The RISN Incubator is excited to announce the next group of ventures that were selected as finalists for our third cohort:
• FLI Right LLC
Co-founders Mark Hansen and Alice Murphy
FLI Right seeks to transform the future by building and leading an innovative coalition to develop, mature, demonstrate and transition technology solutions and services that directly impact the world’s greatest challenges.
• rePurpose
Co-founders Peter Wang Hjemdahl, Svanika Balasubramanian and Aditya Siroya
Founded at and backed by the University of Pennsylvania, rePurpose is a social enterprise that envisions a circular economy where responsibility is shared ethically by recyclers, manufacturers and consumers.
• Scrappy & Scraps Pet Treats
Founder George Gebran
The company’s mission is to harvest eggshells from local restaurants and hotels and bake them into its treats. This helps the foodservice industry lower its environmental impact, in turn, benefitting the ecosystem. The shells are pasteurized and ground into a fine powder for maximum absorption and help build strong bones and teeth, among other benefits.
• Recyclops
Founder Ryan Smith
Recyclops brings recycling to areas where it isn’t traditionally available. The company has been successful in bringing recycling to these areas by innovating and leveraging technology. By hiring independent contractors with pickup trucks and using a tech-driven smart routing app, the company has been able to eliminate many of the logistical problems that kept recycling from happening in these areas.
The ventures were brought together in downtown Phoenix for a three day immersion program March 25-27th as part of their onboarding process and cohort commencement. Over the course of the immersion program, the ventures had the opportunity to connect with other ventures in their cohort as well as ASU faculty, City of Phoenix staff, and other local experts and mentors on a variety of topics. The ventures learned about how to grow and scale their ventures through participation in a series of technical development workshops meant to guide them in establishing strategies to connect with the right people, networks, and resources during their incubation term as well as post-incubation.
The immersion program kicked off with a day-long workshop on Ethical Circular Economy where the ventures gained a better understanding of the requirements needed to shift to a circular economy including the creativity needed when rethinking designs, processes, and delivery methods. Furthermore, the ventures walked away with a better understanding of systems-thinking and systemic innovation which is essential as it requires one to recognize opportunities within a system to intervene and make an impact.
Day two of the program focused on the topics of The Art of a Well-Tailored Pitch, Strategic Partnership Building, and Raising Capital. Ventures were given one-on-one access to expert mentors from the City of Phoenix, The Recycling Partnership, The Sustainability Consortium, Envision Plastics, RSF Social Finance and Sorenson Impact where they were able to asked pointed questions relevant to their work and get real-world insights into the subject matter themes. The program concluded with workshops on Supply Chain Management and Product/Market Fit featuring expert mentors from W.P. Carey School of Business and Circonomy Solutions.
Learn more about each of these amazing innovators on the Ventures page.