The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a syndicate of eight Southeast universities — with Georgia Tech as the lead — a $15 million grant to support the development of a regional innovation ecosystem that addresses underrepresentation and increases entrepreneurship and technology-oriented workforce development. 

The NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Southeast Hub is a five-year project based on the I-Corps model, which assists academics in moving their research from the lab to the market. 

Led by Georgia Tech’s Office of Commercialization and Enterprise Innovation Institute, the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub encompasses four states — Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Alabama. 

Its member schools include:

• Clemson University 
• Morehouse College 
• University of Alabama 
• University of Central Florida 
• University of Florida 
• University of Miami 
• University of South Florida 

In January 2025, when the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub officially launches, the consortium of schools will expand to include the University of Puerto Rico. Additionally, through Morehouse College’s activation, Spelman College and the Morehouse School of Medicine will also participate in supporting the project. 

With a combined economic output of more than $3.2 trillion, the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub region represents more than 11% of the entire U.S. economy. As a region, those states and Puerto Rico have a larger economic output than France, Italy, or Canada. 

“This is a great opportunity for us to engage in regional collaboration to drive innovation across the Southeast to strengthen our regional economy and that of Puerto Rico,” said the Enterprise Innovation Institute’s Nakia Melecio, director of the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub. As director, Melecio will oversee strategic management, data collection, and overall operations​. 

Additionally, Melecio serves as a national faculty instructor for the NSF I-Corps program. 

“This also allows us to collectively tackle some of the common challenges all four of our states face, especially when it comes to being intentionally inclusive in reaching out to communities that historically haven’t always been invited to participate,” he said. 

That means bringing solutions to market that not only solve problems but are intentional about including researchers from Black and Hispanic-serving institutions, Melecio said. 

Keith McGreggor, director of Georgia Tech’s VentureLab, is the faculty lead charged with designing the curriculum and instruction for the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub’s partners. 

McGreggor has extensive I-Corps experience. In 2012, Georgia Tech was among the first institutions in the country selected to teach the I-Corps curriculum, which aims to further research commercialization. McGreggor served as the lead instructor for I-Corps-related efforts and led training efforts across the Southeast, as well as for teams in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and the Republic of Ireland. 

Raghupathy “Siva” Sivakumar, Georgia Tech’s vice president of Commercialization and chief commercialization officer, is the project’s principal investigator. 

The NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub is one of three announced by the NSF. The others are in the Northwest and New England regions, led by the University of California, Berkeley, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, respectively. The three I-Corps Hubs are part of the NSF’s planned expansion of its National Innovation Network, which now includes 128 colleges and universities across 48 states. 

As designed, the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub will leverage its partner institutions’ strengths to break down barriers to researchers’ pace of lab-to-market commercialization. 

"Our Hub member institutions have successfully commercialized transformative technologies across critical sectors, including advanced manufacturing, renewable energy, cybersecurity, and biomedical fields,” said Sivakumar. “We aim to achieve two key objectives: first, to establish and expand a scalable model that effectively translates research into viable commercial ventures; and second, to address pressing societal needs.

"This includes not only delivering innovative solutions but also cultivating a diverse pipeline of researchers and innovators, thereby enhancing interest in STEM fields — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.”

U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Atlanta, is a proponent of the Hub’s STEM component. 

“As a biology major-turned-congresswoman, I know firsthand that STEM education and research open doors far beyond the lab or classroom.,” Williams said. “This National Science Foundation grant means Georgia Tech will be leading the way in equipping researchers and grad students to turn their discoveries into real-world impact — as innovators, entrepreneurs, and business leaders. 

“I’m especially excited about the partnership with Morehouse College and other minority-serving institutions through this Hub, expanding pathways to innovation and entrepreneurship for historically marginalized communities and creating one more tool to close the racial wealth gap.” 

That STEM aspect, coupled with supporting the growth of a regional ecosystem, will speed commercialization, increase higher education-industry collaborations, and boost the network of diverse entrepreneurs and startup founders, said David Bridges, vice president of the Enterprise Innovation Institute. 

“This multi-university, regional approach is a successful model because it has been proven that bringing a diversity of stakeholders together leads to unique solutions to very difficult problems,” he said. “And while the Southeast faces different challenges that vary from state to state and Puerto Rico has its own needs, they call for a more comprehensive approach to solving them. Adopting a region-oriented focus allows us to understand what these needs are, customize tailored solutions, and keep not just our hub but our nation economically competitive.” 

Taking a summer internship in economic development, Stephanie Galicia, a graduate student at Kennesaw State University, didn’t expect she’d be saving lives.

But Galicia, who is pursuing master’s degrees in business and public administration, found herself doing just that as an Enterprise 6 Intern in the Safety, Health, Environmental Services group at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute.

Because some of her family members work in manufacturing, construction, and landscaping, she felt a strong personal connection to the group’s mission to help employers reduce workplace hazards.

“To come to work, learn the educational side, and go home and educate my family is something I've been very fortunate to do,” Galicia said. “Everyone who works in these environments works to be able to feed their family and have a place to live. They don't know how serious these hazards are that they come across each day. We’re able to tell people, ‘This chemical’s harming you, this air is harming you, this safety hazard is harming you.’ It’s saving lives.”

Galicia was one of seven Enterprise 6 students from Georgia universities who put the skills they’ve honed in labs and classrooms into a host of dynamic economic development projects across the state this summer.

Launched in 2021, the Enterprise 6 program allows University System of Georgia undergraduate and graduate students to work in the economic development space. In the past three years, 31 interns have been selected.

The Enterprise Innovation Institute is the nation’s longest-running and most diverse university-based economic development organization. Since launching its founding program more than 60 years ago, it has expanded to serve a wide range of businesses of all sizes while also increasing its focus on socioeconomic development, providing resources, support, and skills to local communities.

Enterprise 6 interns receive practical, real-life work experience and $25 an hour for a 20-hour work week, as well as mentorship from a research faculty member and biweekly check-in meetings. The program is made possible by funding from the Office of the Executive Vice President for Research.

“Our Enterprise 6 internships immerse students from Georgia Tech and other universities in the work of socioeconomic development across our programs that serve communities and business,” said Enterprise Innovation Institute Vice President David Bridges. “Students don’t always see direct parallels between socioeconomic development and their courses of study, but this experience is designed to help make those connections.”

That was the case for Anshika Nichani, who interned with the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership. “Cybersecurity, supply chain, and Industry 4.0 projects provided me with invaluable experience and have been instrumental in my development across multiple domains,” said Nichani, a computer science major.

“I learned more here than in some of my classes. It was also fascinating and enjoyable to learn about general workplace practices and dynamics.”

For Shreya Dudeja, an undergraduate studying business administration in the Scheller College of Business, the internship enabled her to learn about the inner workings of university finance, tracking processes, and delving into research and policy. What she especially appreciated about the internship was “the fact that I could work with so many different people. It's a very collaborative environment.”

Ciera Hudson is a Georgia Tech mechanical engineering student who will graduate in December. Hudson, who grew up singing and playing the flute, chose an Arts Innovation internship and has discovered some overlap between her major and her creative passions.

As an engineering student, she said, “I've had a lot of opportunities to learn about how products are developed and the whole life cycle from concept to completion.” She sees similarities between that process and designing an arts program that meets a client’s particular needs.

Samuel Hutto, an economics major at Georgia College and State University, worked with Georgia Tech’s Center for Economic Development Research (CEDR), building surveys and collecting and organizing data on municipalities throughout the state.

What he enjoyed most about his experience was CEDR's team. “They've been very accepting and relaxed. They're very easy to work with,” said Hutto, who added, “I've learned more about how research can truly affect people's lives.”

Students participated at various stages in their educational and career paths. EI2 Global intern Ejaz Ahmed, for example, is a Ph.D. student in the School of Public Policy with previous work experience, and Georgia Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing intern Byron Fair enjoyed a successful military career before joining Scheller’s MBA program.

Krystle Richardson, program operations manager for Enterprise 6, supports students throughout their internships, helping them to fine-tune goals and navigate challenges while connecting them with relevant resources at the Enterprise Innovation Institute and Georgia Tech.

“I’m thrilled when interns extend their time with us as student workers or graduate research assistants,” she said. “Some even secure full-time positions.”

One such intern is Hanyu “Hannah” Lu. After her experience in the 2023 Enterprise 6 cohort, she completed a master’s degree in computational science and engineering at Georgia Tech. Lu then went on to work as a student employee at the Enterprise Innovation Institute, and she’s recently been hired as a data analyst in the organization’s Office of the Vice President.

“The success of the Enterprise 6 Internship program stems from both our exceptional interns — bright, driven individuals who eagerly apply their classroom knowledge to real-world projects — and our dedicated leaders who provide them with meaningful and valuable experience that shapes their career paths,” said Richardson.

“We hope the interns’ experiences will have a lasting, positive impact on their careers and lives.”

Melecio, who has also served as the deep tech catalyst in the Enterprise Innovation Institute’s ATDC startup incubator, will lead Innovation Lab, which encompasses new business development efforts in life sciences and biosciences. The Innovation Lab initiative centers on three core activities:

• Grow healthcare research, innovation, and workforce development practice. 
• Expand EI2 Global's international footprint. 
• Support VentureLab's National Science Foundation I-Corps activities.

“Nakia has been instrumental in helping to expand Georgia’s life sciences community and ecosystem,” said David Bridges, vice president of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, Georgia Tech’s chief economic development arm. “Leading Innovation Lab already builds on a foundation he created since joining us in 2019 and further supports our broad economic development mission.”

He's already leading in the healthcare research practice expansion with his work in the MedTech Center and running the ScaleUp Lab Program for deep tech innovation.

Under Melecio’s leadership as founding director, the MedTech Center, which has the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership and Global Center for Medical Innovation as partners, has worked with and evaluated the innovations of more than 200 companies. Since launching in 2021, the MedTech Center’s 66 active startups have raised $13.1 million in investment capital and an additional $6.4 million in federal, non-dilutive funding grants.

In 2023, the MedTech Center was selected to join the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health’s ARPA-H Investor Catalyst Hub to accelerate the commercialization of practical, accessible biomedical solutions.

He is supporting Georgia Tech’s efforts to collaborate with Atlanta University Center schools — Spelman College, Clark-Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and the Morehouse School of Medicine — to collaborate with those minority-serving institutions as they build out capacity for their scientists and researchers to create more life sciences technology companies, following an award from the Economic Development Administration.

Similarly, Melecio is working with the University of Alabama at Birmingham on a collaborative project in biologics and medical devices to move more of its researchers’ innovations out of the lab and into commercial markets.

As Innovation Lab lead, Melecio, who has secured more than $5.76 million in federal grants and awards to Georgia Tech, will also work to develop biomanufacturing partnerships for Georgia Tech.

With EI2 Global, the Enterprise Innovation Institute’s program that fosters economic opportunity through collaborations with universities, innovators, governments, and nonprofit organizations worldwide, Melecio will serve as an instructor on Lab-to-Market and CREATE-X programming for entrepreneurs. He will also create and provide educational content for EI2 Global’s university and ecosystem partners.

Closer to home, his Innovation Lab work includes ongoing projects as a principal in VentureLab, a program of Georgia Tech’s Office of Commercialization. In that capacity, he will work on VentureLab’s National Science Foundation-related Innovation Corps (I-Corps) programming. Those efforts, overseen by Commercialization Vice President Raghupathy "Siva" Sivakumar, include the NSF I-Corps Hub Academy, where Melecio will serve as director.

“Our efforts with Innovation Lab are centered around finding new opportunities, new markets, and new industries by leveraging our areas of expertise at the Enterprise Innovation Institute and Georgia Tech to build economic development capacity in the life sciences and biosciences space,” Melecio said.

“We’re looking to take a broader perspective, away from being hyper-focused in one or two niche areas in life sciences, to ensure that we maximize opportunities to support new ideas, build stronger practice areas in this space, and secure funding to bring those innovations to scale.”

Warner Robins’ Citizen Safety Digital Twin for Community Resilience and Woodstock’s Smart Master Plan and Smart Corridor Study were recognized at the 2024 Taipei Smart City Summit and Expo with the Intelligent Community Forum’s Smart21 Community Award.

At the same time, Columbus was named a Smart 20 award winner by Smart Cities Connect for the Digital Twin River Safety Project. That award will be presented in May.

“These accolades are a testament to the Partnership’s pivotal role in developing, nurturing, steering, and funding these projects from conception to triumphant completion,” said Debra Lam, the Partnership’s director. The Partnership is comprised of several private and public sector entities and is supported by Georgia Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute.

The Warner Robins project to develop and test a Citizen Safety Digital Twin for Community Resilience integrated a dynamic license plate reader solution with police department investigation practices to help lower crime rates in the community. Working with researchers from Georgia Tech and Middle Georgia State University, the Warner Robins Police Department used historical crime data to determine the optimal location and direction to place license plate reader cameras. During the six-month pilot phase of the project, the data helped recover 27 stolen vehicles and solve three major crimes — a shooting and two homicides.

“It’s one of the best investments I think we can make as a city because it brings the peace of mind of safe streets, safe communities, safe shopping experience. The fact that we have our flock cameras in different areas in our city with the smart technology to expand the footprint of our police department helps us solve crime and also helps deter crime, which is even more beneficial.” Warner Robins Mayor LaRhonda Patrick said.

The Woodstock project dates back to 2020, when the city worked with the Partnership on a master plan and smart corridor study to help alleviate the traffic and lack of parking in the city, following a doubling of the population since 2010.

In that first part of the project, the city collected data from GridSmart installations, which document minute-by-minute traffic and turning movements. In the second phase, interns from the Partnership examined the data to find ways to integrate it with previously collected traffic volume flows to show historical patterns. The goal is to determine the best way to amalgamate the data for use in making smart decisions about new transportation projects.

“Woodstock is honored to be among this diverse list of communities, and we are proud to represent the state of Georgia with fellow honoree Warner Robins,” said Mayor Michael Caldwell. “The city of Woodstock is committed to improving its citizens’ quality of life through smart technology programs. From transportation systems to innovative infrastructure technology, the city has been boldly pursuing the initiatives of its Smart Master Plan since 2020.”

The Columbus project’s goal is to make the world’s longest manmade urban whitewater course safer for swimmers and boaters. Scheduled and unscheduled dam releases have caused flooding, limited time for evacuations, and drownings. A digital twin created for the river allowed Georgia Tech and Columbus State University researchers to collaborate and develop technology that can predict changing water levels, detect humans in the water, and alert authorities.

“I think to win the award is awesome, but the impetus was to promote river safety and provide real-time SMART solutions that save lives,” said James Forrest Toelle, Ph.D., information technology director for Columbus consolidated government, and the project manager for the digital twin project. “None of it would have been possible without the tremendous partnership with Georgia Tech, the Partnership, and our local fire department.”

These three international wins follow the selection of Valdosta as a finalist in the 2021 World Smart Cities Awards in the Mobility Category for its Traffic Monitoring and Communication System to Improved Safety, Connectivity, and Efficiency project that has reduced the time it takes for first responders to travel the city.

“These projects exemplify the transformative power of technology and community engagement in creating safer, more enjoyable, and more resilient communities,” Lam said. “This remarkable success rate is a clear indicator of our role in nurturing a vibrant ecosystem for innovations—placing Georgia firmly on the map for smart cities.”

The PSI uses collaboration, diversity and forward thinking to elevate the outcomes of our communities and environment. Our competitive, immersive 12-week program brings together extraordinary cohorts of interns representing colleges and universities nationwide and communities around the world.

Interns will gain valuable experience working with local government, community, and non-profit leaders while receiving a summer living stipend of $8,000* for the 12-week internship. *The summer living stipend is paid bi-weekly at a rate of $16.66 an hour and is taxed as income.

Interns selected for positions are required to live within the community they serve and work in person at the work site indicated on the individual job description. PSI interns will be responsible for the cost of housing/food/transportation. All interns must have reliable transportation to get to their positions daily.

With a presence across the Southeast United States, the talent and diversity from these cohorts have demonstrated major feats. In just a few years, the PSI has evolved from a modest initiative to an unparalleled platform for innovation. The 2023 PSI cohort of 63 interns stands as its largest, most competitive, and most diverse group, to date.

FITZGERALD, Ga. — In many ways, this South Georgia town boasts the best of small rural communities. Just 23 miles east of Interstate 75, Fitzgerald has a busy downtown thoroughfare with shops, antique stores, and eateries. It has a modern airport with a 5,000-foot runway, an active mainline railroad, and industrial parks. It’s also home to a museum with a nod to its 1895 beginnings as a community and haven for veterans who fought on both sides of the Civil War.

Fitzgerald also has a successful history of industrial recruitment that has provided the community with a significant manufacturing base. Recent capital investments in wood products, food and beverage processing, plastics, and manufacturing have increased employment, personal income growth, and the community’s GDP.

With its local economy steadily improving, this community of 9,000 is also looking to boost its new home development construction activity. Now, city leaders and officials from surrounding Ben Hill County are working with the Center for Economic Development Research (CEDR) and EDA University Center at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Instituteto produce a study to figure out a viable strategy.

The study is funded in part through an Economic Development Research Program (EDRP) grant, which is administered by the EDA University Center. These grants are targeted toward economically distressed communities that can’t afford the cost of this type of comprehensive economic development research. EDA University Center grants offset some expenses that would otherwise be cost-prohibitive to rural communities.

CEDR is conducting the six-month research and analysis project in Fitzgerald, which entails looking at housing that's for sale, determining what the rental rates are, and developing housing development strategy recommendations for the entire city, said Betsy McGriff, a CEDR associate project manager and lead researcher on the study. It will also include ways to maximize cost effective development strategies, such as new home construction in historic neighborhoods to help revitalize them.

“Our objective is to get a much better understanding of the factors that are deterring new home development,” said Jason Dunn, executive director of the Fitzgerald and Ben Hill County Development Authority. “We want to create more homeownership and have the data needed to influence new residential development in Ben Hill County.

The need for the Fitzgerald study comes as the community has seen increased demand for more housing with options in both single family, owner-occupied homes, as well as rentals. But the city’s existing inventory isn’t enough to meet the demand, nor is it energy efficient, comprised of buildings that are at least 100 years old.

“We believe the study will give us the market data needed to pursue a public-private partnership to meet the community needs and lead to residential development that will provide housing solutions in one of Georgia's most rural areas,” Dunn said.

CEDR is also doing a nine-month study for the City of Jefferson Downtown Development Authority, located in North Georgia’s Jackson County, about 22 miles northwest of Athens. That multifaceted project, which is also partly funded by an EDRP grant, includes a housing market analysis to create a strategy to get more residential housing units built closer to its downtown.

It also includes a retail market analysis to determine what goods and services are needed in the area. It also includes visioning sessions to advise the Downtown Development Authority and help its leaders prioritize strategies and future steps needed for maximum community impact.

The Missing Middle

The two projects reflect the growing housing challenge that scores of communities face across the country said Alan Durham, a CEDR researcher and director of the Basic Economic Development Course.

“Across the U.S., right now we're short about 4 million housing units. And a lot of those missing units are entry level affordable housing, and workforce housing for police, fire fighters, nurses, and teachers. That's what's called the missing middle,” said Durham, who has been researching the national trends and leads the Jefferson project research.

As costs rise, developers are trending toward building very high-end homes. While the high-end housing market is doing well, not enough at the other end — entry-level housing — is being built, squeezing out a market segment communities need to attract.

“Millennials and Gen Z, they can't even get their foot in the door in the housing market anymore,” Durham said. “The ideal range on housing expenditures is 25% to 30% of gross income. In reality, many are spending over 50% of their wages on housing, leaving them cash-poor to deal with basic necessities and unforeseen expenses.”

Part of the research CEDR will do includes data analyses of both communities. The research will break both communities into their respective income tiers to see how many people make a set amount of money per year, Durham said.

Based on the different income tiers, the CEDR analyses in Fitzgerald and Jefferson will guide the types of housing price points leaders in both communities should pursue.

Detailed Analysis

In addition to the income tiers and bands major employers in each community pay, the CEDR studies will analyze employee commuting patterns, where residents shop for staple goods and services, and other factors that shape where people decide to live.

“These are very rural markets so our work to pull meaningful and actionable data will be different than in a metro area where it’s a little clearer or there’s just more data to be had,” McGriff said. “Our focus and approach will be a lot more granular to assess the demands of a rural market and pull out really meaningful data.”

Armed with that data, both communities will be positioned to develop strategies for targeted engagement with the right mix of investors and developers, McGriff said.

“They’re going to have to sell their communities to investors using the data we produce and the recommendations that we develop together for development strategies,” McGriff said. “These EDA University Center grants are really an investment tool for economic development, and they can leverage that money to attract investments to their communities, which could lead to more jobs and increased tax base, which just then cycles into helping these communities thrive.”