Machine learning and AI has grown from novelty technology to essential requirement. But unfortunately, most smaller tech companies don’t have the expertise among their staff to implement these solutions—and sometimes don’t even understand how they work. 

This is why Tommy Dang co-founded Mage, which offers a collaborative AI development tool to help companies stay on the cutting edge.

The sad reality is that mass shootings have become commonplace in modern America. This new threat poses a special challenge for schools, workplaces, movie theaters, and anywhere the public gathers. But new threats also mean new protections. Learning that no one monitored the security cameras at his daughter’s school, Mike Lahiff realized that new technologies could monitor them automatically. 

And ZeroEyes was born—a technology startup that offers an AI weapons detection system that can quickly identify threats and escalate them to the appropriate security officials for rapid response.

Coming from a family of doctors, Julian Flannery understands the world of medicine. With differing perspectives and needs, primary care physicians and specialists form a complex ecosystem. 

Ultimately deciding against becoming a physician himself, Julian entered into the medical space in a different way by helping to manage that ecosystem with his company, Summus, a technology startup that offers a virtual specialist platform, allowing doctors, patients, and employers to connect online to offer fast and effective consultations.

Ken Smerz had a brilliant idea for a company. What if you could take highly detailed laser scans of a facility and create a 3D digital twin so that contractors and developers could safely and quickly plan out upgrades and renovations. “And who wouldn't want to do that?” Ken thought. It turned out, nobody wanted to do that. 

At least, not at first. Ken learned the hard way that succeeding in business takes so much more than an awesome idea. Eventually, they learned to demonstrate the value of their product and how to communicate it to contractors and developers. And now, ZELUS is working with clients on projects around the globe.

Andrew Forman has spent much of his life pondering how to make the biggest positive impact on the world. Becoming a volunteer or funding the volunteers? The quest for an answer led him down many paths that eventually inspired him to found a company aiming to make it easier for people to donate to charity. 

But though the ambition was sound, the lift was heavy. It turned out his company, Givz, was only the first step toward a better solution. Now Givz offers Shopify stores donation incentives as an alternative to discounts, helping eCommerce sites increase conversions and value by offering their customers to choose their favorite charities.

Working on Wall Street in investment banking, Noah Zandan learned a lot about finance and quantitative analysis—and nothing about leadership. The thought of living his life in spreadsheets terrified him, but he found a dearth of guidance on how to be a leader. His searches for a leadership coach turned up questionable characters and outlandishly expensive consultants. 

Knowing he wasn’t alone, he realized this was a bigger problem than he originally expected. And he spent years exploring a science-driven solution. The ultimate result was Quantified, a “conversation intelligence and coaching platform” that uses artificial intelligence and behavioral science to understand your communication effectiveness and train you to be better, whether you want to be a leader, salesperson, or high-performer in any role

Like many promises of the digital age, online learning has loomed large—but not always lived up to its expectation. It seemed that surely the online medium could be used for learning, training, compliance, and onboarding, but no one quite figured out the right way to do it.   The content was dull, the effectiveness questionable. 

Andrew Scivally was attempting to figure this out as an online learning specialist for JP Morgan Chase when an opportunity arose for him to start a company with his brother, who was also in the online learning space for Wendy’s.   

And eLearning Brothers was born. Now they offer a custom LMS, “gamification,” and even VR solutions to industries ranging from healthcare to FinTech to pro sports.

Social networking has been one of the more significant aspects of 21st century life—and yet, it has largely remained exclusive to individuals. Businesses, though, have a need to connect that is perhaps even greater. The survival of buyers and sellers depends on their ability to find one another. 

Conrad Smith has stepped in to fill this void with his company, Graphite Systems. More than just a way to forge B2B connections, his company helps manage these relationships with data integration tools and a host of other features.

Rumors of the death of American manufacturing have been greatly exaggerated. Factories across the country still churn on—and are growing. In fact, there aren’t enough machists to meet the demand, and compounding the issue, the more experienced machinists have been moving on, replaced by a younger workforce. 

To complicate matters further, managers lack the insight tools to gauge productivity and respond to downtime. After extensive research into these issues, John Joseph co-founded Datanomix, a company that offers automated production intelligence for the manufacturing industry to help manufacturers understand what’s really happening on the factory floor.

While working in marketing for B2B startups, Peter Clark had a simple but powerful revelation. The more emails sent in a campaign, the higher the conversion rate—but you can only send so many emails before they’re all ignored. At that point, the quality of the emails becomes the decisive factor. But writing quality emails isn’t easy. 

His bigger revelation was that a way could be developed to help people build more compelling material. This led to the creation of Journey, a platform that helps marketing, sales, and communications teams craft messaging through storytelling.