Wednesday morning felt like a celebration of sorts as visitors swept into Gravitate Coworking’s downtown location. 1 Million Cups welcomed back visitors to the first in-person event since March 2020, when organizers shut the doors at the Science Center of Iowa’s theater for the last time. Pi515 founder and director Nancy Mwirotsi brought two summer […]

This fall, Iowa State University will begin offering a two-year Master of Science degree program in artificial intelligence, through the computer science department in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. ISU expects to welcome five students in the program this fall, and eventually have class sizes of 60-70 in the next few years, said […]

Shawn Johnson will be the new chief information officer of Principal Financial Group’s Retirement and Income Solutions business to continue driving technology modernization and digital transformation across its retirement savings and solutions platform, Principal announced this week. Johnson has spent 15 years in leadership positions within the energy, health care and financial services industries. He […]

Des Moines entrepreneur Ben McDougal joined the Techstars Iowa team in a combined entrepreneur-in-residence and ecosystem development role, the accelerator announced last week. McDougal is a four-time company founder and co-founder, an author and is currently the midwest regional representative for the 1 Million Cups entrepreneurship network. The second class of Techstars Iowa begins July 19.

America’s SBDC Iowa is launching the Inclusivity Challenge, designed to support minority-owned small businesses and entrepreneurs to establish themselves for economic prosperity. The Inclusivity Challenge provides resources including customized, culturally relevant business and financial advising, business education webinars and access to the most well-connected small business networks. A kickoff event for the initiative will be […]

Hongwei Zhang and other researchers installed hardware at the Iowa State University’s Research Park for CyNet, an advanced wireless networking system that’s a predecessor to the new ARA rural broadband project. Photo provided A $16 million rural broadband research project will cover nearly 40 miles of rural communities and farmland, researchers told state and industry […]

Des Moines lending platform LenderClose promoted Trinh Le-Coulter to vice president of people power, the company announced this week. Le-Coulter is the former director of operations for LenderClose. In her new role, she will lead LenderClose’s company culture as well as leading the operations department. LenderClose also announced two new team members: Bill Taha, director […]

A $10,000 Bayer Fund grant will support the Science Center of Iowa’s new program Making Tech Connections, a professional development program for educators teaching students employment skills in computing, algorithms and programming. Making Tech Connections will also show educators how to incorporate liberal arts competencies into STEM education. In 2020, Bayer Fund awarded more than […]