Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

Want to know what's happening in the City of Maryville?

Two Gen Vets, the Seymour-based dumpster rental and junk removal company founded by Tom Richards and his son Nick, is about as unglamorous as a business gets. But, it's a needed service that allows them to play part in a bigger picture.

The winners and honorable mentions span across eight states and work in engineering, forging, machining, metallurgy and smart manufacturing.

Co-founders Mohamed Omar and Saleban Olow leaned on a viral marketing campaign and GitHub momentum to launch Memvid, a self-hosted memory layer for AI agents.

A Crossville-based propulsion company is part of a newly awarded federal defense contract aimed at giving the U.S. military a new kind of unmanned strike capability.

PreTel is also the previous first place winner of the PYA Ballard Innovation Award, and recipient of $50,000 worth of cash and in-kind services.

A breath-analysis device built from COVID research is now targeting cattle bovine respiratory disease, but the Tennessee startup's ambitions go far beyond the pasture.

The report is unambiguous on this point: workforce readiness, not innovation capacity, is the primary constraint on Knoxville's tech growth.