The Business Record’s 2022 innovationENTREPRENEUR Award recipient is Pursuit of Innovation 515 founder and Executive Director Nancy Mwirotsi.  Mwirotsi started an after-school dance group for local girls and in 2014 transitioned it to the early version of Pi515. The education nonprofit teaches underserved youths technology skills and empowers them to explore and pursue science, technology, […]

How Fairfield, a rural southeast Iowa community, has spurred innovation Fairfield, Iowa’s history is one that other Iowans may not know well. Among its interesting facts: The Fairfield Public Library is the first prototype of the Carnegie library, of which there are now 2,700 around the world; the company that developed the international symbol that […]

Rural artists seeking more awareness and resources In the economic recovery from the pandemic, the arts and culture industry was one of the hardest hit — the arts economy was responsible for 4.2% of the GDP in 2020 but contracted at nearly twice the rate of the economy as a whole, according to new data […]

An Iowa State duo adapts a 1990s ISU invention for the future of electronics manufacturing SAFI-Tech was founded from a partnership between Ian Tevis, a then postdoctoral student at Iowa State University, and the researcher he came to study under, Martin Thuo, assistant professor of materials science and engineering. Thuo says in essence, materials science […]

First statewide tracking system created to better Iowa’s sexual assault kit testing capabilities 4,275. That was the number of unsubmitted, untested sexual assault kits in Iowa in March 2017. Before then, no one in Iowa knew that number. Not hospital staffs, not the state’s crime lab, not law enforcement agencies. Sandi Tibbetts Murphy, director of […]