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Universities have long launched startups in fields like software and biomedicine, but many are now taking increasingly prominent roles backing entrepreneurship around farming, food, and agricultural technology. Part of Purdues Applied Research Institute, DIAL Ventures hosts a fellowship aimed at digitizing the agriculture and food industry. The venture studio connects fellows with startup experience to corporate partners and university experts who help them hone businesses addressing real market needs, says Professor Allan Gray, the program’s executive director. “The problem is our incumbent companies who feed the worldthey’re not digital-native, and so for them to innovate in the digital space is actually quite difficult for them,” he says. “That’s where DIAL Ventures steps in.” So far, the program has backed companies in areas like farmland management, rural logistics, and agricultural equipment maintenance as well as a digital marketing platform for farmers as content creators called Make Hay. They are coming to market as experts say burgeoning technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and drones can help address long-standing issues in food production, thanks to innovations from automated harvesting and pest control to data-driven crop yield and logistics optimization. Gray says he expects multiple successful exits by startups within the next few years. Funding in the U.S. “agrifoodtech” sector grew 14% year over year in 2024, according to a recent report from venture firm AgFunder. But tech meant to handle real-world crops and food, not just abstract bits and bytes, can’t be built from isolated offices in Silicon Valley. A key part of Purdue’s role, Gray says, is ensuring technically adept entrepreneurs learn from the experts on the agricultural side. “You’ve got to be open-minded and really be careful about listening to what the industry is telling you is the challenge that’s in front of you,” he says. Of course, at universities serving rural communities, it’s not unusual for students to arrive with their own agricultural expertise, often from working on the family farm. And many of those schools are now helping those students sow their own business ideas. At Iowa State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, a program called Start Something includes a Student Incubator that supports work in emerging areas like soil analytics and drone pesticide application. One student doubled his drone business from one summer to the next, bringing in more than $200,000 in revenue, says Kevin Kimle, Start Something’s director. Kimle’s own son, Iowa State alum Jackson Kimle, runs a business harnessing innovative water filtration technology for a novel kind of Iowa livestock: fresh shrimp. More than 1,200 students participate in Start Something programs every year, including roughly 200 who take the program’s capstone class, which culminates with business plans presented to real investors and entrepreneurs. Kimle envisions adding programming for high school students interested in agricultural entrepreneurship, which can in turn help recruit them to Iowa State. Successfully pursuing new ideas can help graduates thrive in rural areas while giving back to the community, Kimle says, and entrepreneurial ventures can make it easier for family farms to stay viable for a new generation. Other ag-minded schools, including many that are part of the historic U.S. land-grant program with its long ties to farm and food innovation, boast similar programs, often backed by successful founders among their alums. The U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, which promotes entrepreneurial education, has a subgroup for agricultural and rural entrepreneurship, and student startup hubs have launched at schools like the University of Nebraska, North Carolina State, Texas A&M, and Pennsylvania State University. Penn State offers support for entrepreneurial students throughout the campus, including the College of Agricultural Sciences, which launched an Entrepreneurship & Innovation program in 2012. Today, it includes offerings like Ag Springboard, a Shark Tank-style student pitch competition that draws hundreds of entries and works with students from a range of majors, says teaching professor Mark Gagnon, cofounder of the program. “A good number of our students from [the College of Information Sciences and Technology] and computer science come over the ag space, because these are some big challenges to solve, to figure out how to feed the world and reduce the impacts on our footprint,” says Gagnon. Students have launched companies like Phospholutions, which has developed a soil additive that makes phosphorus fertilizer use more cost-effective while reducing its environmental impact. Perhaps equally important, undergrad innovators train their startup muscles for later use, says Gagnon. “Having that experience at 20 years old is incredible,” he says. “Because when they’re 45 years old and they have the connections and the capital and they see an opportunity that has value and is scalable, they’re just that much further along.” This story is part of Fast Company and Inc.‘s 2025 Ignition Schools awards, the 50 colleges and universities making an outsize impact on business and society through entrepreneurship and innovation. Read about the methodology behind our selection process.
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E-Commerce
Startups bubbling with new perspectives, fresh technologies, and a war chest to spend on disruption while their businesses find their footing are often rife with innovation, but they dont hold a monopoly on it. Young talent looking to disrupt legacy industries traditionally looked to entrepreneurship and startups. As corporations prepare for AI theyre trying to convince innovators that the best place to turn their ideas into reality is within the enterprise. Its fundamentally shifted in the last year and a half to two years, says Michele Capra, a senior client partner for talent recruiting and consulting firm Korn Ferry. Clients are now coming to me saying, were looking at our skills across the organization at the entry level, those skills have changed, and we need to recruit differently because of that. That transition, Capra explains, has also forced large employers across industries from tech to financial services to consumer goods to abandon one of their signatures selling points, namely a clear and predictable career development plan. Traditionally you knew which roles would be here in 10 years, so there were career paths that offered true stepping stones, she says. Now organizations dont know what roles will be like in 10 years, so theyre hiring for skills, because the career paths will look very different for these individuals. While some formal AI credentials are widely valued amongst large employers Capra says theyre also looking to hire those that demonstrate more human or soft skills, which can help them put the technology to use solving challenges or developing new products or services. Traditionally, many courses on innovation within a larger business, or intrapreneurship, have targeted executives in professional learning programs. Cornell University offers an online course to obtain a certificate in intrapreneurship. Some programs, like one at Temple Univerisity, offer courses that span organization types, focusing on big-picture thinking needed to launch your own business or propose innovative initiatives within existing organizations. Northwestern Universitys Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation however, offers an advanced class in Corporate Innovation, wherein students delve into corporate venture capital, internal incubation processes, M&A decisions, and gain the tools to champion change within organizations. While the Northwestern course is offered through its engineering college, the disruptive potential of artificial intelligence is compelling many institutions to broaden students technology education experience. We have several institutional partners that are doing this, but one I would call out is Emory University in Atlanta, says Christine Cruzvergara, the chief education strategy officer for Gen Z career platform Handshake. They proactively hired AI experts within each of their academic domains to be embedded into those programs. Cruzvergara adds that, in her experience, graduates with highly desirable skills and attributes are often less concerned with a prospective employers size, and more concerned with its values, They’re usually looking for a place that has a larger mission or vision around something that they can get behind, she says. [Employers] ability to articulate that pretty clearly and upfront in early conversations really determines whether that conversation is going to continue. That said, as with graduates pursuing startups, savvy candidates may realize that a lofty mission can have negative consequences.Nor does it mean that the corporate career ladder is the endgame. Cruzvergara says enterprises, much like many colleges, are highlighting the accomplishments of alumni especially those who went on to become successful entrepreneurs to imply that the company can offer young innovators a crucial stepping stone whenever theyre ready to trade greater risk for a greater potential reward. This story is part of Fast Company and Inc.‘s 2025 Ignition Schools awards, the 50 colleges and universities making an outsize impact on business and society through entrepreneurship and innovation. Read about the methodology behind our selection process.
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In the long-established American ecosystem of scientific advancement, fundamental researchnot geared toward immediate applicationhas mostly been conducted at universities with federal funding. The commercial sector, on the other hand, has been more likely to fund more applied research around ideas closer to market, including backing university studies in promising areas of computer science and medicine. Over time, industry has increasingly built its own innovations on top of basic, federally funded research, says Lee Fleming, professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. One prominent recent example is artificial intelligence, he says, which received federal funding for decades before exploding into commercialization in recent years. Earlier this year, though, when sudden federal funding cuts upended university research budgets, the ecosystem fell into turmoil. Faculty whose work often flew under the public radar publicly pleaded the case for their academic pursuits. Researchers at UCLA even held an old-school science fair highlighting the work federal cuts have left in limbo, including studies of brain cancer; the colleges renowned math professor Terence Tao argued for a restoration of federal funding or donations to help make up some of the difference. But non-federal agencies can only make up a fraction of the sums that these institutions depend on to continue their work. Universities have leaned on sources such as philanthropies founded by businesspeople who have built innovations on university research foundations. The Gates Foundation, charged with donating the fortune of Microsofts former CEO, has long offered support for medical research, for instance, and a new $3.1 billion Fund for Science and Technology, backed by the estate of his cofounder Paul Allen, recently announced plans to award at least $500 million in grants over the next four years. When staffers at the Spencer Foundation, which funds educational research, learned that their federal funding had been suddenly terminated, theyalong with the Kapor Foundation, the William T. Grant Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundationquickly stepped into action, offering $25,000 bridge grants to scholars affected by the sudden cuts. “We heard stories like, I really just need to fund my grad student through the summer,” says Leah Bricker, Spencer’s director of programs. “Or, I’ve spent so much time partnering with X, Y, or Z community, and we’ve invested so much time, and now, overnight, I’m just going to have to leave.” It was just one of a number of rapid moves by the sometimes slow-turning philanthropic sector to get funds researchers needed to continue their work and pay grad students and other vital staff. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, for instance, has provided millions of dollars to researchers at academic institutions in “rapid response” health research funding to make up for lost federal money, with plans to offer more over the next year. As universities have also stepped up outreach efforts to alumni and corporate sponsors, states with strong tech sectors, including Massachusetts and California, have proposed providing their own funds for research. California, for example, is proposing a $23 billion, bond-funded science research agency. Nonprofits, including some backed by industry, have also pushed into historically federal domains, such as managing infrastructure, for vital scientific data that could improve efficiency, even as they receive rapidly rising numbers of applications for existing grant programs. “While it’s really hard for any of us to say there’s opportunities coming out of all this uncertainty, I think there would be a better path forward for how scientists have access to and have data infrastructure,” says Elizabeth Weiss, senior director of philanthropic advising at the Science Philanthropy Alliance. But experts agree that any such efforts likely won’t be enough to make up for the potential shortfall anytime soon. “There’s a lot of creativity going on right now,” says Amy Miller, president of the PhRMA Foundation, which supports health-related university research with backing from drugmakers that also often fund research directly, including science at academic institutions. “But I really want to emphasize there is absolutely no way that the foundations and industry together can fill the gaps.” This story is part of Fast Company and Inc.‘s 2025 Ignition Schools awards, the 50 colleges and universities making an outsize impact on business and society through entrepreneurship and innovation. Read about the methodology behind our selection process.
Category:
E-Commerce
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E-Commerce
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E-Commerce
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