Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

The startup operates like a talent agent for physicians, letting them browse roles and negotiate offers anonymously, with no placement fee.

TRISO-X completes vertical construction of TX-1 in Oak Ridge, a major milestone for the nation's first commercial-scale advanced nuclear fuel fabrication facility.

The Georgia-based startup is relocating to Knoxville through the Spark accelerator to scale its process for turning nut shells into cellulose-based ingredients for packaging, coatings, textiles, non-wovens, paper, synthetic leather and other advanced material applications.

Readel's goal is to use coatings to provide higher efficiency and uptime to industrial systems that experience fouling, corrosion, and high friction in thier manufacturing.

When people think about business recruitment, names like the Chamber of Commerce or a local economic development agency usually come to mind. But, there is one agency in East Tennessee that serves as the region’s only unbiased economic development organization, promoting the entire 15-county market nationally and internationally.

Applicants for the fall 2026 cohort came from eight states, from California to Texas to New York, and of course, Tennessee.

The program places recent graduates in rural local governments, chambers of commerce and city offices for two years — strengthening communities while building Tennessee's economic development workforce pipeline.

"DoubleHOLO's vision is to build the market infrastructure and financial rails to power the trading card economy," the founder, Kacy Lombard, explained.