Whitson looks back on record-breaking space career and offers lessons for innovators Retired astronaut and native Iowan Peggy Whitson makes sure students and adults know the upside — way up, in her case — of working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM fields. It’s a message she carries now that she spends her […]
If you are inspired to make the perfect Korean taco, travel in space, swim the Bering Strait, create legendary ice cream or create digital fantasy worlds, you could get more than a few tips from the speakers at the 10th anniversary edition of ciWeek. The event, this year themed “Small Steps to Giant Leaps,” returns […]
Jeff Weld has been running the Iowa Governor’s STEM Advisory Council since July 2011, but he’s on leave to serve as senior policy adviser on STEM education for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He is an associate professor of biology at the University of Northern Iowa. How do you personally define […]
Joyce Pingel is vice president of information technology at Kum & Go, a company whose very headquarters under construction in downtown Des Moines will stand as a monument to innovation, not to mention the eye-popping architecture of Renzo Piano. Pingel has been heavily involved in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) efforts in Iowa. We […]
Erin Rollenhagen, founder and CEO of the Urbandale-based software company Entrepreneurial Technologies, grew up in Ames and graduated from the University of Iowa with degrees in economics and management information systems. She has been involved in three tech startups. She is chairwoman of the Technology Association of Iowa’s board of directors. How do you personally […]
For Robert Riley, innovation is looking at Iowa’s lush summertime landscape as a photosynthesis machine feeding the world. It’s about creating food additives from corn oils and other materials at his flagship company, Feed Energy, while working day and night to improve the environment that corn is grown in. Riley knows the glacier-stirred soil needs […]
Ames, the northern headwaters of the growing Cultivation Corridor, is looking to bookend the west-side research center — the doubling-in-size Iowa State University Research Park — with the city’s first major industrial park. The man in the middle, Ames Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Dan Culhane, said the 1,350-acre industrial park on the east edge of town, […]
Ames-based Smart Ag has developed a cloud-based platform for driverless tractors in a move designed to build on a trend toward automation in agriculture. The recently released application, AutoCart, automates grain cart tractors, allowing farmers to increase efficiency through better timing and use of existing equipment, the company reports. AutoCart is part of a system […]