After 29 years of service to Lorain County Community College, Dr. Roy A. Church has left his mark on the school with the establishment of the Roy and Bobbi Church Visionary Leadership Institute. The Visionary Leadership Institute held a kick-off Legacy of Leadership gala April 25 outside of the LCCC Spitzer Center, 1005 N. Abbe Road. The black tie affair drew a crowd of 660, who gathered for cocktails, dinner and speeches by Church, LCCC Board Chair Terry Goode and keynote speaker Dr. Michael Porter of Harvard Business School.

SMART Microsystems Ltd., which runs the center’s first floor, passed the break-even point last summer, according to Matt Apanius, president of the company, which is owned by the Lorain County Community College Innovation Foundation.

Two startup portfolio companies at the Youngstown Business Incubator have received $25,000 apiece from The Innovation Fund of Northeast Ohio to help offset costs associated with equipment, development, and project validation, the fund announced today.

JuggerBot 3D plans to build two 3-D printer prototypes to further the company’s research. Enyx Studios will create a trailer to market its new virtual-reality game. This is what two local startups plan to do with the $25,000 they each received from Innovation Fund Northeast Ohio.

Core Nutrition Planning is a software-as-a-service business with a Nutrition Planning Application to help endurance athletes maximize performance in races and training.

Asker Jeukendrup, a Dutch athlete from a young age, was obsessed with finding new ways to improve performance. He became an exercise physiologist, built up an international reputation as a researcher at the University of Birmingham in the UK, a practitioner, and a recognized leader in the field of sports nutrition. In this role he used his access to research and evidence to help other athletes of all levels to reach their potential. His passion was and still is to translate scientific findings into practical solutions for athletes. In many years of working with athletes from weekend warriors to World and Olympic Champions, he witnessed many of them struggle with the vast amount of often confusing information that was available.

Bill Braun, based in Ohio, grew up a swimmer and after college began to participate in endurance sports running, cycling and triathlon; as his daughters grew up, they shared the same thrill of cycling, running and triathlon, and now train and race with their dad. As Bill targeted longer events, he recognized how critical proper fueling was; he also noticed that many other athletes struggled nutrition for their training and events. He found he had a desire to helping athletes get nutrition right. He knew it would be possible to do this through an app he was prototyping, but only if the app was built on the most solid evidence-based nutrition research. While delving into the endurance sports nutrition research to support proper nutrition planning, he came across Asker’s work over and over again. In the summer of 2015 he decided to contact him and discuss collaboration. After a few weeks and a couple of joint bike rides later, CORE was born; a software application that helps athletes make the right nutrition choices for their events.

The market for CORE is the rapidly growing, global endurance sports space that includes running (marathons, half marathons, ultra-marathons), triathlon (Olympic distance and longer), cycling (racing and distance touring) and many other sports. CORE addresses the athlete’s needs by providing nutrition plans for training and events. The nutrition plans are personalized for the athlete’s physiology, specific event/activity, preference of fuels, and more. Further, the software helps the athlete to keep improving by analyzing results and providing feedback.

CORE will be offered as a FreeMium product; free for some great introductory capability, and for a fee for important extended capability. CORE has been developed as a mobile-responsive web browser initially; this provides broad usability while keeping development lower. Our technology roadmap includes consideration of native IOS and Android applications as well as integration with other sports technology.

The company received a $25,000 Innovation Fund A award in February 2016. 

Website: https://www.fuelthecore.com/

MicroFantasy is a free app that redefines sports spectating by letting fans compete against each other for prizes by predicting plays real-time. Stadiums, arenas, schools, and sports bars that offer the game can use Micro Fantasy to earn more revenue through better fan engagement, advertising, and attendance. The company was founded on the principles of simplicity, mass appeal, and family fun and responses so far have been overwhelmingly positive.  Marketing efforts are focused first on the baseball industry because that's where the founder experienced the moment of inception and where the need is greatest.  The web driven app delivers a repeatable fun experience with minimal features.  This allows us to deliver on the number one goal which is performance and widespread delivery.  It may appear basic at first glance. But, like a deck of cards or chess board, the core contruct has infinite combinations depending on the player choices and on-field action.

The company has successfully tested in seven sports bar locations at once with more than 100 users. The app currently relies on human inputs for sport results.  Its next steps involve offering Micro Fantasy to entire stadiums of fans in Texas and Kentucky where our first customers are testing the product with their fans.  After that, it hopes to expand to 30 stadiums by season’s end with automated play-by-play results.  At the same time, they'll be developing Micro Fantasy for more venues and other sports.

MicroFantasy won a $25,000 Innovation Fund A award in February 2016.

website: microfantasy.com

HotEnd Works has developed a 3D Printer capable of printing advanced materials, such as Alumina Ceramic, using a proprietary highly advanced thin film processing technique. 

The company was founded in 2012 by Benjamin Becker and Jessica Whittaker to address a market gap in advanced material 3D printing. Their company aims to change the way that advanced materials, such as ceramics, are used today by making the materials more accessible to the engineering / design community. 

HotEnd Works' 3D printer, the HDfab, uses proprietary high density deposition technology. This technology will allow for high performance 3D printed parts that will drive the cost of advanced material parts down, while performing at the level of today's traditionally manufactured parts.  The 3D printing system will also reduce lead times from several months to days.  HotEnd Works serves the aerospace / defense, general industry, and medical markets. The high performance nature of the materials produced from HotEnd Works' proprietary process has garnered the interest of several major government institutions. Several partnerships have been formed and current investigation into the feasiblity of replacing traditionally manufactured parts with HDfab 3D printed parts is underway.  

The company won a $25,000 Innovation Fund A award in February 2016.

website: hotendworks.com

Drive My Way is a unique, online, personalized recruiting service that matches CDL truck drivers with available jobs based on their qualifications and personal preferences.

The idea for Drive My Way dates to the late 1990s when our founder, human resource expert Beth Potratz, realized the world was changing, including the relationship between employers and employees. To retain and attract talent, employers needed to create more flexible opportunities that adapted to their employees’ changing needs and wants.

Fast forward to 2013. Beth was working on driver recruitment solutions for a trucking-industry client. She quickly recognized a two-way challenge – employers were hard pressed to find the best-fitting drivers and drivers were challenged to find jobs that best fit their needs. So she transformed her idea from a decade earlier into a tangible solution called Drive My Way. Based in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, a must-travel state for almost every truck driver, Drive My Way is a unique, online, personalized recruiting service that matches CDL truck drivers with available jobs based on their qualifications and personal preferences. The site’s Match My Way technology sets us apart. It lets both driver and employer know how well they match to each job posting before entering the hiring process.

In addition, Drive My Way provides valuable news content related to the trucking industry, including topics that are meaningful to drivers and employers. Our strong online presence continues to gain momentum, fueled by the content on our blog and e-newsletters. Our social engagement is also growing rapidly in response to posts on our social media channels. We are building relationships, and even more, a community. We want to be a trusted resource for drivers throughout their career and a partner to help employers focus on quality of hire, increased engagement and retention.

The trucking industry is vital to the economy and is faced with a shortage of truck drivers that is growing at an alarming rate. It’s the drivers who get the job done! We get it, not everyone wants the same thing. We are passionate about personalizing the recruitment experience for both drivers and employers. On the one hand, we match drivers with jobs that will allow them to live the life they want. On the other, we match employers with talent that is both qualified and engaged.

The company received a $100,000 Innovation Fund B award in February 2016. 

website: drivemyway.com

Enyx Studios is shaping the future of interactive storytelling using virtual reality. The company was founded in 2015 by Don Hileman and is a video game development studio focused on creating interactive experiences for gamers using technologies such as virtual reality. Enyx Studios is a YBI portfolio company and has an office in Youngstown, OH.

With the gaming industry continuously growing year after year and with the upcoming release of virtual reality headsets, Enyx Studios founder Don Hileman saw an opportunity and applied to become an Approved Developer for both Xbox and PlayStation. After being accepted into both developer program, Enyx began developing an interactive, immersive experience for PlayStation VR. After reviewing the game concept, PlayStation not only approved it but also has been working with Enyx Studios to ensure the success of Enyx's upcoming virtual reality game "A Haunting: Witching Hour". Enyx Studios plans on releasing "A Haunting: Witching Hour" this fall for the PlayStation 4.

The company received a $25,000 Innovation Fund A award in February 2016.

website: enyxstudios.com