Five finalists selected for the 2026 PYA Ballard Innovation Award
The five finalists will compete for the opportunity to win a total of $65,000 in non-dilutive capital and in-kind services, courtesy of PYA Accountants and Advisors.
Five finalists representing a broad range of industries have been selected to present at the 6th annual PYA Ballard Innovation Award on Wednesday, April 22. The competition is among the most competitive in the East Tennessee region, with a prize pool of $65,000 in capital and in-kind services available to participating founders.
Winners of this competition have gone on to scale 10x, raise millions, and experience life-changing exits.
Meet the 2026 presenters for the PYA Ballard Innovation Award
CE Tools Inc.
Dan Lemcke founded CE Tools Inc. (Contractor Engineered) to fill a gap in the construction industry: legacy tools lack innovation. After years in the construction industry, Lemcke began developing tools that solved real job site frustrations with performance, usability, reliability, and efficiency. CE Tools products like SnapBack Releasable Chalk Lines, Ultra Fine Chalk, Tough Towels, and Tough Wipes can be found on the shelves at big box stores like Home Depot, Menards, Ace Hardware, Amazon, and more.
Lemcke launched CE Tools in 2022 to bring to market tools that are built by contractors for contractors. Since opening shop, CE Tool sales have grown by more than 50% year over year.
Coulomb Technology
Tim Vosburgh launched Coulomb Technology in 2022 to help solve problems with current batteries and energy storage systems, such as safety, fires, poor performance in extreme temperatures, the use of scarce materials, and the fact that much of the supply chain is in China.
Coulomb Technology builds safer, extreme temperature-tolerant, high c-rate sodium-ion starter batteries as well as air-cooled, AI-enabled sodium-ion energy storage (BESS) systems. The BESS systems help property owners lower electric bills, help utilities gain dispatchable and measurable distributed capacity, and help investors underwrite projects with bankable operational data.
Vosburgh is in the 2024 cohort of Innovation Crossroads at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Check out Coulomb Technology’s full list of battery products here.
EVR Cool
In June 2023, engineers Josh Roby and Jacob Swain founded EVR Cool to solve a major gap in the industrial chiller industry.
Modern infrastructure, from AI data centers and electrified transportation to industrial power electronics, is rapidly increasing in power density. As systems become more powerful, the ability to effectively remove heat has become one of the most critical constraints to performance, reliability, and energy efficiency.
Conventional air cooling and legacy liquid cooling systems are energy-intensive, physically large, and increasingly unable to keep up with the demands of high-density computing and electrified systems. EVRCOOL is solving this problem by developing advanced cooling technologies that significantly increase heat transfer efficiency while reducing system size, energy consumption, and operational complexity. Learn more about EVR Cool’s product.
TerraSync
Wesley Pitts founded TerraSync (formerly KnoxBots) in 2022, while still a student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK). He started by deploying robotic mowers to residential clients in Knoxville, then shifted one year later to entirely commercial clients: golf courses, university campuses, and even McGhee Tyson Airport.
During these deployments, Pitts noticed a gap in software for automated grounds maintenance, so he built that software. Today, TerraSync operates as Grounds Maintenance Automation (GMA), the IT company for the turfgrass and commercial outdoor maintenance industry. The platform can onboard any robotic mower, drone, golf ball picker, irrigation sensor, line painter, and any other automated ground maintenance machine.
Learn more about TerraSync here.
Qubit Engineering
Marouane Salhi founded Qubit Engineering to transform electric power grid operations through physics-informed AI and quantum-inspired optimization. The founding team includes scientists from the UTK and ORNL.
Initially focused on wind farm optimization, Qubit has pivoted and expanded to power grid optimization due to the demand for renewable integration, load volatility, and infrastructure constraints. The company develops software solutions called “Neuro-Grid” and “Quanta-Grid” to provide real-time grid analysis and forecasting.
Salhi is a graduate of the 2023 cohort of Innovation Crossroads at ORNL.
The winners of the 2026 PYA Ballard Innovation Award will be announced during the pitch competition, awards ceremony, and reception on April 22. We will provide updates from the competition on Teknovation.
Learn more about the PYA Ballard Innovation Award.
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