Chattanooga, Tennessee is home to more than just antiquated songs about rail transportation. It’s also home to an emerging tech scene and business incubators, like The Company Lab. The Company Lab, which itself grew out of the city’s CreateHere incubator, will be coordinating the city’s annual GIGTANK event, a summer-long program that has entrepreneurs utilize new technology to form start-up companies. And, this year, GIGTANK 2014 will focus on 3D printing, in addition to healthcare and smart grid development.
One of Chattanooga’s technological features that makes it one of a kind is its city-wide public Internet. Home to the US’s first municipality-owned utility company, Chattanooga’s 170,000 businesses and homes are connected to one another through a one-gigabit fibre infrastructure. Not only does this give the city’s residents access to high-speed internet, but it allows the city to efficiently monitor fire and police department communications, traffic control, storm water management and more. GIGTANK has, in the past, made use of the city-wide Internet by encouraging teams of entrepreneurs participating in the event to enhance its smart energy grid and to develop telemedicine businesses in Chattanooga. GIGTANK 2014 will be the first iteration of the program to feature an additive manufacturing component.
Two-member teams accepted to GIGTANK will receive $15,000 in seed money, with possible prototype funds from Alcatel Lucent, to test their business ideas in the city. In addition to free housing throughout the program, the start-ups will be given a workspace and access to the city’s businesses and technological expertise. Promising projects hatched at GIGTANK will receive an additional $150,000 in funding to bring their ideas to completion and will tour the country and, possibly around the world, to seek further funding and to showcase their work.
Mike Bradshaw, executive director of The Company Lab explained how the city’s unique infrastructure will provide the backdrop for the event, saying, “Chattanooga is a hub for manufacturing and home to the nation’s most advanced smart grid network. Our foothold in these areas creates an entirely new domain of possibilities when combined with our gigabit Internet service. For startups in the healthcare industry, Chattanooga’s broadband opens new territory for developing next-generation telemedicine and medical imagery applications. For those exploring applications in advanced manufacturing and smart grid technologies, we offer a robust network of experts and industry contacts. This is an especially valuable resource to startups looking to pilot new business applications in active, networked industry settings.”
As the program attempts to continue Chattanooga’s transformation from one of the most polluted cities in the world to one of the most hi-tech and outdoor friendly cities in the world, it’s exciting to see it embrace of 3D printing. I can only imagine the ways that the start-ups started-up at GIGTANK 2014 will use 3D printing to work with the smart grid and push the city ahead of the rest of the country. If you’ve got your own ideas, applications will be accepted from January 15 to March 14th, so it’s not too late to start brainstorming!
Source: The Chattanoogan
