Southeast Shoutouts | SOAR Summit 25 scheduled for next month in Corbin
The Carolina Climate Founder's Forum has been launched as a pilot program.
From Corbin, KY:
Danielle Goonan, Vice President of U.S. Program and Policy at The Rockefeller Foundation, is the latest featured speaker to be announced for the 2025 SOAR Summit, presented by Appalachian Wireless and the Appalachian Regional Commission.
Scheduled for August 26-29 at the Corbin Arena, the conference is organized by SOAR (Shaping Our Appalachian Region), a nonprofit serving the 54 Appalachian Regional Commission counties of Eastern Kentucky. Breakout sessions during the four days will focus on:
- Workforce;
- Innovation;
- Tourism;
- Capacity, and
- Artificial intelligence.
Mitch Landrieu, Founder of E Pluribus Unum, former Mayor of New Orleans, and former Lieutenant Governor of the State of Louisiana, will keynote the Kickoff Plenary Session on August 28.
From Raleigh, NC:
The Carolina Climate Founder’s Forum (CCFF) has been launched as a pilot program.
Described as a curated community designed to support early stage founders and innovators in the clean and climate tech space, the initiative is a partnership with First Flight Venture Center, North Carolina’s premier tech incubator, Center for Entrepreneurial Development, Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster, and Hutchison PLLC, a leading law firm supporting entrepreneurs and innovators across the Southeast.
Together, we’re bringing the region’s brightest climate tech minds into one room, with the goal of building the foundational community infrastructure that will position the Triangle—and the state—as a national leader in climate innovation.
According to a report in GrepBeat, the initiative will soon launch a “professionally facilitated peer group” of 10-12 climate tech founders who will share insights, overcome challenges, and present to investors and other ecosystem leaders.
The group held its first meet-up last week.
From Greenville, SC:
Recognizing that Greenville is ideally positioned between Atlanta and Charlotte, NC — two of the nation’s premier financial hubs, the Upstate Business Journal reports that NextGEN has brought together local stakeholders to explore what it would take to make this region the next hub in fintech innovation. The effort is a partnership with SC Launch and Build Carolina.
“We’re not trying to be the next Atlanta or Charlotte,” said Gary Shiffman, NextGEN Entrepreneur-in-Residence and former fintech founder. “We’re leveraging Greenville’s distinct advantages to create something complementary.”
He is spearheading a working group of local fintech founders and other stakeholders to identify opportunities and potential roadblocks in growing Greenville’s fintech ecosystem. The effort has led to a series of ongoing monthly roundtables where the ultimate goal is to produce a strategic plan that will guide concrete action to realize Greenville’s fintech potential.
From the State of Mississippi:
Three organizations that serve the business community in various ways have announced plans to merge into a single entity by the end of the year.
According to an article posted on the SuperTalk Mississippi Media website, the Mississippi Economic Council, the Mississippi Manufacturers Association (MMA), and the Business and Industry Political Education Committee have announced that the organizations are merging into one entity to be known as the Mississippi Business Alliance (MBA). The MBA is expected to be fully running by January 2026 and will serve as the State Chamber of Commerce in Mississippi and the state’s affiliate of the National Association of Manufacturers.
The goal of the unified front is to provide a stronger, more unified voice for business and industry throughout the state. Officials from the three organizations looking to merge announced this campaign in late 2024.
From Exploration Park, FL:
Space Florida, the state’s aerospace finance and development authority, and the Israel Innovation Authority, an independent publicly funded agency dedicated to fostering innovation ecosystems, announced the award recipients of the 12th round of funding from the Space Florida-Israel Innovation Partnership Program.
This year’s winners are MySky Eco of Port Orange, FL, and Airwayz of Tel Aviv, Israel. MySky Eco specializes in the development and manufacturing of light aircraft designed for general aviation and flight training. The company’s product line includes aircraft powered by both piston engines and electric propulsion, offering cost-effective solutions for aerial observation, recreational flying, flight instruction, and more.
The funded project will support the development of the MySky MS-1D Drone platform in combination with Airwayz’s advanced UTM (Unmanned Traffic Management) software to create a fully autonomous solution capable of operating Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS). The integrated system is intended to support critical missions such as search and rescue, organ transport, border reconnaissance, and package delivery—applications that require operational flexibility in congested airspace where traditional aircraft may be too costly or inefficient.
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