tech company.

strong. Reports from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that in the first three quarters of 2019, hiring in the tech sector was up by nearly 100,000 jobs.

Careers in IT provide sustainable wages and advancement opportunities. In fact, according to CompTIA’s CyberstatesTM data, tech jobs have a median wage of nearly $82,000—that’s almost double the median national wage across all occupations. More than a quarter of a million people are employed in the tech industry in Minnesota alone.

And yet, there continues to be a significant shortage of skilled IT professionals in the US workforce.

But while thousands of IT jobs are available, employers are struggling to find qualified, trained workers. For many, beginning a career in IT can be overwhelming. Obtaining the education, training and certifications seems like an uphill battle and many simply don’t know where to start.

Despite the uncertainty of our global economy, the tech job market remains robust. According to CompTIA’s analysis, while recent federal jobs reports show some slowing in hiring, employment within the IT sector remains

At Creating IT Futures, we believe tech careers should be accessible to anyone with a dream and passion to pursue them. As the charitable arm of CompTIA, we are dedicated to providing cutting-edge educational training, certifications

Classes are taught at Creating IT Futures’ office in Edina.

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As a nonprofit, CompTIA Tech’s sole motivation is to help its students land and succeed in IT jobs in order to grow the tech workforce.

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About Charles Eaton As CEO of Creating IT Futures, Charles Eaton helps those populations under-represented in IT and individuals lacking in opportunity to prepare for, secure and be successful in IT careers.

and career preparedness to those seeking employment in IT. Our signature effort, the ITReady Technical Support Program, has trained and prepared adults for careers in technology since 2012. In fact, IT-Ready Technical Support, currently operating in the Twin Cities, won the 2019 Tekne Award for Workforce Development. We work with more than 60 local employers to connect graduates with potential job opportunities.

We aim to diversify the tech industry and open career doors to a wider demographic, particularly those who have been underrepresented in the IT workforce, such as women and people of color.

In 2020, we’re taking our educational offerings to the next level with the launch of the CompTIA Tech Career Academy.

Built on the foundation of IT-Ready, CompTIA Tech Career Academy enables us to deliver our IT-Ready Technical Support program to more people across the US. This new academy reinforces the outstanding IT-Ready curriculum, offering a combination of practical knowledge, technical expertise, soft skills development, CompTIA A+ certification and career services.

Above: CompTIA Tech has a proven model for training and educating students with no IT experience in the full range of technical and soft skills needed for entry-level IT jobs.

CompTIA Tech Career Academy offers classes in brick-and-mortar locations, including Edina, MN, as well as online. We are committed to providing tuition support and grants for our students, as we want to reduce barriers to entry for those looking to begin a career in tech.

With a shortage of trained and certified IT talent, our national online program unlocks the potential for students around the country to gain the skills needed to launch and grow a career in technology.

Left: Workers need more than technical training, which is why CompTIA Tech students also learn the other soft skills such as teamwork, customer service, and communication skills.

Our focus is to bridge the IT workforce gap to provide individuals with the tools needed to succeed and companies with qualified employees. Because career opportunities should be available to anyone with a drive to succeed.

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The real returns of investing in energy efficiency.

A large wall graphic presents tour goers with an overview of the Science Museum’s entire advanced heat recovery system before they experience its individual components.

Buildings in the US account for 40% of the country’s energy usage. To many, that statistic simply reflects how things are. That was true for the Science Museum of Minnesota’s team, too, until an intrepid mechanical engineer contextualized the museum’s own energy usage in a new way: Why are you throwing away energy that could be used to heat the building?

There was only one real reason: “Because no one had ever put it to us like that before,” says Patrick Hamilton, Director of Global Change Initiatives at SMM. Anything that uses electricity generates heat, and the larger it is—a computer server, a telephone-switching room, an elevator—the more heat it generates. Historically, the standard operating procedure for American buildings has been to treat this electronics-generated heat as waste and pump it out of the building.

Hundreds of architects, engineers, developers, building owners and operators, and policymakers have taken advantage of behind-the-scenes tours of the Science Museum’s advanced heat recovery system in recent years.

The Science Museum did something different.

“We committed to an overhaul of our energy system, one centered around two Trane heat-recovery chillers, which simply put, move energy from one place to another within the building,” Patrick says.

The chillers’ installation was completed in 2014, and the results have been remarkable.

Like most buildings of its size, the Science Museum has simultaneous heating and cooling demands, even in wintertime. The heat-recovery chillers remove heat—which was previously being pumped out as waste—from areas with its building where it is in excess and reroutes it to other parts of the building that require it. In the wintertime, the heat recovered by the heat recovery chillers is used to temper the fresh but cold air brought in from the outside before being circulated throughout the building.

“One February morning in 2017, I got an email from one of our engineers, and it contained a screenshot of our energy consumption. He’d written, ‘It’s 4°F outside right now, and we’re buying zero hot water from District Energy,’” Patrick recalls.

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Fresh outside air being constantly pulled into the Science Museum by the building’s air handling units flows through a floor-to-ceiling filter before passing through a heat exchanger immediately behind it.

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One of the two heat recovery chillers that removes heat from areas within the Science Museum where it builds up due to high electricity use and then steps up this heat energy and transfers it to a heat exchanger.

By what percentage has SMM reduced its yearly energy usage?

Anywhere from 60–75%, depending on the severity of the winter.

By how much has SMM reduced its carbon pollution? One third.

How long did it take SMM to recoup its initial $900,000 investment? 3 years.

What is the museum’s average annual savings on heating and cooling? $300,000.

“We’re seeing this very beneficial flywheel where investment in energy efficiency allows us to reduce our footprint and to save money that we can instead invest into the museum itself and into further energy savings,” Patrick says.

Sight unseen, the museum’s heat-recovery system sounds almost too good to believe—so the museum offers behind-the-scenes tours. Hundreds of architects, engineers, building owners and operators, developers—and even some potential Trane clients—have come to see the heat-recovery system in action. The museum has installed interpretation in many of the spaces that the system tours traverse, including the building’s fresh-air plenum.

Hot liquid produced by the heat recovery chillers trickles down through the floor-to-ceiling heat exchanger, transferring heat energy to incoming fresh air before being distributed throughout the museum by the air handling units.

“When you walk into it, you’re actually walking into whatever the weather is outside. If it’s snowing outside, it’s snowing in this giant concrete box in the heart of the museum that you’re standing in,” Patrick says. “Then when you walk into the plenum on the other side of the heat exchanger, you can feel how dramatically the fresh but cold outdoor air is warmed before air handling units distribute it throughout the museum.”

are empowering both young and old to understand and deal effectively with climate change.

Whatever its next project, the museum is committed to remaining a beacon for dynamic and responsible energy sourcing. “We’re just one building,” Patrick says. “But imagine the economic and environmental benefits if other buildings—if every building—committed to reducing their carbon footprint.” The Science Museum of Minnesota has proven that it’s not only possible, it’s amazing.

The investment that the Science Museum has made into its energy efficiency is a significant step toward the institution’s goal of carbon neutrality, which Mayor Melvin Carter has challenged the entire City of Saint Paul to achieve by 2050. To that end, the museum is looking into other energy innovations, including perhaps ground-coupled l heating and cooling (as exemplified by Darcy Solutions,a startup out of the University of Minnesota).

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Digital innovation in a … museum?

THE MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ART IS REINVENTING MUSEUM EXPERIENCES AND WORKFLOWS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY, ENGAGING ITS AUDIENCE AS NEVER BEFORE.

organization lean into digital transformation, shifting the mindset and contributing to its growing success.

Mr. Hegley’s original career path wasn’t toward digital technology, nor museums, but clinical psychology. “Psychology practice is about people and change, and in my job I use that perspective daily, as I do my best to hire and empower the best people so that they—and our entire organization— will thrive, especially during times of disruptive and transformational change. I admit I’m a fan of new technologies. The digital experiences available now are magnificent. But for me, it’s less about technology and more about people.” It seems appropriate that he works at a place the local press call the People’s Museum.

For more than 20 years, Douglas Hegley has been working on digital transformation within a sector that might not come to mind immediately: fine art museums. Stately and traditional, often more than a century old, museums hardly seem like hotbeds for driving innovation. But in an increasingly customer-centric world, museums need to find new ways to engage the public in order to thrive. Digital transformation is central to making that happen. Mr. Hegley serves as the Chief Digital Officer at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, where he and his award-winning team work in strong collaboration to modernize the technology ecosystem and deliver delight to a growing audience.

Many museums have been operating for more than 100 years, with the same basic business model. On the surface, that sounds quite successful; not many commercial businesses have such longevity. Why change?

The answer begins with acknowledging that the world has changed dramatically in the past decade or so. Innovations in technology have accelerated at an unprecedented pace. In addition, museums compete with all businesses that seek to occupy people’s leisure time: retail, the cineplex, video games, professional sports, the entertainment industry, and streaming services that deliver content right to your home.

In 2011, the Minneapolis Institute of Art hired Douglas Hegley as its first senior executive overseeing technology. Also known as Mia, it is one of the largest and most-visited art museums in the US, and enjoys a strong global reputation. Mr. Hegley says his role of Chief Digital Officer is “a combination of CIO and Executive Producer, because I am responsible for the entire technology operation, and also digital content production, including video, audio, photography and multimedia.” He has helped the

“Our challenge is to re-invent museum experiences and workflows for the 21st century so that we can engage audiences as never before. When we deliver layered digital experiences using effective modern technology, we engage our customers, increase repeat interactions, and enable the museum to thrive, both financially and reputationally.”

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Digital storytelling is particularly important for museums. “When we connect people with stories that engage their sense of curiosity and wonder, we create delight. The findings from our evaluations are encouraging. People engage with digital stories and content while in the museum. In fact, they typically do so together, laughing and talking and sharing. They spend more time in the museum and they remember the stories and the works of art, even weeks later. We often worry about the dark potential of technology to isolate and anonymize, but I argue that technology done well is capable of delivering surprise, connections to others, and it can ignite your imagination.”

Mia has seen recent sustained success. Attendance is up considerably, with annual numbers averaging nearly 750,000 as compared to several years ago, when cresting 400,000 was considered a strong year. In addition, the museum has been hitting net promoter scores in the 70s year-over-year, demonstrating that the people who visit the museum love the experience and would readily recommend it to others. Mia has worked tirelessly to earn the nickname of the People’s Museum, and it certainly doesn’t hurt to have a Chief Digital Officer who says, “If there is a connecting thread through what I’ve done in my career, it’s putting people first, always.”

“I am a firm believer in the power of teams. The truth is that I have never accomplished anything meaningful all by myself. Great work comes from great collaborations, and I have benefitted immensely from the colleagues who’ve been right there with me each step of the way.

A cultural highlight of the Twin Cities, the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is internationally renowned as one of the great encyclopedic fine art museums. Opened to the public in 1915, the museum currently houses a world-class collection of more than 90,000 works of art, representing artistic traditions spanning more than 5,000 years. With its free admission, Mia is an invaluable resource to its audiences, welcoming more than 750,000 visitors of all ages each year to enjoy and be inspired by the wonder and beauty of art.

In the late 1990s, when Mr. Hegley first entered the museum sector, the term “digital transformation” didn’t exist, but the need for change was evident.

“I’ve always been excited by challenges. We know the bad reputation that IT can suffer: an expensive cost-center with grumpy employees, and no strategic position within the organization,” says Mr. Hegley. “How does one go about changing that? It starts with talent strategy: hiring and retaining great people. Those people need to have a clear purpose and effective working methods. We’ve adopted agile practices and have committed to cross-functional teams. And while it’s important to modernize the infrastructure, the technology itself isn’t bleeding edge, but in the museum sector the combination of great staff and effective tools can feel revolutionary.”

Douglas Hegley Chief Digital Officer Minneapolis Institute of Art 2400 Third Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55404 dhegley@artsmia.org dhegley douglashegley

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ENGAGING INDUSTRY, INSPIRING STUDENTS, AND ENHANCING IT EDUCATION.

The Minnesota State IT Center of Excellence

Engaging Industry: Leveraging Partnerships

Colleges and universities are an essential part of the innovation ecosystem in Minnesota. The Minnesota State IT Center of Excellence (MNITCoE) is one of eight industryfocused Centers of Excellence that are part of the Minnesota State system of 37 colleges and universities. Our mission is to engage industry, inspire students, and enhance IT education at all levels to build a more robust technology workforce in Minnesota.

In the technology industry, we all share the objective of growing our next generation of talent and increasing gender and ethnic diversity in the IT workplace. The MNITCoE collaborates with industry to ensure all students are provided technical, nontechnical, and hands-on learning experiences that address the dynamic talent needs of employers by Connecting students with industry for internships, mentoring, and job shadowing Co-sponsoring hands-on learning experiences in computing, cybersecurity, data science, and software development Hosting national competitions and awards like the Aspirations in Computing Award and the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition

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IT Exploration is a free, one-semester, hands-on IT curriculum provided to high school and middle school teachers. The course is designed to introduce students to topics like networking, cybersecurity, data analytics, software development, and game design.

PowerUp IT is a program in Minneapolis and St. Paul high schools designed to expose students to IT professionals of color. They are mentored and guided to avail themselves of technology programs within the school and in the broader community to build their technical confidence and competence.

The IT Discovery Network was established in 2014 as a network of organizations that share the common mission of ensuring that youth are exposed to a broad array of technology learning experiences and caring adults. Collaboration ensures the maximum impact for all.

Through Hands-On Learning and Practice events, college students are given opportunities outside the classroom to put skills into practice and also gain an edge for future job searches. Students also get real-world experience and training they need to seek industry-leading certifications.

Boot camps for hands-on learning - Cybersecurity Student Boot Camp - Data Science Student Boot Camp National and Regional Competitions - The Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) - Data Derby Data Analytics Competition

Enhancing Education: Quality Programs and Hands-On Learning The MNITCoE serves as a catalyst and coordinator for multiple collaborative Program and Curriculum Module development projects, bringing together industry experts and faculty from across the Minnesota State System. The result is an emerging base of modules faculty can use in their courses that align with standards and incorporate innovative learning technologies and best practices.

Inspiring Students: Developing the Innovation Leaders of Tomorrow To build the IT workforce of the future, it is essential to encourage and support K-12 students to explore, experience, and enjoy technology learning. Inspiration and empowerment naturally occur as students engage with peers, educators, IT professionals and employers; all who share a common passion and interest to innovate and collaborate. Here are some of the partner-driven programs offered to do just that:

Cybersecurity and Data Science Curriculum Modules Agile Software Development Curriculum Modules Career Readiness Modules and Badges

The MNITCoE provides Faculty Training and Development opportunities for faculty to stay ahead of key industry tools and trends. Each year we host the New Directions in IT Education Conference which brings together faculty and industry to share knowledge and best practices.

The Minnesota Aspirations in Computing Program seeks to inspire, engage, and empower young women in grades 9-12 to pursue a technology education and career path. More than 100 young women each year are recognized statewide or nationally for their computing and technology accomplishments. Participants also gain in-demand technology skills through SPARCS (Sustaining Passion, Ambition, and Resolve for Career Success) events and engage with Minnesota companies through job shadow experiences and summer paid internships.

Student and Faculty Research is emerging as a high-impact practice that enhances student engagement and success. To this end, the MNITCoE has partnered with faculty and the Twin Cities chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) to launch and support two Academic Conferences in Cybersecurity (CIACAM) and Data Science (CADSCOM).

Tech IT Out! Minnesota matches IT professionals from industry partners with middle and high school classrooms to deliver an interactive presentation about technology careers. For many, this is the first opportunity for young people to discover what opportunities exist for them in the IT world.

Minnesota State IT Center of Excellence 700 East Seventh Street | Saint Paul, MN 55106 +1-612-659-7221

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CREATING LEADERS IN SOFTWARE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND DATA SCIENCE

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into the technology field. GPS offers four master’s degrees in software and data science and several graduate certificate programs, all designed for working professionals.

Bhabani Misra Associate Dean, Graduate Programs

For more than 30 years, the University of St. Thomas’ Graduate Programs in Software (GPS) has contributed to innovation by educating software information technology and data science professionals while simultaneously addressing a talent shortage in the tech industry. By listening to industry expertise, GPS provides timely, leading-edge curriculum that provides maximum value to our students and creates pathways for professionals to transition

Nestled against the Mississippi River and the urban landscape of Saint Paul, the University of St Thomas’ Graduate Programs in Software (GPS) generates innovation, leadership and—of course—graduates. GPS has produced more than 4,000 graduates since its 1985 inception, many of whom work for the area’s economic drivers such as 3M, Medtronic, Boston Scientific, Cargill, Mayo Clinic, and Target. Here, an industry–academia partnership creates software professionals with the know-how to lead within some of the most sophisticated and fast-moving companies on the planet.

As associate dean for the Graduate Programs in Engineering and Software, Dr. Bhabani Misra’s commitment to workforce development is well-known in the Midwest. In fact, Dr. Misra was honored with a 2017 Tekne Lifetime 205

Achievement Award, recognizing his work with the GPS program. For more than 30 years, he’s been instrumental if not directly responsible for the pioneering programs at St. Thomas.

Today, the Graduate Programs in Software at St. Thomas is one of the largest and longestrunning software engineering and data science programs in the nation.

Dr. Misra is intensely focused on identifying and strategizing needs and trends. One of the most pressing current issues is a talent gap, particularly in the Twin Cities. “We have to create a higher education model that is as nimble and forward-looking as the businesses and industries we serve,” he said. “Our program addresses the gap by providing an education pathway for individuals to transition into a tech career.”

Dr. Misra’s Strategic Advisory Board, made of up nearly 20 executive leaders from a broad cross-section of industry, meets twice-yearly to advise Misra and his department leaders.

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Cultivated and curated, the board identifies and communicates the technical and workforce needs for the region, which in turn translates into actionable information for faculty and, subsequently, changes to the curriculum.

St. Thomas is the largest private university in Minnesota, with 10,000 students—40% of whom are graduate students. Of those, nearly a quarter are enrolled in programs in Graduate Engineering and Software Programs. Nearly 33% of the GPS students are international, and 35% are women. Ages range from 22 to 64, with an average age of 34. Almost 43% are people of color. A full one-third are “career changers,” making the leap to an entirely new industry.

Almost all students are adult professionals, with jobs and families.

Case in Point One of the program’s most significant successes is the Master’s Program in Data Science.

While private sector data scientists were implementing big data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, the University of St. Thomas was the first to capture the movement in academics, launching the degree in 2014.

So much so that no suitable textbooks were available, requiring the professors to develop the both courses and the accompanying learning materials. It’s a popular field of study, with 350 enrolled students in a given term.

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and updating to reflect technology trends and changes,” Dr. Misra said. “And our students are in demand. Most are hired halfway through their degree program.”

Education for Professionals In addition to master’s degrees, GPS offers an assortment of micro-credentials, centering on specific competency areas—perfect for a working professional. Without a long-term commitment and at a low cost, these shorter dives into learning are more accessible to a wider range of learners. With five-course programs, weeklong mini-master’s programs, and a handful of related and specialized offerings, the school provides relevant training with a quick response time.

“It’s a new way of thinking about the reality of today’s software professionals,” said Dr. Misra.

“This is lifelong learning in higher education.

We must consider that many students will graduate, work for a few years, and come back for periods of study and learning. This is the future.”

Most GPS instructors are deeply immersed in their subject matter, and often industry leaders themselves. A full 50% of courses are taught by working professionals—people carefully selected based on education, work experience, expertise, and enthusiasm.

The courses are relevant for another important reason: They’re designed for adult learners.

Courses meet once a week during evenings or on Saturdays and operate on a non-cohort

model, allowing students to work fulltime and maintain a personal life while studying.

Looking Forward The GPS program and Dr. Misra and are both a product and producer of a robust, engaged community. In such a forward-looking field, the intersection between theory, workforce, and workplace is an exciting place to be.

“The task we set for ourselves is really about envisioning the future,” Dr. Misra said. “We’re building an ecosystem of software engineer, data scientists, and information technology professionals who can shape not just our region’s socioeconomic systems. Our graduates are all over the globe, building organizations as stakeholders and leaders.”

Graduate Programs in Software at University of St. Thomas offers master’s degrees in: • Software Engineering • Data Science • Information Technology • Software Management Certificate Programs in: • Artificial Intelligence • Big Data • Business Analysis • Data Management • DevOps • Embedded Systems • Enterprise Computing • Healthcare Analysis • Internet of Things • Advanced Study

School of Engineering Graduate Programs in Software University of St. Thomas, Minnesota 2115 Summit Avenue Saint Paul, MN 55105 +1-651-962-5500 StThomasEngineering UST_Engineering GPS_UST

Photo: Mike Ekern

The components of the Data Science degree require constant innovation while emphasizing rigorous, realistic preparation of practitioners.

“The courses themselves undergo revision

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HANDS-ON, MINDS-ON EXPERIENCES. The Works Museum’s focus on engineering lets kids be builders, designers, and problem- solvers, they’re the engineers. Their mission is to inspire the next generation of innovators, engineers, and creative problem-solvers.

They do this through kid-friendly, STEM-focused programs, events, camps, and workshops.

History The Works Museum was founded by Rebecca Schatz, with the first exhibit debuting in 1995. Schatz envisioned a place where children could learn through “hands-on, minds-on” experiences. In 2011, after a few temporary homes, the Museum transitioned to a permanent location in Bloomington, Minnesota. Jill Measells is the current CEO. Who We Are The Works Museum is all about providing engineering experiences for kids and their families. The interactive Experience Gallery is filled with building and design activities for ages 5-12 that encourage collaboration, creativity, and trial and error. Twin Cities corporate partners support kid-focused tech activities, and the Museum’s own STEM educators offer workshops for students throughout Minnesota. It’s all about igniting kids’ passion for STEM. Each year, The Works Museum partners with members of the Twin Cities STEM community to host three signature events that introduce children to the fun and fascinating world of engineering. Tech Fest, Robot Day, and Girl Time feature hands-on activities in fields like coding, robotics, biomedical engineering, chemistry, and more.

Engineering Access for Everyone True to its mission, The Works Museum believes students are the creative problem-solvers of the future. They are committed to reaching underserved communities and breaking down barriers to access STEM. The Museum offers onsite field trips and brings programs into the

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community through school workshops and Family Engineering Nights.

In addition to school access, The Works Museum also offers a Gateway Program for families with financial need, as well as programming that focuses on reaching girls. Women are still largely underrepresented in STEM fields, and the Museum hosts girls-only summer camps and their annual Girl Time event, where girls can meet female role models and experience engineering in a space just for them.

The Works Museum is passionate about engaging youth in STEM. Experiencing engineering can open a world of opportunities for a child and help build critical skills like collaboration, perseverance, and problem-solving.

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WHERE ACADEMIC RIGOR MEETS MARKETABLE SKILLS Located in the Heritage Park neighborhood, Summit Academy OIC is an accredited, nonprofit Career and Technical Education (CTE) Institute in North Minneapolis.

Summit offers specialization and industry certifications for in-demand careers in Information Technology (IT), Construction (Carpentry and Electrical specialties), and Healthcare through 20-week accredited programs, delivering academic rigor alongside marketable skills and connections to employers. Summit’s workforce-driven model also offers accelerated 10-week GED training.

More than 1,000 students enroll at Summit Academy each year from across the seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan area. Summit’s mission is to empower individuals to develop their ability to thrive and to become contributing citizens in their communities, as well as economic drivers of the State of Minnesota.

In 1996, two established training and job placement programs joined forces: Twin Cities Opportunities Industrialization Center and Two or More.

The merger created Summit Academy OIC, a vocational training center focused on giving low-income adults access to skills for the jobs of today and tomorrow. Embracing a comprehensive community focus, we located ourselves in the heart of North Minneapolis, where we remain today.

We support the development of self-sufficiency in every person, regardless of background, economic status, or level of ability. We strengthen our community by preparing individuals to assume their roles as workers, parents, and citizens.

Our fundamental belief is: The best social service program in the world is a job.

In conjunction with our vocational model, we have also recently partnered with 10 of Minnesota’s most accomplished African-American education and community service institutions and established a partnership to inspire and nurture STEM talent in North Minneapolis. This Northside STEM District builds a pipeline of talent that starts in preschool, moves into K-8, is complemented by summer and out-of-school experiences, and culminates with STEM credentials. This network’s collective emphasis on awareness, access, education, and training is preparing workers of today, tomorrow, and the future.

As a partner in the Northside STEM District, Summit Academy is spearheading several initiatives:

The goal of this initiative is to provide access to equipment, materials, and STEM experiences to increase connections with African-American STEM professionals; to include employers as partners in volunteering their time, talent, and jobs; and to engage parents and neighbors as supporters, leaders, and advisors.

This expansion is timed to help meet the expected demand for middleskill jobs that don’t require 4-year degrees. There is an urgent need for increased technology skills, including data analytics, IT, mobile, and web design. Our service desk technician and network operation center technician training tracks are uniquely designed to address this demand.

Workers of Today: Adult Education Program Expansion Summit Academy is expanding its IT training program. In the first year, we trained 79 students, in partnership with Atomic Data, for high-demand, high career–growth jobs. In the second year, Summit will train 125 students and partner with more Minnesota employers to integrate an employerdriven curriculum model.

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Workers of Tomorrow: Best Buy Teen Tech Center Summit Academy is excited to welcome middle and high school students ages 13-18 to its Best Buy Teen Tech Center (BBTTC). The center gives teens access to cutting-edge technology, allows them to explore and express themselves artistically, and discover career pathways. Teens will explore a range of activities including graphic design, film production, robotics, and music production. The goal is for teens to be creators and inventors, not just consumers of technology.

Workers of the Future: STEM Fest & STEM Saturdays This spring, Summit Academy will introduce STEM Fest, a day of hands-on demonstrations that will serve as a kickoff to monthly all-age STEM Saturday events.

These community-based events will be free to those who qualify for free or reduced lunch programs and rotate to different locations throughout the Northside STEM District.

STEM Saturdays will feature fun and educational hands-on opportunities for children and their parents to explore STEM topics like chemistry, magnetism, and renewable energy. Experiential learning activities will lay a foundation of STEM principles and inspire career pathways.

Lastly, we value our relationship with employers Atomic Data and Design Ready Controls, who partner with us to offer internships and hire our students after graduation. Additional partnerships like these, which address workforce shortages and prepare students to be successful in careers with familysustaining wages, are being developed.

“Each day I get to witness our students, many of whom come from low-income backgrounds and under-resourced communities, gaining the skills and education they need to enter the middle class,” said Louis King, President & CEO of Summit Academy OIC. “Summit is the vehicle that helps them begin that journey.”

Summit Academy OIC 935 Olson Memorial Highway Minneapolis, MN 55405 +1-612-377-0150 SummitAcademyOIC saoic summit-academy-oic saoicmn

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CODE AND DESIGN TODAY, CREATE TOMORROW

The students at Prime are a diverse group. Forty years separate the youngest and oldest students, but the majority of students are 25-40 and come to Prime as adults with a wealth of real-world work experience.

Over a third of Prime students identify as women and about 20% identify as people of color. More than 70% of students come in with an existing college degree and about 1 in 10 Prime students have a graduatelevel degree.

Technology is literally changing the world. Arts, commerce, education, government—virtually every aspect of our culture is being re-written with software. We believe that something as important as the future of everything needs to demand more from its authors than the ability to write code. Our mission is to transform lives by helping diverse students develop coding and design skills to create a better tomorrow.

Founded in 2014, Prime Digital Academy is working to make technical training more accessible and more human for everyone through an accelerated and immersive full-stack coding and user experience school.

Prime is headquartered in Minneapolis and has campuses there and in Kansas City, MO.

Prime’s programs have helped nearly 1,000 graduates transform their lives by starting new, meaningful careers in technology. The average alumni increases their income by 76% in their first position after the program. That impact translates into an extremely engaged alumni network that fiercely champions and supports new program grads as they enter the industry. Here’s what a recent Prime grad had to say about their experience:

Prime’s holistic approach to learning means every student gains the support and tools to succeed, all in an environment that thrives on curiosity and empathy and feels like family. Our thoughtful curriculum teaches the latest technologies and processes through project-based learning with real-world clients—all tailored to students’ unique learning styles.

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of their mind that they want to get diverse voices into tech to break down those barriers. They’re interested not only in making or creating outstanding developers, they’re interested in helping change the culture altogether.”

That passion is attractive to employers looking to grow their business. More than 450 employers have hired Prime grads in the last five years helping them to grow and diversify their tech teams.

Community engagement is at the heart of Prime’s approach to education—professionals from the local tech scene are engaged as mentors and speakers in the program. And Prime students have given back by providing over 140,000 hours of pro-bono services to local nonprofits, social ventures, startups, and small businesses since the school’s launch.

We believe diverse, bright and driven minds can author real change through software. Are you ready to create a better tomorrow?

Prime Digital Academy hello@primeacademy.io +1-952-222-8108

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The Twin Cities is a hub of corporate headquarters for some of the most reputable companies in the country and the world: Target, Cargill, Best Buy, Medtronic, Optum, and the list goes on. And, reflective of other cities around the country, the technology sector is growing tremendously. Within this landscape, there are two scenarios at play: while STEM fields offer significant career opportunities, the current workforce lacks both gender and racial diversity.

We’ve made it our mission to change this—and more. As a nonprofit social enterprise, Genesys Works serves students from underserved communities— students brimming with motivation and potential—by providing them with access to life-changing professional work opportunities at one of more than 55 companies within the Twin Cities metro area, including the companies listed above and others such as Andersen Corporation, Ecolab, General Mills, Medica, and TCF Bank.

In this year’s class, more than 95% identify as students of color, and a significant majority qualify for free or reduced lunch and/or will be first-generation college students. This means that youth—and, by extension, their families and communities—who have been systemically trapped in generational poverty are being trained and prepared for hire in STEM fields. We open the door to opportunity, and students are taking advantage of it: they leverage the experiential education of their internship to inform their plans for college and career success and build an impactful professional network in the process.

Emo Ismail, Class of 2020 Optum Intern

And while these opportunities and relationships profoundly mark the lives of these high school students, Genesys Works is, quite literally, changing the face of the business and IT workforce. Over the course of 12 years, more than 2,000 students have gained access to paid, year-long professional internships through our Twin Cities program. So what does this mean for companies? It means we’re offering them exactly what they are seeking: access to local, diverse talent.

Genesys Works works for students, communities, and companies.

We Start with High School Students While many companies hire students who are in the midst of completing a college degree, we operate by a different philosophy. It’s more beneficial to engage youth earlier, and each year, companies increasingly invest in this idea.

For the 2019–2020 school year alone, 56 Twin Cities companies welcomed 318 high school students into year-long professional work experiences.

Left to right: Sarah Engstrom, CHS, Inc. CISO and VP of IT Security, Productivity, and Privacy; Romeo Vang, Class of 2019 CHS, Inc. Intern; and Scott Grussing, CHS, Inc. Manager of IT Client Services

Before they even enter a professional workspace, students participate in an intensive eight-week professional and technical training program to prepare them for hire. By the completion of their training in August, many students have already exhibited significant transformation in confidence and knowledge. And once they’ve entered the workforce, we supplement the experiential learning with additional trainings in college access: financial aid, college applications, etc. For many future first-generation college students, we provide the resources that have simply been inaccessible.

At 17 to 18 years of age, students attend class, complete homework, apply to college, scholarships, and financial aid, and maintain a social life. Genesys Works students do all that and much more. Working 20 hours per week at one of our corporate partners, they fill roles in data and quality assurance, development support, device deployment, helpdesk support, project coordination and operations support, or scrum/Agile methodologies. They’re moving towards a career in STEM before they even graduate high school. For companies, this means that a diverse workforce—one they will seek and need in the near future—is being built and trained in their very own workspace.

Jessica Calderon, Class of 2020 Blue Cross Blue Shield Intern

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We Build Your Talent Pipeline Although we begin our engagement with students in high school, our work does not end there. We support students through their post-secondary career until mission completion: career entrance and economic mobility.

Since our inception in 2008, all high school graduates—100% of our students graduate from high school—receive post-secondary support, which comes in the form of mentorship through financial aid, college transfers, and more. In recent years, our college and career success programming has become much more robust.

In 2018, we created the Talent Development Pipeline (TDP) program. Open to a selection of metro-area college students interested in pursuing a business or IT career, the program offers students exclusive access to year-long college internships, access to professional development workshops in technical, professional, and leadership skills, individualized college and career coaching and mentorship, and increased visibility and opportunity to connect with company leaders.

According to Amal Yusuf, current TDP participant and former high school intern at Deluxe Corporation, “Genesys Works provides students the exposure they need to help encourage us to step into the technology field. The field needs more diverse talent and leaders, and Genesys Works is allowing many corporations to gain that within their company.” So, for these companies, the program has potential to be a dream come true: • • • •

Due to years of training, corporate experience, and mentorship through Genesys Works, interns are reliable and ready for hire; Local talent stays local, which means lower costs and quicker results in talent acquisition efforts; Interns are already familiar with company practices and culture, leading to higher retention and immediate productivity upon hire; and Current employees receive more mentorship opportunities, creating a sustainable mentorship model in the process.

Karen Marben, Executive Director, Genesys Works Twin Cities

“GENESYS WORKS IS, QUITE LITERALLY, CHANGING THE FACE OF THE BUSINESS AND I.T. WORKFORCE.” Karen Marben, Executive Director, Genesys Works Twin Cities Our expectation is that the innovation of our program will not only lead to economic mobility for Twin Cities young professionals but also to a more diverse and qualified STEM workforce. This is not just good for business; it’s creating a stronger, more equitable Minnesota for all of its residents. #GWProud

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Closing gaps in computer science education through youth-empowering, real-world coding experience Code Savvy is a Minnesota nonprofit organization that is on a mission to interrupt and counteract gender and racial gaps in computer science education by providing opportunities for hands-on computer science learning that empower all youth and educators in Minnesota with the knowledge, skills, and support to create with technology.

Code Savvy is a central resource and incubator for local advocates and champions for the advancement of K12 computer science learning opportunities. Code Savvy’s network activates free and low-cost community-based programs and services that give real-world coding experience to youth traditionally underrepresented in computer science, specifically females and students of color.

Imagine a world where all youth and educators are empowered with the knowledge, skills, and support to create with technology, all while working to interrupt and counteract gender and racial gaps in computing. This is what Code Savvy brings to Minnesota.

We also provide training to educators whose reach, impact, and potential for inspiring the next generation grows exponentially year over year. Our educator training initiatives emphasize equitable and inclusive computer science teaching practices through continuous training and train-the-trainer approaches to create a network of visionary educators equipped to transform computer science education in Minnesota.

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Rebecca Schatz founded Code Savvy in 2013.

Her vision was inherently about inclusion: helping kids see new models and pathways to pursue their own passions, dreams, and careers in new and accessible ways. With this in mind, Code Savvy has created a number of accessible programs and services in local neighborhoods and schools in Minnesota: • MNCodes Educator Training Initiative provides equity-focused, hands-on computer science training and coaching for K12 and afterschool educators, including the MNCodes Cohort, Scratch Camp for Educators, and the MNCodes Summit.

• Technovation[MN] brings technology entrepreneurship programs to Minnesota girls, ages 10–18, including the Global Technovation Challenge and Amazon’s Alexa Skills Challenge. Technovation[MN] inspires and enables teen girls to dream up, design, code, and pitch digital apps that solve problems in their communities.

• CoderDojo TC and Northfield CoderDojo are free, mentor-led, weekend coding clubs for kids; Rebecca CoderDojo is a coding club for girls only.

• AI Racing League is an artificial intelligence– based robotic challenge.

• Code Clubs are free, fun, open-ended exploratory environments for coding outside of school.

• The Digital Empowerment Academy is a digital literacy and civic technology initiative that enables youth to become savvy creators of digital content and learn to use digital devices, applications, and coding as tools for community advocacy.

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Code Savvy has been publicly recognized for the success of our programs. In November 2017, Code Savvy’s educator training initiative MN Coding in the Classroom Leadership Cohort received the STEM Education Tekne award.

This award recognizes Minnesota’s technology innovators and innovations and was presented by the Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA) at the 18th annual Tekne Awards.

Code Savvy’s MNCodes Educator Training initiative was developed in response to the absence of state-sponsored computer science education training and is on the leading edge of developing computer science awareness and skills among K12 educators through continuous hands-on training, mentoring, and an annual state-wide MNCodes educational conference.

Code Savvy aims to elevate educators’ ideas related to integrating computer science into the existing curriculum and broadening participation in computing.

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industry leaders such as Unisys, Target, and Clockwork, and colleges and universities, such as the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Community and Technical College and the College of St. Scholastica, teachers are afforded experiential learning opportunities which can be directly applied to the classroom environment. This type of high-quality, collaborative, handson professional development supported by local industry leaders is something that is unparalleled in the world of computer science education training today.

Through 2019, Code Savvy has reached over 40,000 students and 3,300 educators across over 80 Minnesota school districts and is supported by over 500 volunteers who have worked more than 22,000 hours to support our programs.

Participants in our year-long educator cohort provide computer science–related training to at least 10 other educators, as well as create a computer science curriculum unit that integrates with another subject area. The curriculum unit and training resources are shared publicly on Code Savvy’s website.

Code Savvy Educators Team: • Jean Weiss—Executive Director Code Savvy • Andrea Wilson Vazquez—Director of Educator Training • Tom Cozzolino—Co-facilitator MNCodes Cohort • A full list of Code Savvy program directors and board members can be found here: https://codesavvy.org/about-us/

The sustainability of this practice sets Code Savvy apart as a leader in the field and contributes to a supportive educator network that is expanding equitable and inclusive computer science education in Minnesota.

Through partnerships with computer science

Code Savvy Future Plans: We will continue to expand our programs in an effort to reach all Minnesota youth and educators, with a specific focus on expanding offerings for female-identifying youth and for educators from rural and urban schools.

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Code Savvy Fast Facts: • Date Incorporated— 8/13/2013 • Funding Received—Grant, donation, and sponsorship funded • Funding Required—Code Savvy welcomes donations and partnerships to continue to sustain and expand our programs • Employees—Code Savvy is primarily volunteer-run! We count on over 500 volunteers annually to offer our programs and to bring our mission to life!

Code Savvy PO Box 16628 | St. Louis Park, MN 55416 +1-612-963-3344 codesavvyorg mncodes, #mncodes code-savvy

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GIVING STUDENTS THE CHANCE TO COMBINE STEM CONCEPTS AND CREATIVITY

High Tech Kids delivers fun, hands-on science, engineering and technology programs and events that inspire Minnesota kids in their formative years. We inspire kids to build confidence, create opportunities, and thrive in the highly technical 21st century.

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COMMUNITY: High Tech Kids is proud to be supported by Minnesotabased technology companies. Not only do they provide financial support, their employees are strong volunteers and mentors. There are over 2,400 volunteers that help make High Tech Kids mission each year with an over 90 percent retention rate.

High Tech Kids programs serve students grades K through 12 in afterschool robotics programs and competitions. Each year students research and apply STEM concepts to create innovative solutions to real-world problems. Guided by volunteer coaches, students work together to solve problems in 100+ hour projects. This dedicated time provides students the opportunity to go deep into concepts that simply can’t be addressed within the confines of a regular school day.

“Thanks to High Tech Kids, I can see that I am really lucky to be able to have my community’s support.” —Grant

Building the Future of STEM Programs ACCESS: High Tech Kids is proud to boast more diversity than the state of Minnesota itself. Each year, we invest $37,000 in team scholarships. This funding is integral in achieving our mission to reach as many Minnesota students as possible. There have been significant gains year over year with female students, students of color, and low-income students.

High Tech Kids operates three programs serving K-12 students. The programs are: FIRST LEGO League Junior (ages 6-9), FIRST LEGO League (ages 9-14), and FIRST Tech Challenge (ages 13-18). Students perform research into relevant and timely topics, design and program robots, and present their work at tournaments. Game challenges for students are based on yearly global themes that real-world engineers are solving every day, such as city planning, waste management, etc. High Tech Kids programs mimic the innovation and problem-solving of adult engineering teams and give students a taste of what becoming a STEM professional entails.

“High Tech Kids has opened my eyes to so many different career opportunities.” —Charlie SKILLSETS: High Tech Kids evaluate gains in their students. Coaches help to measure significant gains not only in STEM principles but also in soft skills like teamwork and communication. These skillsets prepare our students for college and beyond to ensure that the next generation of STEM innovators are well-rounded individuals.

High Tech Kids 715 Florida Avenue South, Suite #102 Golden Valley, MN 55426

“High Tech Kids has helped me learn how to deal with stressful situations calmly. Also, my public-speaking skills have gotten so much better.” —Katie

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EVERY PROFESSIONAL LICENSE AND CERTIFICATION TELLS A STORY

Each day, millions of people around the world pursue new opportunities through licensing and certification.

Whether seeking a new qualification or career or gaining admission to a university or business school, people everywhere are being empowered to embrace new skills through certification.

Through innovative and secure computer-based testing, Pearson VUE enables people to grow professionally, to contribute to their communities, and to drive positive change.

We’ve been the global leader in computerbased testing technology for high-stakes professional organizations since 1994.

From online practice tests to proctored exams that require the industry’s most secure testing environments, we deliver 15 million exams in more than 20,000 test centers across 180 countries every year—that’s an exam every 2.1 seconds!

A cutting-edge innovator in the local Minnesota EdTech community, as well as a global organization with over 4,500 employees, we celebrated an important milestone in 2019—our 25th year in the assessment industry.

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A lot has changed in our industry during the past quarter-century, and we are committed to creating innovative test technologies and solutions that push the boundaries to keep pace with ever-evolving technologies. By staying on the cutting edge, we’re ensuring that industries around the world can maintain the integrity of the professions that matter most, while also delivering exams through technologies that drive growth and empower individuals.

Innovation Story In a fast-paced world where high-stakes exams validate qualifications and skills for professionals who protect the safety and well-being of our communities, we’ve led our industry through many technological disruptions.

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FAST FACTS: Date Incorporated: 1994 Employees: 4,500

Most recently, the advent of online proctoring has transformed our sector, redefining when and where a candidate can test without jeopardizing the perceived security of the exam and testing process. With our OnVUE platform, we’re reimagining testing for the next generation.

Innovation Enabler Story As the global assessments industry evolves to meet the changing expectations of those who study for high-stakes exams and pursue new certifications or licenses, we’re investing in new technologies that put reliability and accessibility at the forefront.

Our clients represent a broad range of market sectors which are responsible for ensuring the best professionals within their industry are

confirmed. To meet this growing and diverse need, we offer a wide array of innovative test modalities. Online proctoring allows candidates to test from the most remote parts of the world, and our observational and performancebased testing allow customers to create test environments that simulate real-world scenarios, further enhancing the accuracy of skills measurement.

Modular testing and micro-credentials appeal to the busy lifestyles of today. We’re also investing in artificial intelligence (AI). Our AI algorithms can deliver fast and accurate exam scores, identify potential fraud, and assess a person’s speech or writing with lightning speed.

The convenience, quality, and reliability of our technology is what defines us.

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CHAPTER 16

FUNDERS, ACCELERATORS & INCUBATORS 2 2 1

“When you learn, teach.

When you get, give.”

—MAYA ANGELOU

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CHANGING THE TRAJECTORY OF INVESTING BY SUPPORTING WOMEN-LED COMPANIES.

Sofia Fund managing partners Lisa Crump, Joy Lindsay, Cathy Connett, and Dee Thibodeau

started investing 20 years ago, the number of women-owned companies in the US has grown by 114%. Today, women-owned businesses in the US generate $1.8 trillion in revenues per year. Despite these powerful statistics, women-owned early stage companies receive only 7% of venture funding.

Sofia Fund is one of the longest-running angel investment groups focused exclusively on funding women-owned and women-led startups. Its genesis in 1998 was to bring more funding to women entrepreneurs and more women into investing.

Sofia partners hail from Minnesota’s most successful corporations and startups, and make many investments in their own backyard.

Sofia Fund partners play active roles in growing Sofia Fund portfolio businesses, leveraging their deep expertise and broad networks to help women entrepreneurs achieve success. Sofia, the fund’s namesake, is a Greek goddess who symbolizes the wisdom, resources, and knowledge— in addition to funding—that Sofia Fund provides to its portfolio companies to achieve the ultimate success—a profitable outcome for women leaders and their investors.

Sofia Fund is changing the trajectory of investing to achieve parity for women to release their tremendous financial opportunity and economic contributions. Women-led startups generate 20% more revenue with 50% less investment than other companies. Private tech companies led by women, a focus for Sofia Fund, achieve 35% higher ROI. Since Sofia Fund 223

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Vixar develops VCSEL (vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser) devices and subassemblies for the consumer, industrial and medical industries.

Sofia Fund portfolio company Kidizen is a peerto-peer marketplace to share, shop, and sell kids’ clothes, shoes, accessories, and more.

Sofia Fund invested in Tactile Medical, which helps people suffering from chronic diseases live better and care for themselves at home.

Sofia Fund invests in exceptional women-led companies—those with strong leaders and highly compelling business models that are scalable and use technology to solve real problems and tap into major market needs. The managing partners use a rigorous process for selecting high-growth opportunities and then operate as a cross between individual angel investors and venture capitalists. With this model, Sofia Fund companies’ returns have been above market averages. To date, Sofia Fund’s professional women investors have invested over $13 million in more than 70 companies.

Abilitech is the 2019 winningest startup in Minnesota, recognized by the Minnesota High Tech Association with a TEKNE award in the MedTech category and as the grand-prize winner and winner in the women-led category in the Minnesota Cup program, the largest startup competition in the country.

Sofia Fund investments average $100,000–$500,000 per company in $500,000–$2 million rounds of equity in companies exiting within 3-5 years. The Fund invests in tech-enabled companies in the information technology (IT), business products and services, and health and wellness sectors.

Successful exits Partner Laura McCoolidge represents Sofia Fund in from the Sofia Fund the Kansas City region. current portfolio include these Minnesota companies: laser company Vixar, acquired by German-based Osram; microbiome company Rebiotix, acquired by Swissbased Ferring Holding; and Tactile Medical Systems, a company originally founded to assist women dealing with lymphedema, that had a successful IPO.

Sofia Fund portfolio companies have earned strong reputations for growth and long-term success and include Coolibar, Tactile Medical Systems, Rebiotix, and Vixar. From its second fund of $5.5 million, Sofia has invested in 10 companies to date with a current portfolio that includes Kidizen, a Minnesota-based online resale marketplace for children’s clothing; Landit, an online platform for women’s development; and Kenzen, which makes a wearable device to track body heat. Portfolio companies also include CogRX, Oculogica, and JoyLux, all winners of the Angel Capital Association’s Luis Villalobos Award for ingenuity and innovation.

For frequent commentary on angel investing and to track the companies Sofia Fund invests in, visit SofiaFund.com.

Recent investments by the Fund include Knowledge to Practice (K2P), which creates online learning for physicians; Storm Sensor, a technology provider for managing stormwater; and Abilitech, a medtech company that develops assistive devices for people with neuromuscular challenges.

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DRIVEN TO DISCOVER LIFE-CHANGING INVENTIONS University of Minnesota (UMN) is a top ten public research university, with nearly $1 billion in research performed annually. Conducting research is fundamental to the University’s mission and is a key driver of innovation and economic growth in the state.

The University is Driven to Discover, as evidenced by the depth and breadth of its research, including inquiry into agriculture, medicine, chemistry and material sciences, engineering, and genetics/genomics work across the life sciences. The University’s world-class faculty is known for life-changing inventions such as the pacemaker, the retractable seat belt, the HIV drug Ziagen, cancer therapies, green chemistry innovations, big data microbiome analysis, the Honeycrisp apple, precision technologies that advance agricultural production, and teacher tools that can unobtrusively measure student progress.

The Technology Commercialization group facilitates the transfer of University inventions to licensee companies for the development of new products and services that benefit the public good, foster economic growth, and generate revenue to support the University’s mission. With Technology Commercialization’s help, the University has seen significant growth in the number of new technology licenses, research agreements, and invention disclosures.

UMN-developed cold hardy grapes, including the Itasca variety (pictured), have been integral to the growth of the $400+ million wine industry in the northern US. Photo: UMN, David L. Hansen.

Dr. Jerrold Vitek outlines recent research into deep brain stimulation at a UMN neuromodulation showcase in 2018. The University of Minnesota is a leader in neuroscience and imaging research focused on understanding and treatment of serious neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s Disease. Photo: UMN.

900+ ACTIVE PATENTS

1,800+ CURRENT LICENSES*

*Avg 210+ per yr

Ranked 4th IN THE US IN LICENSE DEALS*

UMN startup Vascudyne is developing implantable heart valves and arteries made of living tissue that can match a patient’s cardiovascular structure and can “heal” themselves to last longer inside the body. Photo: UMN Tranquillo Lab.

*Milken Institute, 2017

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In addition, more than 150 startup companies have been launched based on University research since 2006, and eight UMN startups have been acquired or gone public over two years, reflecting the market’s strong appetite for the University of Minnesota ideas and breakthroughs.

UMN Technology Commercialization stands out for its experienced staff and businessfriendly approaches that connect licensees to new ideas and inventions. It is increasingly recognized in the media and in the community for its essential role in Minnesota’s vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem. Veteran technology-licensing professionals collaborate with UMN faculty to protect and patent their intellectual property, and through the Technology Commercialization’s Venture Center, provide a range of support services for entrepreneurial researchers interested in forming startup companies.

The Technology Commercialization team builds positive relationships with the private sector, deepening the University’s public impact and channeling entrepreneurialism into academia.

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streamlines agreements between businesses and the University, improving access to University-developed technology while reducing the risk and costs associated with exclusively licensing intellectual property and sponsoring lab and clinical research. The MN-IP program has been recognized as an industry leader in contracting, providing options to suit each company’s needs. The University has signed more than 500 MN-IP research agreements with industry.

“The Technology Commercialization team advocates for University researchers and their technology and connects them with industry partners.

One thing I appreciated most was their responsiveness and efficient communications with our team. The overall interactions were excellent and we look forward to our continued partnerships.”

Brea Hutchcraft-May, Alliance ManagerUniversity Relations, Bayer Crop Science

The team is committed to making collaboration between companies and university researchers as easy and risk-free as possible. Its Minnesota Innovation Partnerships program, or MN-IP,

UMN’s 150+ startup companies reflect the broad strengths of the University of Minnesota

University of Minnesota Technology Commercialization 280 McNamara Alumni Center 200 Oak Street SE Minneapolis, MN 55455 +1-612-624-0550 UMNResearch

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University of Minnesota’s Technology Commercialization group. Photo: UMN.

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Great people creating great companies delivering great value for all

Equus Holdings (“Equus”) is a 100% employee-owned (ESOP) holding company with a diverse and growing portfolio of both control and noncontrol investments. Our mission is to drive growth and create long-term value for our shareholders. We are not a conventional private equity fund; we do not have limited partners, and we are completely self-funded.

Soon after, Juang renamed his company Equus Computer Systems of Minnesota, Inc. (ECS). Over the next fifteen years, ECS grew into a thriving business, providing custom solutions to Value Added Resellers (VARs) and Systems Integrators (SIs). With its focus on excellent service and custom solutions for even the smallest business needs, ECS found itself competing with tech giants such as Dell and Gateway—and winning.

“We’re not a traditional holding company,” says Jake Pomplun, the company’s Chief Marketing Officer. “We partner with organizations, and do one of two things. When they’re ready to relinquish control, we can either transform them in a way we think is best; otherwise, we do a minority ownership and allow them to do as they please. The bottom line is if we think we can drive value within that company, we will partner with them.”

Ever since this early success, Juang has continued to look for new opportunities to innovate and expand. In the early 2000s, he noticed an industry need for better field services and tracking software and set the Equus team to work on developing this technology.

In 2005, Equus created RazorSync software, a powerful yet easy-to-use desktop and mobile app that streamlined business operations for field service companies. The software allowed clients to manage customers and employees—all from a smartphone or computer. RazorSync is now an award-winning program that increases productivity and profits for customers worldwide.

Computer engineer Andy Juang founded Pony Computer, the precursor to Equus Holdings, in 1989 with five employees and $30,000 of his own money. Juang had recognized a need for custom-made computer systems for businesses across the country, and by year’s end, Pony had done $3 million in sales.

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In 2007, two years after creating RazorSync, Juang began thinking about the future of his business and the security of the people who had helped him build it. With the support of his employees, he sold Equus Computer Systems to an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP)—creating the new Equus Holdings of Minnesota, a 100% employee-owned company.

In 2019, Equus Holdings deepened its Minnesota roots and purchased a former General Mills facility in Golden Valley, Minnesota, for their new world headquarters. This new location provides Equus with the space to focus on increasing technology incubation, acquisitions, and global industry leadership.

After 1,000 hours of service in a calendar year, every Equus employee would automatically be enrolled in the ownership plan. In addition to granting employees agency over the direction and performance of the business, the ESOP would offer annual stock dividends as well as generous retirement benefits in the form of company stock and cash contributions.

What started as the dream of one computer engineer is now an expansive, employee-owned company holding the majority equity of four thriving businesses. Equus Compute Solutions, Rimage, Healthy Healing, and Servers Direct have flourished under the control of Equus Holdings Company—a product of great people creating great companies, delivering great value for all.

Equus Holdings immediately began efforts to develop a diversified portfolio by investing in promising companies. The holdings model, which allowed acquired businesses to keep their personnel and preserve their culture, offered an appealing option for business owners looking to sell their companies. The result would give owners liquidity while protecting their employees and preserving customer relationships.

In 2014, Equus Holdings began its expansion. It acquired the Rimage Corporation, a technology company with over 40 years of proven industry leadership. Rimage continues to design and launch new patented technology, offering customers the opportunity to build on their existing investments.

Despite its tech origins, in 2017 Equus’s growth-centered investment criteria led it to acquire Healthy Healing, a 40-year-old supplement brand with robust markets. Equus Holdings backed Healthy Healing’s strong heritage with its global supply chain capability and expertise in Asian markets. Additionally, Equus’s marketing professionals digitally transformed Crystal Star’s brand to allow for faster expansion and market relevance in the global supplements industry.

Private Company Incorporated: 1991

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SKYROCKETING ADVANCEMENT WITHIN THE REGION BETA, a 501(c)(3), is a leader within Minnesota’s vibrant startup ecosystem, having created Twin Cities Startup Week, founded in 2014, and the BETA Cohort, a twice-yearly series of programs designed to provide the education and leadership skills necessary for first-time business founders to accelerate their startups.

The Twin Cities startup community has demonstrated incredible growth in recent years and is emerging as industry leaders in multiple verticals, on an international scale. BETA is proud to have contributed to this growth and to see the skyrocketing advancements happening within the region.

BETA develops Minnesota’s next generation of community leaders by inspiring and educating first-time entrepreneurs of scalable businesses so that these startups can grow to become our nation’s next Fortune 500s.

The organization operates two main entities: Twin Cities Startup Week (TCSW) and the BETA Cohort. Since its founding in 2013, BETA Cohort has served over 300 budding entrepreneurs from diverse ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds. In that time, BETA alumni have created 1,204 jobs, raised $358 million, and reinvested countless resources into their communities.

The Cohort is a series of programs where teams of developing entrepreneurs work and grow together, similar to a coding school, but for business leaders. Each step in the Cohort program is designed to provide entrepreneurs with the education, resources, and relationships needed to accelerate the growth of their business—an impact which is measured by the increase in each startup’s staff, revenue, and funding raised.

The Cohort experience includes Showcase, a competition-style event in which startups demonstrate their product to the general public; Operators, where first-time business founders learn from experienced entrepreneurs; Bridge, in which entrepreneurs and corporate leads explore paid pilots; and Backers, where entrepreneurs pitch to investors. The latest component of the BETA Cohort programming is Press, which teaches entrepreneurs how to pitch their stories to local and national media.

In 2014, BETA reached out to fellow startup community leaders to propose what became Twin Cities Startup Week. The founders of TCSW recognized that the burgeoning startup ecosystem needed increased awareness from the general public to create an environment that actively inspires and invests in entrepreneurs. The first TCSW boasted 15 events

that attracted about 50 people. Since 2014, the TCSW team has built out the systems and infrastructure needed to help the week grow and evolve into the second-largest Startup Week in the US, with over 200 events and 15,000+ registered attendees in 2019.

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Photo credit: Mari Larsen

As TCSW has grown so too has its impact on the local economy. Countless new hires have come from the various student- and minority-­focused job fairs that occur each year, and more than 50 highly­skilled professionals have found work in Minnesota via the TCSW Fly­in Program. Research from the Itasca Group suggests that the week produces $50­-150 million in direct economic impact.

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University Enterprise Labs (UEL)—home to innovators in Healthcare, MedTech, and Life Sciences in Minnesota’s startup community.

“We need to look at the sustainability of entrepreneurship ecosystems, not just at their growth. It’s vital to create an environment with all stakeholders in which a company can start, grow, learn and invest back into the ecosystem.”

—Diane Rucker, Executive Director University Enterprise Laboratories

MISSION: To support early-stage ventures to growth and commercial success through connections, services, and world-class laboratory facilities in Minnesota’s entrepreneurship ecosystem

Lab space is hard to find, especially in a thriving urban area like the Twin Cities.

University Enterprise Labs, or UEL, meets a critical need for startups in Minnesota. UEL is an incubator for startups, and is home to 45 growth companies, including industry spinouts, ventures based on university research, and independent entrepreneurs.

Fifteen years ago, researchers were struggling to find affordable and accessible spaces to commercialize technology. Founded in 2004, UEL is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, with a mission to support early-stage companies in life sciences. UEL’s location is ideal—strategically positioned on the border of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, near public transit and close to the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus. UEL is part of the Towerside Innovation District—a place to live, work, and learn.

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“accelerating the development and availability of transformative technologies and approaches to protect Americans from health security threats. This unique public-private initiative enlists teams throughout the nation to identify promising solutions wherever innovation is happening.”

Minnesota is proud to be recognized as a leader in healthcare, bioscience, and medical devices.

And UEL is uniquely positioned to support innovators in these fields to start, grow, and thrive.

VISION: To shape and support Minnesota’s next generation of life sciences companies.

UEL has a customizable, state-of-the-art location, with 33 full-size wet labs, dry labs, conference, and office space in a 144,000square-foot facility. A new addition opened in May 2019 to meet the increased demand that comes with a fast-growing startup community.

With a critical mass of innovators, some crazy things start to happen. Some of our favorites include the annual UEL Barbecue and Showcase (which features local entrepreneurs and attracts over a thousand attendees) and a Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream Social.

But as any innovator knows, it’s not just about the space. UEL offers supportive programming and a connected network for any startup, early-stage and growth company operating in the fields of Life Science, Biotech, Agriculture, Healthcare, MedTech / Medical Device, and Analytics. UEL is actively engaged in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Minnesota, and hosts events in partnership with Twin Cities Startup Week, Forge North, Medical Alley Association, and many others.

In 2019, UEL was selected to be one of thirteen strategic accelerators in the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA/DRIVe) network. This approach to facing the country’s biggest national health security and biotech threats provides a unique access to national exposure and funding for our local healthcare and biotech innovators. DRIVe (Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures) is charged with: 232

Highlights: • Incubator/Accelerator Services: including wet and dry labs, secured private quarters, customized assistance with SBIR/STTR funding request preparation, educational seminars, networking events and online resources • On-Site Business Services: office services, high-speed internet, conference spaces, secured package receiving, loading dock for shipping and receiving • Event Center Conference Space: space for up to 100 attendees (conference center) • University of Minnesota Genomics Center: extends on-site genomic technologies and services to UEL companies and access to University of Minnesota researchers and clinicians

University Enterprise Laboratories +1-651-641-2804 startup@uelmn.org UEL_MN university-enterprise-laboratories A non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, established in 2004, UEL is a connector and active contributor to the Minneapolis-St. Paul innovation ecosystem.

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CHAPTER 17

BIG DATA & ANALYTICS

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“At Evolving Solutions, we work with organizations of all sizes, no matter where they are in their hybrid-multicloud cloud journey.

We take a client-centric approach to ensure that an organization’s technology strategy aligns with its business objectives.

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. But with the flexibility and offerings now available in the market, it’s easier than ever to find the perfect solution for your organization.”

—BO GEBBIE, VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES, SERVICES, & MARKETING, EVOLVING SOLUTIONS

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WE ARE PEOPLE SIMPLIFYING TECHNOLOGY. OUR PASSION IS CREATING ENDURING RELATIONSHIPS.

New hires in 3Q19 Jaime Gmach, our CEO and president, co-founded Evolving Solutions almost 25 years ago. He will tell you, “The company was founded with the purpose of creating enduring relationships with its clients.” Evolving Solutions was created to be a different type of technology partner.

Evolving Solutions is a technology solutions provider that helps clients modernize and automate their mission-critical infrastructure to support digital transformation. Our business is client-centric consulting and delivery of technical solutions to enable modern operations in the Hybrid Cloud.

We get to know where our clients are on in their technology transformation journey. We understand where they are today, to help get them to where they want to be tomorrow. We know every business is different. That’s why each of our clients receives a personalized experience from start to finish. Our entire team works hard to ensure that unique situations and goals are recognized and addressed.

We are headquartered in Minneapolis with a focus in the midwestern United States. We have deep partner relationships with IBM, HPE, NetApp, Nutanix, Microsoft, Red Hat, Cisco, AWS, and over 70 other vendors that help us deliver exceptional results to service our clients’ technology needs.

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Solution Architect Paul Manuel

In 2018, Evolving Solutions launched a new affiliated company, Keyva. Keyva is a services-driven organization focused on DevOps, Cloud Automation and Orchestration, Containers and custom IP development. Evolving Solutions and Keyva team together to offer an end-to-end experience for our clients.

Account Executives Doug Polen & Roxane Akradi We are people simplifying technology. Our passion is creating enduring relationships.

At Evolving Solutions, our dedication to our clients is second to none. At the heart of the company, it’s our service mentality that drives us to do anything and everything to ensure our client’s complete satisfaction, no matter the obstacles. Done right, every time is our motto. This sentiment isn’t just copywriting; we prove it. Whether it involves modern platforms with enterprise cloud strategies or mission-critical infrastructure, we promise a complete solution, crafted by the best consultants, to get the job done right—every time. We enable clients to develop a hybrid approach to drive innovation and simplicity in their digital transformations. We believe simplicity saves our clients time and money.

Jaime has instilled one of his true passions into the Evolving Solutions culture. We are incredibly proud to serve our community and incorporate a charitable component into events and client activities. Evolving Solutions participates in many philanthropic initiatives that provide technology, financial, and labor support to charitable organizations throughout the region. This give-back mentality drives the culture, and the team is encouraged to be involved in the organizations important to them.

Jaime Gmach, Founder & CEO

Together with the extended Evolving Solutions team, the company has gone through its own transformation. We are in growth mode and have increased our team by 22%. We are made up of an energetic team of highly skilled individuals, including enterprise architects, solution consultants and account executives who themselves are technical resources. The company implemented a new operating model in 2017 and is now a Traction company. We are moving forward with a clear mission, vision, and set of values.

Find out more about our service mentality and schedule a time to talk to one of our technology team members at evolvingsol.com.

Evolving Solutions 3989 County Road 116 Hamel, MN 55340 +1-800-294-4362

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Monitoring made easy

Packet Power is an IoT company that develops and manufactures wireless power and environmental monitors and associated cloud-based data services. By focusing on products that are easy to install and manage, we have become the leading wireless monitoring platform for data centers and other critical facilities.

Over 100,000 monitoring devices deployed 100 million data points analyzed every hour Customers in over 30 countries across 6 continents Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where our products are made

Packet Power’s mission is to make it easy and affordable to capture power and environmental information everywhere it is of value.

Our wireless technology was designed specifically for monitoring and is different than WiFi or Zigbee. Our unique protocol allows for a complete separation of the wireless monitoring network from the wired data network. It has been proven worldwide in critical facilities ranging from data centers to universities and sports stadiums.

Our wireless monitors are secure and scalable with self-configuring and self-optimizing technology that eliminates data communications wiring and simplifies network management. No other solution installs faster or is easier to manage.

In order to make monitoring truly easy, Packet Power developed a full IoT technology stack including firmware, hardware, wireless network, and application software. We deliver a lower total cost of ownership and a faster time to business value.

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QUESTIONS WE HELP ANSWER • • • • • • • •

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WIRELESS

RESULTS WE HELP DELIVER

When will my facility run out of power?

How much did efficiency improvements change my energy usage?

How can I reduce peak energy usage?

How can I minimize cooling costs?

Which tenants are using the most energy?

Did the generator turn on when the power went off?

How is my energy usage changing across time?

How does energy usage compare across facilities?

• • • • • •

Allocate energy costs to users in data centers Reduce energy usage by 48% in data closets Qualify for and retain energy-efficiency rebates Utilize generators during peak load periods to cut energy costs by 50% Lower energy costs by $200,000 per year at a major university Identify and eliminate phantom loads

Packet Power +1-877-560-8770 PacketPower Packet-Power

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A local, high-tech consulting firm providing efficient, rapid delivery of best-in-class IT services Together, these qualities set MANIFEST Technology apart:

MISSION

We offer talent for consulting/staffing, contract-to-hire, and direct hire needs.

Custom Solutions—our services are offered in package and custom environments and across various technology platforms.

Highly experienced Management and past INC500 Information Technology Entrepreneurs.

Certified Veteran-Owned Business that gives back to the community!

To MANIFEST quality innovative solutions through passion and trust that inspire genuine partnerships.

We are a local Information Technology consulting and staffing firm.

Our management team are very experienced executives who know the Technology Industry and are specifically hired to drive what sets us apart: RESULTS. We specialize in assisting our client’s needs through utilization of technology with a keen focus on providing EFFICIENT, RAPID DELIVERY OF BEST-IN-CLASS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CONSULTING AND STAFFING SERVICES.

Techserve Alliance Member—a unique nationwide collaboration of IT & engineering staffing and solutions firms dedicated to advancing excellence and ethics within the industry.

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A technology business with a global reach.

Delivering quality candidates quickly on a national scale: • Project Management/Business Analysis • Custom Solutions/Systems Integration • Architecture/Applications Development • Certified Salesforce Consulting Partner

Find us on

• ERP Systems/SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, Infor

Consulting for Business and IT

MANIFESTTechnology.net

MANIFEST Technology provides: Assessments and recommendations to improve business operations/ strategy where technology can be utilized to better meet the business needs including: from movement of data to custom development, data and systems integration for a more seamless environment, competitive advantage, support and customization of Salesforce environments including establishing Best Practices, IT for Internet strategy and e-Business, and providing Information Technology resources.

2016 & 2017 & 2018 recipient of the TechServe Alliance Excellence Award demonstrating industry leadership, growth, stability, and quality.

A dedicated Offshore Delivery/Recruiting Arm which is capable of rapid LOCAL and NATIONAL Talent Delivery.

Onshore Technical Delivery Manager who screens our candidates for the right technical fit.

Account Management Methodology ensuring a QUALITY service— thorough candidate vetting with an emphasis on soft skills and Emotional Intelligence.

Minnesota Midwest CULTURE and values—we do our business based on TRUST! Local MN Salesforce Partner—the leading customer service platform!

John Nesser, CEO

MANIFEST Technology’s services are offered in both ERP package and custom environments and across various technology platforms.

Specialties include Architecture, Project Management, QA, Applications Development (Java and .Net), Web Applications, eBusiness, Mobile Applications, and Business, Systems, and Data Analysis We want to EARN your business!!

Local MN Coveo Partner—a leader in predictive search technologies!

MANIFEST Technology info@MANIFESTtechnology.net 2095 Daniels Street, Suite 423 Long Lake, MN 55356 240

+1-612-412-3086 MANIFEST-technology

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SOLVING CUSTOMER PROBLEMS AN INNOVATION AT A TIME

Thomson Reuters is one of the world’s most trusted provider of answers, helping professionals working in law, tax, compliance and government make decisions and run better businesses and organizations. Professionals worldwide turn to Thomson Reuters for news, information and tools to help them work more efficiently and serve their clients more transparently.

“Thomson Reuters has been deeply committed to using state-of-the-art technologies to solve real problems and has used artificial intelligence– based technologies in increasing sophistication for more than 25 years,” explained Rick King, Managing Director. “Our customers are judges, lawyers, business leaders, tax advisors and government professionals.

Their work is complicated and critically important to our society. They’ve signed up for the work. They just want us to help them do it faster and better.”

Based in Eagan, Thomson Reuters has a longstanding tradition of innovation, addressing the problems inherent in legal research since 1872, when West Publishing was founded. More recently, since the early 1990s, the company has implemented artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning into its information-based products. Today the business is an industry leader in the application of AI-based products.

The team driving the company’s AI initiatives designs and delivers comprehensive, accurate and trusted products to meet the changing needs of customers. The business sees AI as having three key ingredients: data, subject matter expertise, and technology.

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Data, or content, is what customers are coming to the product to receive— and the business serves customers in data-driven industries, including the law. Thomson Reuters supports legal professionals who need to research, analyze and interpret the millions of data points and documents within the U.S. judicial system, a tapestry of interrelated statutes, regulations, case law and other primary law sources.

Subject matter expertise is crucial because it ensures that Thomson Reuters is solving the right problems, and that the approach captures the nuances of the domain. Subject matter experts drive the generation of training data and validate the performance of machine-learning algorithms. Equally important, subject matter experts play a critical role in error analysis; they help scientists and engineers understand the domain and data attributes that are responsible for errors, which drives subsequent iterations of algorithm-tuning and development.

Technology drives solution design and development. For most Thomson Reuters applications, developing a solution is more than simply applying an algorithm to a problem or a data set. It often requires designing robust and complex solution architectures that deliver the target functionality at scale.

solvers dedicated to advancing knowledge work with AI and machine learning. At Thomson Reuters they can build a career without boundaries, do work that matters and have flexibility to pursue passions wherever it leads. Every day employees bring their ambition to work to make a difference.

Thomson Reuters operates at the intersection of these three ingredients.

Its data is second to none; its subject matter experts have thousands of years of collective experience in their respective domains; and its scientists and engineers are highly skilled and have been developing AIpowered applications for more than 25 years.

United States: +1-646-223-4000 Canada: +1-416-687-7500 United Kingdom: +44 (0) 20-7250-1122 thomsonreuters thomson-reuters

The business’s talented team of scientists, engineers, designers and developers come from diverse backgrounds. They are creative problem-

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FAST FACT: Date Incorporated: July 31, 2014

CREATING THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF CHEMICAL ANALYSIS ARC’s award-winning products have applications in health, energy, and chemicals with a core focus in the analysis of organic chemicals. ARC has spearheaded catalytic microreactor technology utilizing the latest in metal 3D printing to disrupt chromatography markets. Our first product, the Polyarc®, improves workflow, decreases waste, and increases worker safety in the $7 billion global gas-chromatography market. New products include improved detectors and detector add-ons for the analysis of biopharmaceutics, foods and carbohydrates, polymers, fuels, and more.

ARC products are prevalent in laboratories across the world at Fortune 100 companies including ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, DuPont, 3M, and more.

ARC is unique in the space of chemical analysis due to our company’s expertise in catalysis and reactor design, which we pair with 3D printing to create products that are first-of-their-kind. The commonality between all of our products is that they’ve been designed with the goal of solving scientists’ problems and making their analyses simpler.

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feedback and developing a product that’s more robust and safer to use.

Our flagship product, the Polyarc system, is an innovation that adds to 60-year-old technology to make chemical analysis easier and safer across industries like biofuels, pharmaceuticals, flavor and fragrance, chemicals, and more.

We’ve continued to build upon the success of the Polyarc by releasing additional products.

These include the Jetanizer, which streamlines and miniaturizes existing technology by over tenfold, simplifying analyses that are essential for air monitoring and chemical production.

ARC has received funding from the Partnership for Clean Competition to create a new reactor to aid in anti-doping testing and applications for clean sport and has also secured a partnership with NASA sub-contractor KBRWyle to develop a microreactor for water testing in space. We’ve also been innovating on existing technologies, like the O-FID, by listening to customer

Finally, we’re extremely excited about our next product launch, which is revolutionizing the way scientists perform liquid chromatography.

The product, the Solvere™, has the potential to positively impact the speed of new drug development and lead to cleaner and more advanced pharmaceuticals. This is a product that scientists in industry have been asking for, due to deficiencies with existing technology.

ARC is made up of an amazing team who, at the core, all have a passion for innovation.

The company was founded by Andrew Jones, a chemical engineer, and Brad Cleveland, a seasoned Minnesota entrepreneur, who met through a mentorship program at the University of Minnesota. Brad’s business acumen paired with Andrew’s technical aptitude laid the groundwork for the success that ARC has experienced. As the company grew, team members were brought on in sales/ marketing, operations, and R&D capacities.

The qualifications and unique experiences of ARC’s team members help drive the company’s success, from receiving NSF grant funding 244

for novel R&D projects to securing business relationships with the biggest OEMs in the industry.

Future Plans.

Since ARC’s founding, the team has doubled in size and continues to grow as we expand our R&D, operations, and sales teams. As ARC grows, we’re excited to make headways in the fields of healthcare and energy by continuing to create products that will change peoples’ lives and improve human health.

Activated Research Company contact@activatedresearch.com +1-612-787-2721 activated-research-company ActivatedLLC

activatedresearch.com

CHAPTER 18

SAFETY & SECURITY

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“Culture creation is a catalyst for raising performance.”

—DAVID KENSINGER, CEO, TOWER SOLUTIONS

SOLUTIONS

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HOW TO SPOT A TOWER SOLUTIONS TOWER

Formed in 1999, Tower Solutions delivered its first trailered Large Tower Series (LTS) PTM-100 model tower in 2001. That tower is now owned and still utilized by Verizon during events to add additional cellphone lines. This first model has gone on to be a household name in several applications like the US Air Force Predator Program. Later, a similar but more compact version was developed as the PTM-130, which allows transport in a C-130 cargo plane.

If you see a portable tower that can ...

Take a 3,600-lb., 10-foot-diameter wind turbine and raise it up to 80 feet in less than 5 minutes, Hold a large device at 80 feet in the air during a hurricane without being tied to the ground, Be fully deployed (or removed) at a site in 15–20 minutes

In 2017, the heavy duty and unshakeable PTX-100 large tower was introduced, which can survive over 100 mph winds. Utilizing combinations of generators solar or fuel cells to recharge batteries, and huge outrigger supports that have guy wires attached, this “Green” tower can be installed at a site in 2 hours and later removed with almost no impact on the environment.

... that can ONLY could be a Tower Solutions tower!

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Facilitates line of sight communications Allows the payload to be lowered for safe repair or maintenance, and returned to required height Fine tuning adjustment available on the height WindStableTM—Ability for the tower to automatically monitor environmental conditions, anticipate dangerous winds, lower the tower to a safe height, and return the tower to operating height when safe winds resume. The system also can notify an operator or central control site of the incident.

In 2020, Tower Solutions is going to new heights with its new heavy duty towers which extend to up to 120 feet, rivaling the performance of some fixed tower installations.

TowerTalkTM—Tower communications between users of single or multiple towers that offer the ability to:

With the LTS towers outperforming the competition, the small tower series (STS) was introduced, offering small to medium-sized vehiclemounted, automatic self-leveling, and payload protection, as well as multiple support options.

The agile STS-6 which fits well on an ATV, deploys up to 150 lbs, and extends to 20 feet

Remotely operate a tower Share tower health information and relay back to a central control site Synchronize towers to raise and lower together

Also offered are means for easily loading of a payload on top of a tower, power-management systems and sources, cable management, electronics enclosures, workplace and operational safety, and advanced trailering features. Finally, Tower Solutions products are highly adaptable for specialized use and customer specific needs. Located in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, Tower Solutions’ headquarters is 10 minutes from the MSP International Airport at the address below.

The robust and versatile STS-12, is designed for a pickup bed, holds up to 500 lbs and deploys up to 33 feet Tower Solutions’ unique and patented tower module features three sides of the tower, separately stowed on square spools. The tower assembles itself as it deploys upward and disassembles itself when it comes down. A heavy-duty hooking system ties the sides of the towers together during deployment and creates a near-contiguous, highly rigid tower that offers minimal movement in windy environments.

Raising Performance With the Push of a Button Tower Solutions, LLC 2401 Pilot Knob Road, Suite 124 Mendota Heights, MN 55120

A sophisticated control system takes advantage of the unique qualities of the tower module provides standard and optional features, such as:

Production Facility: 1150 Holstein Drive NE Pine City, MN 55063

Simple UP/DOWN two-button controls Sophisticated sensor-operator interface that monitors & reports tower operational status

Contact Tower Solutions by way of: sales@towersolutionsinc.com

Ability to stop the tower at any height with high accuracy and repeatability

towersolutionsinc.com

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FIXING A BROKEN INFORMATION SECURITY INDUSTRY

FRSecure is an information security–consulting firm based in Minnetonka, MN. Recognizing that the information security industry is broken, FRSecure has developed tools, services, and teams to help companies of all sizes identify and manage their most critical assets and risks through education and partnership.

We have an ambitious mission at FRSecure: fix the broken information security industry. There are many broken aspects of the way businesses and regulatory industries handle information security across the globe, but most of the problems stem from the lack of a common language among us. As businesses, we all have our own unique ways of doing and talking about information security, and we have our own ideas about the “right” way to do things. Often, we don’t even use the same terminology.

If you were to ask seven security professionals what the definition of security risk is, you would get ten different answers. And the regulatory industries have their own definitions to add to the mix. Many of us are expected to adhere to different regulations, causing further disconnect among industry professionals.

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So, FRSecure developed a translation.

Many organizations want or need to conduct annual risk assessments.

These “surveys” result in a rating that helps the organization get an understanding of where they’re strong and where they have the most room for improvement. Typically, the assessment is followed by a presentation to a leadership group (read: board of directors). Leadership teams are usually business-minded, not security-minded. They want to know what the team is doing, where they’re trying to go, when and how they need to get there, and, of course, how much it’s going to cost.

Many risk assessments fail to provide clear results that can be easily communicated to leadership teams. Knowing this, we decided to speak about security in terms that business-minded people will understand, so we mirrored our risk assessment scoring methodology to the standard personal credit score scale (while also mapping the questions to industry regulations).

Using the results of our risk assessment, companies can easily communicate that, “We have a 450 today. Our goal is to get over 650 in the next two years. We’ll do [actions] to get there, and it will cost us $[X].”

Suddenly, the security team and executives understand each other, and they have recommended remediation items to get where they need to be. +1-888-676-8657 frsecure frsecure-llc

FRSecure has partnered with SecurityStudio to put this methodology, questionnaire, and scoring into a platform that is now free to the general public. By doing so, we can eliminate some of the barriers that exist and currently deter companies from measuring and improving their information security—ultimately fixing this broken industry, one step wwat a time.

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PRODUCT INNOVATIONS & RETAIL

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“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”

—ANDY WARHOL

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OGYUP GOGYUP

Personalized reading instruction that makes workplace documents accessible and effective.

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G P YUP The freely available GogyUp Reader provides “in-the-moment,” personalized reading instruction for the text documents adults need to understand—on mobile devices and the web.

GogyUp expands employee opportunity and reduces employer risk by solving two interrelated problems: the lack of access to the basic literacy instruction 1 in 6 US adults need and the chronic labor shortage experienced across industries.

GogyUp’s Workplace Literacy System™ converts an employer’s existing text documents into interactive job aides for all employees to understand while also providing employers with a new window into how to make their own documentation more accessible and effective.

GogyUp is the first literacy instructional system to be built that explicitly addresses the instructional needs of adults, the logistical challenges presented to working adults seeking to expand their academic skills, and what employers need to ensure all workers know how to work safely and efficiently.

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A reciprocal benefit framework and customer flexibility form the basis of our product design and business model. GogyUp’s ability to add just-intime, personalized instruction to any text provides employers with a fast and highly cost-effective ability to instruct their employees with marginal literacy or English proficiency.

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OGYUP OGYUP Employer subscriptions provide sustainable revenue for supporting and continuously develop the free GogyUp Reader’s and scale instruction to teach 36 million adults in the US.

A large “public” user base provides the necessary data to update our deep learning model, benefiting both our public users and our subscription service customers.

GogyUp’s four co-founders bring a unique blend of management and domain knowledge in pedagogy, data science, mobile development, and DevOps. More importantly, our personalities and shared values balance each other’s strengths and allows us to openly question each other’s assumptions to avoid confirmation bias.

David Radcliffe, PhD; Engineering and Data Science: David’s primary roles include the development of GogyUp’s content and reporting systems as well as the machine learning that informs GogyUp’s instruction.

health clinics in their facilities. She brings a vast project management background and broad expertise in marketing programs to underserved communities.

Chris Koranda, Design and Engineering: Chris brings 15 years of experience developing corporate infrastructure to ensure our products scale and efficiently work together.

GogyUp is not a “use-case” or industry agnostic solution. Through a partnership with the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health and School of Medicine, we plan to study how GogyUp impacts health disparities through patient education, specifically type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Brian Lukis, Design and Engineering: Brian brings over 20 years of DevOps experience, product design and development. Brian contributes not only his programming and product development experience to the team but a laser focus on what needs to be done next to reach an objective.

Prior to GogyUp, Brian and Chris developed and designed the initial process-critical systems and then led the teams to scale those systems and enable Proto Labs to grow from an eight-person startup to a global company with over 1,200 employees and $300 million in annual revenue.

GogyUp 825 Washington Ave SE, Suite 220 Minneapolis, MN 55414 +1-612-460-5358 gogyup

Ned Zimmerman-Bence, MEd: CEO, Operations, Sales: Ned’s 25 years in education spans many fields. He has worked at the state and national level to implement Open Educational Resources, taught severely autistic adolescents, launched an arts-based elementary school, and led a teacherdeveloped online high school from startup phase to national accreditation.

gogyup.com

Jodi Eiesland, MPH: Jodi has alternated between studying social determinants of health and working with large corporations to implement

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Retraining the brain to choose healthy soothing strategies For more than 25 years, Aneela Idnani pulled out her hair as a coping mechanism for anxiety. Since age 12, she hid this behavior out of shame and fear of judgment. After Aneela shared her secret struggle with trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder), she worked with her husband, Sameer Kumar, and two technologist friends, Kirk Klobe and John Pritchard, PhD, to build a smart bracelet, Keen, to bring awareness to the trance-like behavior.

Today, Keen’s parent company, HabitAware, is a mental-health startup serving those with body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs). Thanks to Keen, 20 million Americans with BFRBs can find alternative soothing mechanisms for stress and anxiety.

Hair-pulling disorder (trichotillomania) and other Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRBs), like compulsive skin picking (dermatillomania) and excessive nail biting (onychophagia), are so trance-like that one cannot “just stop.” Unavoidable and subconscious triggers, including stress, boredom, exhaustion or anxiety, lead to these automatic behaviors that result in physical defects, including baldness, skin infections, and lesions. BFRBs can severely impair social, physical and mental well-being.

Shame, guilt and fear of judgment keep people from talking about their suffering, and as a result, BFRBs are very common (1 in 20 Americans), yet extremely misunderstood.

Photo credit: Priscilla DuPreez / Mari Larsen With the power of “Keen” awareness, you can retrain your brain and get your life back!

People with BFRBs are underserved when it comes to treatment options.

While Cognitive Behavioral Therapy with a psychologist is effective, treatment is often inaccessible or unaffordable. Most just try to avoid scrutiny by covering bald spots and skin redness with wigs, makeup, and clothing. Research partner Dr. Doug Woods, Marquette University Graduate School Dean and member of the TLC Foundation for BFRBs Scientific Advisory Board, shares, “Keen has great potential to improve BFRB outcomes and we are looking forward to collaborating on research to establish the effectiveness of Keen for BFRBs.”

Photo credit: Vitaly Vyazovsky Aneela Idnani, co-founder and inspiration for HabitAware.

Keen’s gesture detection technology helps “Retrain the Brain” by detecting and interrupting a specific trained behavior with proprietary and patented motion-sensing algorithms we specifically developed to identify BFRBs. Keen is trained with a mobile app by performing a “scanning” behavior (e.g. playing with hair before pulling, feeling skin for imperfections before picking) for 20 seconds. The bracelet records the

custom repetitive behavior, much like a voicemail, and silently monitors the wrist movement. When Keen detects the trained behavior, a vibration interrupts the pattern in real-time.

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Photo credit: Mari Larsen HabitAware Keen is stylishly designed with kids and adults in mind.

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Photo credit: Vitaly Vyazovsky Early HabitAware prototypes were tested for style and durability.

Photo credit: Vitaly Vyazovsky John Pritchard, PhD, co-founder, and Lead Hardware Engineer.

Keen’s vibration is like a “hug” on the wrist, a gentle reminder of where the hands are. This creates awareness and empowers a moment of pause to choose healthier coping strategies. These strategies can include initiating Keen’s deep breathing light, getting a drink of water, or stretching. Those in the HabitAware Keen family are encouraged to find the healthy replacement strategies that work best for them. To better understand their behavior, they can also track their activity in the app and see their progress.

Photo credit: Mari Larsen Stephanie credits Keen for helping her graduate nursing school with a full head of hair. and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to improve Keen. The company has been featured in The Washington Post, Prevention, SELF Magazine, and is a 2018 TIME Magazine Best Invention.

HabitAware has pioneered customized micro-motion recognition technology using proprietary hardware, firmware, and mobile apps to get to that all-important first step of behavior change: awareness. There is opportunity for HabitAware Keen to support treatment professionals as Dr. David Kosins, Psychologist and Instructor at the University of Washington, who shares that Keen is “invaluable for bringing into awareness habitual physical movements that lead to the problem behavior. Without this awareness, patients cannot begin to implement the therapeutic strategies that they are seeking my help to learn.”

As Mindy, a mom in the Keen family, shares, “Your bracelets have helped in a way that is indescribable. Instead of coming home from school and isolating himself because he’s ashamed of pulling his hair, my son comes home and wants to talk about how many times his bracelet reminded him of where his hands were.”

With Keen awareness, and a willingness to change, an individual suffering from BFRBs finally has the power to take control and change their life.

Shipped to over 50 countries, HabitAware Keen is the first widely available and affordable system to help the BFRB community. HabitAware holds research grant awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)

HabitAware, Inc. support@habitaware.com

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KIDS NEED NEW CLOTHES. KIDIZEN HELPS PARENTS KEEP UP WITH THAT NEED– SUSTAINABLY.

Kidizen is a mom-powered, digital resale marketplace to shop and sell kids’ clothing, shoes, and accessories. We are based in Minneapolis but our community is nationwide and made up of over half a million moms who exchange from each other’s closets.

DID YOU KNOW: Mary was born in the Twin Cities, and both Mary and Dori have made Minneapolis their home for the last twenty years.

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In 2007, when Dori Graff and Mary Fallon, the co-founders of Kidizen, had kids at the same time, they found themselves acquiring immense amounts of stuff. Kids go through seven sizes in the first two years alone and, as parents, it’s a challenge to keep up. As they grow, you constantly need to acquire more and need to get rid of all that they have outgrown.

From this unsustainable cycle of consumption was born the idea of a marketplace for parents, specifically for moms, where you can look to other parents to find what you need, and pass on items no longer in use.

“We were looking to tap into the communal wealth we knew was out there,” says Fallon. “So many items already exist, belonging to other families—we just wanted an easier way to find them.”

Fallon and Graff met at a digital agency. Mary was on the creative side and Dori managed the accounts. They became friends and decided they wanted to create a business together. They did some prototyping in 2013, and by 2014, Kidizen was up and running, and has been growing ever since.

The company sees itself as part of a shift in consciousness where reselling is becoming a

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natural part of the consumer cycle. “The idea is that when you’re buying new, you’ll consider items of higher quality, ones that will last, with a high resale value, so that you can get a return on your investment once you’re done with them,” says Graff. “It becomes part of your default consumption behavior.”

One of Kidizen’s big projects is partnering with sustainably minded brands that produce quality long-lasting goods. They call this the REWEAR Collective. These brands promote the resale of their brand on Kidizen, and Kidizen promotes buying new from these brand partners as a testament to their long-lasting quality and resale value.

“It gives brands a way to help their customers pass on items they no longer use while keeping those items out of landfills and driving circularity,” says Fallon.

It was a bit of a challenge to convince brands to be a part of this at first, but lately, it’s become much easier. “With the fashion resale market growing 21 times faster than retail, brands are seeking ways in which they can participate.”

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way for people to sell on Kidizen. Style Scouts are power sellers who consign for other families in their area, and the program is expanding rapidly. Style Scouts come to your house, pick up your items, and take care of the job of selling.

You then split the profits with them. “It’s a very easy way to consign your kid’s clothes without ever leaving your house,” says Fallon.

Recently Fallon and Graff have been focused on what they can do locally. Minneapolis is both a big retail center and a great place to raise kids, so it’s a natural fit for the business. “We’ve been doing more in-person events, pop-ups in local boutiques, and reaching out to schools and daycares,” says Graff.

The outlook for Kidizen looks bright. “There’s been a huge increase in growth and acceptance of resale,” says Fallon. “It’s been really exciting.”

Kidizen hello@kidizen.com | hellokidizen Itizen

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AN ALGORITHM FOR FUNCTIONAL FOOD

Instead of reaching for medications first, his physician prescribed a book that taught simple dietary changes. Adam’s deadly triglyceride levels plummeted from 1830 to 410 points in 90 days. His doctor then prescribed a high-quality fish oil and his triglycerides dropped another 200 points.

Our mission is to improve patient outcomes and reduce the $2.7 trillion in unnecessary costs associated with preventable chronic diseases.

We profit, with a purpose, by selling 55,000 shelf-stable foods and supplements that meet a minimum standard of “first doing no harm.”

These products are priced at par with major grocery retailers. We partner with physicians, insurance companies, health clubs, and other wellness organizations to bring these resources to the public.

Adam tells an amusing story of shopping for fish oil and the confusion that he experienced in trying to choose from dozens of options. Most physicians and pharmacists are not trained in nutrition or Functional Food, which led him to create MyFormulary’s Algorithm that relies wholly upon verifiable clinical facts.

Like many who have been diagnosed with chronic disease, a single routine check-up changed the life of MyFormulary founder Adam Southam.

His doctor told him he had abnormally high levels of fat in his blood, a condition called hyperlipidemia, that could lead to a heart attack or stroke.

Adam created MyFormulary to guide others on their journey to treat or prevent disease using Functional Foods, tools, and reliable resources.

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This algorithm, known as the “Efficacy Engine®,” determines which foods are effective in the treatment or prevention of disease based entirely upon peer-reviewed clinical research. Each food is assigned a report card that shows the effectiveness of its ingredients, ranked A to F, along with the total number of effective ingredients that food contains.

These results can be used for grocery shopping lists, recipes, restaurant menu selections, and meal planning.

MyFormulary is adding additional inputs to its Efficacy Engine® including genomic results, prescription use, blood test results, micronutrients contained in foods, and recommended dosages for specific diagnosed diseases.

The Efficacy Engine will eventually include results in the form of recipes, restaurant menu items, and meal plans.

These are natural extensions to our existing functionality, as a menu item or recipe are identical to a product containing a list of ingredients. For easy, on-the-go access, MyFormulary will also be developing a mobile app for consumers/patients, insurance companies, and medical practitioners.

Over 100 million Americans suffer from chronic diseases that are directly caused by poor nutrition. Foods that do more than merely provide calories, known as Functional Foods, can prevent or treat the vast majority of these cases.

When integrated with modern medicine, Functional Food— like the kind the Efficacy Engine® leads consumers to—can improve outcomes and, in all cases, lead to healthier lives.

Adam G. Southam, Founder/Chairman

Kelly Callahan, Vice President

Chief architect of business concept & relationships Innovation, leadership, patents 35+ years of start-up, development, marketing and branding experience Leads strategy, marketing & management

CRM, Entrepreneurialism, Insurance & Training 10+ years experience in retail services, b2b and b2c sales management and organization Leads investor relations, partner success & training programs.

Alex H. Danzberger, President/COO

Daniel J. Lynch, Executive Vice President

Business Development, M&A, and strategy 30+ years business operations & finance executive in public, private, & startup companies Senior roles at Chase Manhattan, Honeywell, Digital River, & Capella Education Leads partnership development, business performance planning & execution

Fitness industry icon, leader, and speaker Created medically integrated health clubs 30+ years of fitness center and equipment brand development Mobil Oil, Chase, HBO, Merrill Lynch and AMEX Leads health club & fitness sales

Brion Finlay, CIO/Chief Architect NextGen hands-on healthcare technology leader 25+ years enterprise software design, development Lead roles in Guidant, Boston Scientific, Corventis & Medtronic Front-end consumer applications & websites Leads application architecture and resource management

+1-888-471-9355 410 Clifton Avenue | Minneapolis, MN 55403 myformulary

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CHAPTER 20

HR & STAFFING

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“We don’t see things as they are.

We see things as we are.”

—ANAIS NIN

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Genesis10 creates a training program that launches the careers of software developers with the skills local companies need most

GENESIS10 IS A PROFESSIONAL TECHNOLOGY FIRM PROVIDING STAFFING, TALENT CREATION, DIGITAL AND OUTSOURCED MANAGED SERVICES—ONSITE OR ONSHORE.

grown Genesis10 into a thriving and diverse professional technology services firm. Today, Genesis10 has earned national recognition as a top IT staffing firm from Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA), Gartner and Everest Group, and as one of 25 major US companies with Best Work/Life Balance by Comparably. CEO Harley Lippman is recognized as one of the most influential leaders in the industry by SIA and as Best CEO for two consecutive years.

Meeting Genesis10 for the first time, most people ask about our name. It’s a nod to 10 people who believed in new beginnings—placing their trust in CEO Harley Lippman to found and nurture a technology staffing and services firm with a distinctive set of core values. Genesis10 set out to become a company that cares about people and communities, creating prosperity in America and protecting our planet; a company that listens to clients, consultants, and employees and responds rapidly with innovative solutions.

Genesis10 has more than 2,000 employees and consultants and more than 20 sales and recruiting offices throughout North America, including seven domestic delivery centers. Supporting clients in Minneapolis/St. Paul metro since 2001, our local office has been recognized by the Star Tribune as a Top Workplace in Minnesota and consistently by the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal as a top technology and management consulting firm.

Other accolades include a Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA) Tekne Award and recognition as a Blue Diamond Awards finalist. Most recently, Angelia Brekke, Managing Director at Genesis10, was named one of the 500 most powerful business leaders in Minnesota by Greenspring Media.

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MakingADifference: The MN Team is spreading holiday cheer with a toy drive for children served by Perspectives.

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Creating jobs in the Twin Cities for the University of Minnesota’s College of Science and Engineering graduates.

Addressing the Tech Talent Gap Recognizing that our clients in Minneapolis/ St. Paul and around the nation have a need for technology talent, specifically, software developers trained in sought-after skills, our Minnesota team launched our Dev10 Software Developer training program in 2018. For Dev10, we identify local, high-aptitude, STEM-degreed US citizens and immerse them in a three-month technology training program.

challenging, and they relish the opportunity to gain new skills and experiences to further their tech careers. Genesis10 clients say that they are impressed not only with the high caliber and high potential of Dev10 Associates, but also with their level of productivity and contribution. One client shared that, within two months on the job, the Dev10 Associate was completing work comparable to senior developers.

The Dev10 program closes the tech talent gap by recruiting locally, training locally, and deploying locally. Since Genesis10 launched Dev10, more than 100 people have successfully completed the Software Developer training and are working as Genesis10 consultants for clients in banking and financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, and retail. Of these consultants, 39% are women and 42% are ethnically diverse. In 2019, the Dev10 program expanded into Charlotte and Dallas. In 2020, Dev10 will launch in Milwaukee, Chicago, and New York.

Caring for People In keeping with our CEO Harley Lippman’s core values of caring deeply about people and communities, Genesis10 teams with the State of Minnesota to prepare promising, underrepresented Minnesota citizens for careers within the State’s Information Technology organization—MNIT. Since 2017, Genesis10 recruiters provide pro bono advisory services to job seekers, including resume review and interview coaching. The sessions take place at various events and venues in the Twin Cities. In addition, our Minnesota team supports a variety of non-profit organizations through volunteering and board service. Each year, we conduct a toy drive for children served

by Perspectives, a human services agency with comprehensive programs that address substance abuse and mental health disorders.

Each candidate for Dev10 is vetted through a rigorous selection process. Of those who apply, just 3% are selected for the program. During training, Genesis10 pays students a salary. Upon successfully completing their training, Dev10 Associates are placed with Genesis10 clients locally; Dev10 develops new tech talent who wish to remain in the region. Once on the job, Genesis10 provides ongoing mentoring and performance management.

Our Dev10 Associates share that they are happy in their new careers. Their projects are

Going forward, Genesis10’s continued focus is on contributing to and building sustainable capabilities through innovative programs such as Dev10 that support our clients’ business growth, our consultants’ professional growth and a path to prosperity that reverberates through local, regional and national economies.

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21 years strong, CEO Harley Lippman expands Genesis10’s focus to include advisory, digital consulting and talent creation services.

Genesis10 332 Minnesota Street, Suite W2500 St. Paul, MN 55101 +1-651-702-3300 Genesis10

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SETTING THE STANDARD IN I.T. STAFFING & SOLUTIONS SINCE 1997

Paragon’s Leadership Team (left to right): Jessica Grant, Donna Ballard, Craig Jackman, Nick Roach, Joel Jackman, Amanda Wiemann and Greg Lagan.

AN ENGINEERED SERVICE DELIVERY MODEL

Long before businesses were focused on cybersecurity and cloud computing, Paragon was helping clients find and hire the right IT talent to prepare for a new era of digital transformation.

For more than 22 years, Paragon has listened to the challenges faced by IT executives and has engineered services to help clients navigate through change and challenge.

Founded on a commitment to provide exceptional service with consistency and authenticity, Paragon has established a proven process that clients and consultants have come to rely on across business verticals throughout Minnesota, Nebraska and Iowa.

Staffing: In a tight IT labor market with an ever-increasing skills gap, the ability to find, attract, engage and deliver IT talent quickly is critical to an organization’s success. Paragon’s core business is quickly matching the right talent at just the right time.

Clients leverage Paragon’s experience, speed to market and industry knowledge to augment teams or outsource off-site/off-shore. Paragon has a pulse on IT talent and the ability to scale through a proven service delivery model and with strategic partners on three continents.

Project Services: When there’s not enough time or resources to confidently execute on strategic initiatives, outsourcing to a trusted partner—whether on-site, off-site, or off-shore—is not just the best option but often the only option to quickly advance a strategy.

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Using a consultative approach and leveraging Paragon’s strategic partners in South America and India, Paragon provides access to hundreds of additional talented and trusted IT professionals across a wide range of technologies and technology hubs.

Dedicated Service Solutions: Paragon’s business solution reduces the burden of the client by delivering IT resources more efficiently – saving time and money – while leveraging the best available talent in the market.

With limited resources and a growing skills gap, this is often the best solution for clients to obtain the talent they desire to execute on strategic initiatives.

Business Intelligence & Software Solutions: Managing the data flowing through an organization—creating insights from it and hiring for it—are monumental tasks for even the largest of corporations. Putting off a clear data strategy and action plan will inevitably lead to gaps that competitors will fill. Paragon provides business analytics consulting, strategy and software solutions to clients.

FOSTERING INNOVATION THROUGH I.T. Clients of all sizes and varying industries look to Paragon to help drive innovation through information technology. From finding the right talent to building strategies on how to implement technologies and migrate data, Paragon helps businesses find the tools needed to solve complex problems.

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Staffing Model & Team Structure A strong team structure helps allocate resources appropriately and efficiently. Some of the nation’s largest employers have come to Paragon for guidance on improving their IT staffing model. To help advance strategic objectives, IT leaders must assess their teams to ensure the organization has the expertise and skills to achieve superior results.

Consultant Relationship Program Paragon’s commitment to exceptional service extends to consultants as well as clients. The consultant relationship program helps drive retention and satisfaction, ultimately minimizing costly consultant turnover. From intentional onboarding to advocacy, professional development and excellent benefits, Paragon provides robust communication and engagement between clients and consultants— resulting in the attraction of top talent and reducing costly turnover.

IT Leadership Forum Paragon’s IT Leadership Forum is designed to enhance leadership skills through a professionally facilitated forum where peers come together to learn from one another and where leaders discuss trends, challenges, and potential solutions.

The Leadership Forum boasts more than 300 participants across 40 businesses in Iowa and Minnesota. Forum participants commit to one meeting a month for a year. For more information visit paragonitlf.com.

Immigration and H-1B Candidates With the unemployment rate for technology professionals at 1.3%—a 20 year low—working with a partner who understands the complexities of work visas and hiring H-1B consultants is critical. The H-1B program provides employers access to a vast number of highly educated workers with some of the most in-demand skillsets. Paragon helps clients navigate the process to ensure a successful placement.

Paragon IT Professionals +1-515-288-2128

Minnesota | Iowa | Nebraska info@paragonitpros.com

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INDEX

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PARTICIPATORS INDEX I N N O V A T E

Abilitech

17, 71

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Hargrove & Associates, Inc.

101

Platform 3 Solutions

125

Accenture 173

High Tech Kids

217

Prime Digital Academy

211

Activated Research Company (ARC)

Jamf 165

PTC 127

243

Adam Coyle (Digital River)

21

Jeanne Glass (VirtualZ Computing)

22

Qumu 135

Amy Fisher (Padilla)

26

Jeff Tollefson (Minnesota Technology Association)

12

Rebiotix 81

9

Recombinetics 61

Anatomi 87

Keith Tanski (Optum)

Angelina Lawton (Sportsdigita)

16

Kidizen 257

Reed Robinson (Beta)

Angie Conley (Abilitech)

17

Lab651 119

RSM 149

Land O’Lakes, Inc.

Sagitec 131

Beta Bhabani Misra (University of St. Thomas)

23, 229

13, 91

23

25

Livefront 121

Science Museum of Minnesota

Bleachr 183

lucidLIFT 177

Sentera 115

Branch 153

MacIsaac Consulting

Shaye Mandle (Medical Alley Association)

Career Innovations LLC

Make It. MSP.

20, 193

171 41

199

19

Silicon Prairie

151

Sofia Fund

223

CareerOneStop 35

MANIFEST Technology

Charter Solutions

175

Medical Alley Association

19, 47

Sogeti 161

Code Savvy

215

Medicom Health

15, 67

Spark-Y 97

Coherent Solutions

139

Medtronic

18, 73

SpeechGear 123

Comcast 185

MinneAnalytics

11, 29

Sportsdigita

CompTIA Tech Career Academy

197

239

16, 189

Minneapolis Institute of Art

201

SPS Commerce

Computex 159

Minnesota IT Services

163

StemoniX

Dan Atkins (MinneAnalytics)

Minnesota State IT Center of Excellence

203

Summit Academy OIC

209

Tech Dump

103

11

Datica 85

Minnesota Technology Association

Design Ready Controls

Minnesota Twins Baseball Club

Digi International

107 143

Mouli Venkatesan (Optum)

12, 39 187 10

Teddy Bekele (Land O’Lakes, Inc.)

141 24, 83

13

The Works Museum

207

21, 147

MyFormulary 259

Thomson Reuters

241

Ecolab 111

MyMeds 75

Tony Huth (Medicom Health)

Energy Insight, Inc.

Nathan A. Perez (Career Innovations LLC)

20

Tower Solutions

227

NeuroOne Medical Technologies Corporation

59

Towerside 31

Evocent Leadership Development, Inc.

179

Omcare 55

UK Government Office of Minneapolis &

Evolving Solutions

235

OneOme 57

St. Paul

Field Nation

117

Optum

Unisys 167

Digital River

Equus Holdings

95

9, 10, 65

247

33

Flywheel 69

Packet Power

FRSecure 249

Padilla

Genesis10 263

Paragon IT Professionals

265

Commercialization

Genesys Works

Pearson VUE

219

University of St. Thomas

25, 205

Performix 157

VirtualZ Computing

22, 137

GogyUp 253

Perkins and Will

93

VSI Labs

GREATER MSP

Peter Frosch (GREATER MSP)

14

Vyriad 53

Phenomix Sciences

51

Xcel Energy

Ping Yeh (StemoniX)

24

Zipnosis 77

Geoff Martha (Medtronic)

H.B. Fuller

213 18

14, 43 109

Habitaware 255

237

15

25, 191

269

University Enerterprise Labs (UEL)

231

University of Minnesota Technology

225

133

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InnovationsoftheWorld.com

SHOWCASING THE BEST OF THE WORLD - CONNECTING MINDS - BUILDING COMMUNITIES

The Innovate series is a 300+ page in-depth study and AR video series that showcases the people and companies that are leading the race within the innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems of each city and industry. A book with augmented reality videos, an online platform and a global network with a common goal of ensuring the brightest minds of the world connect and succeed.

IT’S A KIND OF MAGIC...

DOWNLOAD THE GLOBAL VILLAGE AR APP TO VIEW 100 AUGMENTED REALITY VIDEOS IN THIS BOOK! To experience the future of print, download the Global Village AR App from the IOS or Android App stores. Open the App and hold it about 30cm above any page that contains an image with the “play” Icon.

Make sure your back camera is pointing at the page. Click the Play button that appears onscreen and immerse yourself in the latest updated content with reference to that page.

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“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”

—F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

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© GlobalVillage Partnerships ISBN: 978-1-949677-14-0

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