BIZTRACKS
Purdue University Initiative Aims to Digitize Agrifood Chain
Credit: Dial Ventures
DIAL Ventures, an agrifood start-up studio launched by Purdue University, intends to help digitize the agrifood system through the creation of innovative companies that provide industry solutions. Areas that are being addressed by DIAL Ventures are food safety, supply chain transparency, labor shortages, sustainability, and environmental impact. Through its innovation process, DIAL Ventures strives to solve problems in the agrifood sector’s globally distributed, continuous production system.
DIAL Ventures states that its process “de-risks the human talent needed to run startup companies and de-risks startup ideas.” DIAL Ventures’ three-fold strategy is:
- Open innovation to benefit the industry
- A fellowship program for top entrepreneurs
- Corporate partnerships to drive strategy.
DIAL Ventures uses its industry expertise to encourage industry participants to be forward-thinking. As a result, innovative companies are created based on emerging trends and opportunities.
The new companies are developed in concert with DIAL Ventures’ fellowship program. The people in the program are entrepreneurs who are invited to work through company development activities while collaborating on ideas directly with the DIAL Ventures’ industry partners. The industry partners help DIAL Ventures define the problems that exist, which fellows learn about to develop their entrepreneurial skills.
Once industry pain points been identified, the fellows and experts in the industry work together to build digital innovation solutions to those problems. New business ideas for the companies that stem from the studio processes are pitched every six months to an investment committee at a Pitch Day event.
DIAL Ventures: www.dialventures.com
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