In today's fast-paced world of innovation, staying ahead means being adaptable, connected, and always curious about what's next. Industries are evolving at breakneck speed, driven by tech advances, shifts in consumer values, and the pursuit of smarter, more sustainable solutions.
September 10-12 marked the return of Dayton Startup Week to downtown Dayton, a significant gathering for the region's entrepreneurial community. This event, filled with powerful talks, workshops, and networking opportunities, showcased the dynamic and emerging ecosystem taking shape in real-time. As OSB emerges as an industry leader in ecosystem measurement, our engagement in this new ecosystem provides an opportunity to apply our expertise in analyzing and fostering innovation, helping to catalyze growth, collaboration, and sustainable development within the local startup community.
Orange Sparkle Ball has officially received a Transportation Innovation Zone (TIZ) Permit for piloting the autonomous robotic pickup of food waste for composting in the Corktown region of Detroit in partnership with Ottonomy and Scrap Soils with support from Brother Nature Farm.
Recently some of our teammates had the privilege of attending the Georgia Tech School of Industrial Design LaunchPad event. LaunchPad is an end-of-semester showcase where both graduate and undergraduate students display their remarkable projects crafted throughout the semester.
Join OSB’s Ashley Touchton and Hannah Ranieri with Idea Overflow Podcast hosts Dan Perotti and Patrick Payne to hear about OSB’s founding, the story behind the name, their individual career journeys, to forming a relationship with DroneUp, speaking at SXSW 24, and receiving permitting and funding to pilot an autonomous drone pick-up pilot in Detroit, Michigan.
Working directly with those affected by your challenge is crucial in order to effectively solve it. From getting a clear understanding of what stakeholders have experienced, to accurately seeing the challenge space, to co-designing a solution, engaging with stakeholders can be incorporated at every step. Sophie Becker reflects on the best practices of these sessions and what we can learn from them as facilitators.
Recently some of our teammates had the privilege of attending the Georgia Tech School of Industrial Design LaunchPad event. LaunchPad is an end-of-semester showcase where both graduate and undergraduate students display their remarkable projects crafted throughout the semester.
The Partnership for Inclusive Innovation is partnering with Orange Sparkle Ball to implement project-centered Innovation Coaching as a core offering of their upcoming Partnership Leaders Program; a 6-month long engagement designed to provide participants with a soft onboarding to inclusive Tech-Based Economic Development and entrepreneurial ecosystem development.
This past March, Innovation Strategist Diego Perez had the great opportunity to represent OSB on the judging panel of Georgia Tech’s 2024 IDSA Student Merit Awards.
Join OSB’s Ashley Touchton and Hannah Ranieri with Idea Overflow Podcast hosts Dan Perotti and Patrick Payne to hear about OSB’s founding, the story behind the name, their individual career journeys, to forming a relationship with DroneUp, speaking at SXSW 24, and receiving permitting and funding to pilot an autonomous drone pick-up pilot in Detroit, Michigan.
Orange Sparkle Ball was awarded a Real World Deployment Grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation's Office of Future Mobility and Electrification. This grant is enabling us to put our Autonomous Robotic Pickup Platform into action through a series of pilots in the Transportation Innovation Zone of Detroit, established by the Office of Mobility Innovation at The City of Detroit.
Orange Sparkle Ball has officially received a Transportation Innovation Zone (TIZ) Permit for piloting the autonomous robotic pickup of food waste for composting in the Corktown region of Detroit in partnership with Ottonomy and Scrap Soils with support from Brother Nature Farm.
As a forward-thinking company deeply committed to fostering innovation and developing talent, we at Orange Sparkle Ball take immense pride in our longstanding partnership with the Georgia Tech Industrial Design program.
Earlier this month, the OSB team attended South by SouthWest, one of the largest festivals and conferences in the country. We supported OSB Partner and Innovation Strategist Ashley Touchton, as she spoke on the future of drone delivery at the SXSW panel, “Who Will Benefit the Most From Drone Delivery?”
Several members of the OSB team had the chance to lead an ecosystem mapping and inclusive roadmap building workshop at the 2024 GAME Change Summit, a yearly event bringing together innovators from across the Southeastern Commerce Corridor to identify unmet needs in the next-generation manufacturing and supply chain ecosystem, and co-create inclusive solutions together.
OSB Founder Meaghan Kennedy joins Omari Richins, MPH on the Public Health Careers podcast for an insightful discussion about the work we're doing at OSB today. From the roots of OSB to the strategic moves that led to its founding, Meaghan shares her journey and the passion driving our innovative initiatives.
We’re excited to see our friends at MTEC SmartZone hosting their first accelerator! We recently sat down with members of the MTEC team to understand more about the U.P.’s (Upper Peninsula) innovation ecosystem, their unique position in the advanced materials and manufacturing innovation space, and their upcoming Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Program (AMMP) accelerator.
As one of our Ecosystem Partners in the 2023 TOP NLC Sprint, we worked with Macon Black Tech to map the local innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem of the Macon Metropolitan Area. In addition to mapping the ecosystem, we also wanted to leverage this project as an opportunity to understand the inclusivity of the overall ecosystem, and the barriers facing entrepreneurs and innovators in Middle Georgia.
Our retreats afford the team a few days to focus on new ideas and working on the business as a group. In 2023, we held our retreat in founder Meaghan Kennedy’s hometown, Manistee, Michigan. The team stayed and met in The Ramsdell Inn, in Manistee’s victorian downtown, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
As a coach in the 2021 Rollins Innovation Summit, Michael Cassidy is no stranger to OSB’s innovation process. Our Immersive Innovation Labs are a tool to guide teams of all backgrounds and disciplines through an innovative problem solving process. Especially in complex fields like public health, Immersive Innovation Labs can help participants break through siloes to identify actionable solutions to deeply entrenched challenges.
Michaela Bonnett from the OSB team presented our Ecosystem Dashboard tool at the Census Open Innovation Summit! Over the course of a 12-week sprint facilitated by the National League of Cities and The Opportunity Project by the US Census Open Innovation Labs (COIL), the OSB team developed the Ecosystem Dashboard tool to support local innovators in building robust, interconnected innovation networks.
At the core of the greatest issues facing our society are issues of narratives - conflicting narratives, false narratives, and outdated narratives. Without effective communication and storytelling, even the best interventions and solutions will struggle. This inspired the spring offering of the PH+ series produced by OSB and Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University: Public Health+ Communication.
