Entrepreneurship & Innovation

We believe you can be smart without being cynical. Meet the dreamers behind today's most progressive ideas, and explore their plans to move the world in Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Favorites in Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Challengers

How VR Could Change Your Life

Challengers

How VR Could Change Your Life

Virtual reality could alter the human experience forever.

December 26, 2016

Imagine if you could climb Mount Everest and go on stage at a Beyonce concert with your friends...before breakfast. Linc Gasking and his team of visual effects experts at 8i thinks they can make holograms of humans so real, that VR will go mainstream and they’ll alter the human experience forever.

Challengers

Building a Better School System

Challengers

Building a Better School System

A highly-personalized experience could be the foundation for the future of education.

December 19, 2016

Everyone wants America’s education system to do better. Ex-Googler Max Ventilla has a radical idea for how to make it happen. Ventilla’s AltSchool is building a highly-personalized education experience that gets better and cheaper as more students use it.

Challengers

Powering the World With Nuclear

Challengers

Powering the World With Nuclear

Transatomic believes they've figured out a safe, scalable, cost-effective way to power the world with nuclear.

December 12, 2016

Transatomic is designing a nuclear reactor that can produce a lot more electricity than a conventional reactor, while creating a lot less nuclear waste. But they’ll need to take on a deeply entrenched industry and convince a cautious public that they can safely harness the most powerful energy in the world.

Innovation

The Edible Six Pack Ring That's Saving Marine Animals

Innovation

The Edible Six Pack Ring That's Saving Marine Animals

18 billion pounds of plastic are dumped in the ocean every year. This microbrewery created biodegradable six pack rings to help stem the tide.

June 12, 2019

Saltwater Brewery was a regular microbrewery that made great craft beer - packaged with the usual plastic six pack rings. As fishermen who saw firsthand the amount of plastic pollution in the ocean, though, they felt they needed to make a change to help marine animals. They came up with the idea to create edible six pack rings made of biodegradable materials left over from the brewing process. Now, they’ve created a new...

Building Community

How San Francisco Residents Saved Local Businesses

Building Community

How San Francisco Residents Saved Local Businesses

An indie book store went from struggling to thriving with a new business model. Is it the future of retail?

April 3, 2019

Borderlands Books is the largest English-language sci-fi, mystery, and horror book store in the world. Mission: Comics and Art is a combination comic book shop and art gallery. Both were preparing to close up shop in a tough retail environment as costs rose. Alan Beatts called a community meeting of his customers. A new idea came out of it - selling store memberships. After an outpouring of support, he sold hundreds of...

Artificial intelligence can find hidden patterns in patient’s vital signs - and stop emergencies before they happen.

November 7, 2018

As hospitals collect more and more data, analyzing it is a challenge and an opportunity. Montefiore Medical Center of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine is a case study in how using artificial intelligence in hospitals can help improve outcomes. They’re working with Intel’s Healthcare AI team to develop machine learning algorithms that can see patterns within it. The result, which they call the Patient Centered...

Teaching Engineering with Dirt Bikes

This teacher is using dirt bikes to help Baltimore's kids learn STEM.

October 31, 2018

Baltimore’s kids are obsessed with dirt bikes. Some people think that's a problem, but teacher Brittany Young is using dirt bikes to get kids into engineering and STEM education. Her organization, B-360 Baltimore, aims to use dirt bike culture to help end the cycle of poverty, disrupt the prison pipeline, and bring together communities — while giving dirt bikes a better reputation. Dirt bikes are a controversial issue in...

Making a Difference

Can People with Autism Help Create Next-Generation AI?

Making a Difference

Can People with Autism Help Create Next-Generation AI?

Daivergent is a new startup that hires people with autism to train artificial intelligence - and helps them start independent careers.

May 15, 2019

Meet Bryan Dai, the founder of Daivergent--a startup that hires people with autism to train artificial intelligence and helps them start independent careers. His journey began when his mother passed away, and he knew that he would be responsible for helping support his brother with autism. After people with autism turn 21, they often encounter the “support cliff,” after which they stop receiving many forms of government...

Challengers

An App for Global Trade

Challengers

An App for Global Trade

Flexport thinks bringing trade into the 21st century could improve lives around the globe.

November 28, 2016

Flexport believes that nothing helps people improve their lives more than the ability to trade with one another. And, yet international shipping is still way too cumbersome. So Flexport built an in app to make it easier. If Flexport succeeds, nearly everything you buy will cost less.