Summary of 2023 Arago Honor Recipients
Eleven nonprofits received $10,000 from the Meridian Foundation for innovation in 2023. The projects showcase how talented social entrepreneurs are creatively solving complex central Indiana problems in education, minority theatre/arts, workforce development, housing, health and well-being, and building social capital.
A handful of the nonprofits are using a two-pronged approach to solve more than one community problem at a time. Martin Luther King’s Community Development Corporation is giving marginalized youth a supportive outlet to deter violence and training to create videos for their CDC’s social enterprise 40 West Digital. Martindale Brightwood’s Jumpstart program is teaching real estate development skills to neighbors seeking to revitalize the built environment. Christel House Academy offers an alternative teacher training/residency opportunity in inner-city classrooms benefitting both new and established teachers and students. We salute two nonprofits also solving problems with duality that purposely chose to be tax-exempt organizations: Medical Mutts Service Dogs and Kan-Kan Theatre. The remaining six Arago Honor awardees are also remarkable stories of innovation.
As we did in 2023, each recipient of an Arago Honor has been assigned a ranking, from start-up to disruptive. We seek to show nonprofits that there is more than one type of innovation when implementing creative community solutions. Cumulatively, we awarded five start-up designations, two disruptive, two catch-up or barrier-breaking breaking and two incremental levels of innovation.
Martin Luther King (MLK) Multi-Service Center
Honored for 40 West Digital, a social enterprise videography business, operated by Black teens and young adults receiving career readiness skills, personal growth, technical and soft skill development, as well as entrepreneurship education in a 15-week workforce development program. 40 West Digital is part of the Best Buy Teen Tech Center network in over 50 cities nationwide.
Recognized as a start-up innovator, MLK Multi-Service Center’s 40 West Digital is an outgrowth of a former summer teen employment program. In a short time, 40 West Digital has been operating with apprenticeship and residency tracts. MLK Center has already gained widespread awareness, included being offered a residency project with iHeart Media to write, film, and produce a 30-second advertisement promoting their work. This in-kind promotional opportunity worth about $19,000 came as iHeart staff witnessed the work of 40 West Digital participants and wanted to promote the work more broadly.
This story shows how a great idea, meaningful engagement and buy-in can build a sustainable revenue stream for a community development corporation. There is value in the two-pronged approach of giving marginalized youth a creative and supportive outlet, while supporting them with job readiness and work development skills. Building a social enterprise venture inside a nonprofit is a delicate balance and the slow but steady focus of 40 West Digital is paying rewards.
MLK Center launched 40 West Digital with an investment of $1,903,547 from the Lilly Endowment, Inc., representing 56 percent of the total project budget and will leverage $1.5 million from other steady revenue sources, including Best Buy, Butler University, Central Indiana Community Foundation and United Way of Central Indiana.
The apprenticeship program has been completed by 34 participants at MLK and eight more youth have finished the more extended residency learning opportunity. One residency student is currently attending the Southern California Cinematic Arts program and a second student is a Spellman University student. Leaders of 40 West Digital are in the process of developing drone training, that would offer apprentices the opportunity to achieve an FAA pilot’s license and supplement their videography training.
Rationale for Selection: It is impressive how 40 West Digital was ideated as a deterrence to violence among youth in the Butler Tarkington neighborhood. The program allows MLK Center to create a stronger connection between their community, other local businesses, and community-based organizations. We salute the vision of building a social enterprise venture for youth videography training that also earns revenue for the nonprofit.
Martindale Brightwood Community Development Corporation (CDC)
Jumpstart Indy is an introductory real estate program recognized for empowering residents to take ownership of their neighborhood and teach participants to reimagine how their neighborhood is redeveloped. The program pairs each participant with an experienced real estate professional to provide guidance.
Honored as a catch-up innovator, Jumpstart Indy is modeled after the original Germantown program created in the Philadelphia neighborhood. Founders of the Indianapolis program saw the need for local Black developers to grow their capacity because the many government-funded development projects coming to Martindale Brightwood did not have minority representation. By observing the Jumpstart in Philadelphia conversations were held to share curriculum, structure, and impact. A great many pieces came together with $30,000 support from a 2022 United Way of Central Indiana pitch contest and Cinnaire, also a funder in Germantown who wanted to help grow the program in Indianapolis.
Year one was amazing say the program’s founders. “You can literally feel energy in the atmosphere during sessions as you walk in the room,” said VP of Business Development at Cinnaire Keith Broadmax.
Some of the real estate development projects coming to fruition from the Jumpstart cohort include: a Vacant to Vibrant project with Brown Development, where MBCDC is a co-developer for two single-family affordable home projects; Home Matters is developing two single affordable homes funded by the city of Indianapolis’ LIFT award; a graduate of the program has been hired full time as the project manager for four affordable units currently in construction; five graduates are working on five housing units with Near West Horizon Homes; and a graduate has started Hughes Construction to build a commercial/residential project on 30th Street, partially funded by a Central Indiana Community Foundation’s Elevation grant.
One of the most impressive features of this program is its graduation rate and participant feedback on directing participants to the initiative. Eighty percent of Jumpstart graduates reported a positive experience.
Rationale for Selection: The community-centered work of Jumpstart at Martindale Brightwood CDC aims for systemic change that builds people, communities, and economies at the same time, rather than at the expense of another.
Christel House Academy Indianapolis
Honored for its innovative Indy Teach program, the charter school network is building a pipeline of new K-12 teachers in urban classrooms. Resident teachers in the one-year apprenticeship program work alongside a highly effective teacher to earn Indiana licensure. Since the program began in 2017, 90 percent of apprentices still work in education.
Recognized as an incremental innovation, Christel House Academy’s Indy Teach is implementing a competency-based model that pays its apprentice teachers. The program does not interfere with evenings and weekends, making it a very attractive alternative for someone who doesn’t have the time or capacity to enroll in a university program.
There are no other similar providers in a charter school setting that offer a residency model with embedded professional development. Teach for America and Teachers of Tomorrow’s Teaching Fellows focus on urban schools in Indianapolis; however, their models more actively recruit college graduates to obtain a master’s degree to earn licensure.
Sustainability for Indy Teach has been improving. A partnership with Indianapolis Public Schools has allowed the program to serve more students in the city and provide additional income to support the apprentices. A recent two-year Eli Lilly and Company Foundation grant for the 2023-24 school is providing mentor stipend funding, apprenticeship licensing fees, and costs associated with joining the National Center for Teacher Residences and national accreditation partnership.
In 2017 the Indiana General Assembly passed IC-20-20-44, allowing school districts like Christel House Academy to provide teacher residency programs with one-year apprenticeships to aspiring classroom teachers who have a minimum bachelor’s degree GPA and five years’ experience working alongside an effective teacher (and necessary system support) to earn licensure. For the 2022-23 cohort, Christel House Academy received 118 applications for 17 positions.
Rationale for Selection: The Indy Teach program leans into Christel Houses’ value of lifelong learning and inclusivity. Not only do they have an alternative education program for adults to obtain their high school diploma, but this program further invests in adults’ ability to pursue meaningful jobs with low-cost barriers to fill the teacher shortage. Indy Teach contributes to their school population, while also contributing to the community. As the program scales up it is earning new revenue for the charter school.
Medical Mutts Service Dogs
Was founded with the visionary idea that it is possible to combine a suitable shelter dog and groundbreaking training to be an alert for the scent of a seizure, a drop in glucose levels (diabetic), or the rise of anxiety in patients with psychiatric disorders.
Recognized as a disruptive innovator, Medical Mutts Service Dogs is empowering lives through the training of service dogs and has been making a significant impact on the lives of individuals with disabilities since 2013 when it was founded as a local business by Dr. Jennifer Cattet, Ph.D., and her husband Jack Topham. Dr. Cattet developed groundbreaking diabetic alert dog training first which has led her to further health research discoveries involving dogs and their handlers.
This creative approach to solve two issues: overcrowding at shelters and medical support needs of at-risk patients earns Medical Mutts its disruptive innovation ranking.
In ten months of 2023, 62 dogs have been pulled from shelters or rescues, 21 program dogs have been placed, six board and trained dogs have graduated as service dogs, and 16 owner-trained dogs have graduated.
The advantages of using shelter dogs are plentiful, says Dr. Cattet. She explains there are more than enough dogs to choose from, and a shelter dog that has been through the trauma of abandonment will form a stronger “Velcro” attachment to its owner. The personality of an older dog in a shelter also offers a better “predictor” for matching a new owner’s preference or needs.
Medical Mutts Service Dogs has an impressive and growing list of local, and international collaborators in France and Switzerland and dog trainers across the U.S., Canada, South America, and Europe. This increased visibility is strengthening the Indianapolis nonprofit as a leader and collaborator in the service dog professional community. The community-based organization is in the smallest category to be considered for an award with 0 to 10 FTEs.
Rationale for Selection: Medical Mutts Service Dog’s work is groundbreaking from both a medical perspective and an animal welfare perspective. Their pioneering work has shifted the entire paradigm of service dog training, and it is no longer necessary to convince shelters that well-trained ordinary dogs can save lives.
Indianapolis Film Project/Kan-Kan Cinema
Is honored for intentionally building a community around film as the only independent and local grown nonprofit arthouse in Indianapolis. Located in the Windsor Park neighborhood, Kan-Kan is returning to the humble beginnings of film, relying on a mix of earned income (ticket sales, leasing) sources, memberships, and philanthropy to build sustainability.
Recognized as a start-up innovator, Kan-Kan Cinema is embracing being a nonprofit entity in an Indianapolis neighborhood’s revitalization. Film has been commercialized to the point that the idea of a nonprofit cinema seems foreign. But this nonprofit is challenging that idea by returning to cinema’s humble beginning. It is creative to revisit the past with a modern twist.
Sam Sutphin, Kan- Kan board member and co-founder, says when walking out of a local movie theatre late at night with few follow-up entertainment choices, he felt the growing need to build stronger support for a film venture that would also impact its neighborhood. In 2019 the movie theater opened at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. That they have been able to weather the pandemic and are now thriving with a growing membership base and year-over-year retention is remarkable.
This small nonprofit has 0-10 FTEs. In 2023, the second full year of operations, Kan-Kan has processed 69,651 movie tickets and facilitated 610 special events in their three-screen facility, including film festivals, local filmmaker premieres, partnership film series and a new filmmakers workshop. The board recently hired one of their board members, Angela Northington an Indiana native, as the new Executive Director of the Kan-Kan. She is a film industry executive in content acquisitions, programming, and distribution, formerly based in Los Angeles.
The name Kan-Kan is taken from Indiana-born author Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Cat’s Cradle” and refers to an instrument that brings people together in a community. The reference is a reminder that a great independent cinema is not just a movie theatre—it’s a cultural center. Kan-Kan says that around 15 percent of overall cinema members are neighbors—families living in Windsor Park and immediate surrounding areas.
Rationale for selection: Art house theatres have been in existence for many years, but they tend to either be creative reuses of existing spaces or nestled in higher net-worth neighborhoods or developments. IFP/Kan-Kan’s intentionality of building community around film truly differentiates, as does its process for serving neighborhood residents, along with emerging filmmakers.
Project WILL, Inc.
Supports young adults with behavioral health challenges, focusing on individuals with cognitive and intellectual differences in the African American community, who are not the typical focus of existing systems. Young adults transitioning from high school receive support, training and skill-based volunteer positions at local nonprofits enabling them to become financially secure.
Recognized as a start-up innovator, this young nonprofit began in 2021 after COVID-19 to address a desperate and complex need and is the only organization of its kind in our community.
Co-founded by Jeanine Coleman, Project WILL’s is inspired by the story of Jeanine’s father, Willie Spivey, whose life story exhibited “the Will to grow against all odds”. In her career, Jeanine has observed first-hand the needs and welfare of others. One of her first work experiences was to assist in 1992 with the transition of long-term residents from Central State Hospital where she linked individuals and their families affected by mental illness to community resources.
Fast forward to today and you can see how the ideation for Project WILL has been a series of connections for Jeanine over her 30-year career. The purpose of the nonprofit is to provide young adults with the support they need to achieve their goals and thrive throughout their lives. The nonprofit’s Leadership, Independence, Neighborly, Knowledge and Skills (LINKS) initiative connects members to training, workshops, virtual classes, and on-site experiences.
Indiana legislators have designated employment as the preferred outcome for individuals with disabilities because they have the highest unemployment rate of any minority group in Indiana. (Indiana Employment First Plan, 2020). Approximately 22,215 individuals 18-34 in Marion County have one or more disabilities (American Community Survey 2021). In addition, disability and race have a complex and compounding impact on well-being. The disability employment gap combined with racial employment disparity leaves African Americans with disabilities at the highest unemployment rate (75%) of any racial group (National Disability Group, 2019).
Project Will served 41 young adults with disabilities in 2022. More impact numbers include: 22.2% of members are currently employed; 16.8% of employed members have held their jobs longer than one year; 38% of unemployed members are looking for work; and 7 % have been on interviews.
New grant funding in 2023 from the United Way’s Social Innovation Propel Pitch contest and the City of Indianapolis and Central Indiana Community Foundation’s Elevate grant is bringing increased recognition to Project WILL. The community-based organization is in the smallest category to be considered for an award with 0 to 10 FTEs.
Rationale for Selection: The grit and determination to tackle this population is impressive as is the co-founder and the family’s support of this nonprofit. As a catalyst for change, Project WILL is building trust with the minority families they serve while increasing diversity and strength of the Indiana workforce.
Naptown African American Theatre Collective, Inc. (NAATC)
Is taking initial steps to build an “Equity house” for Black theatre professionals in Indianapolis to create performance art exploring humanity, beauty, and the power of Black stories. An “Equity house” is a theatre registered with the only professional union for actors and stage managers (Actor’s Equity Association), providing contracts with more equitable pay, benefits, and opportunities.
Recognized as a catch-up innovator for breaking down barriers, NAATC is to be applauded for becoming an Equity Theatre (SPT Level 1) currently employing and building a space for professional theatre for Black performing artists. They admit that doing the work to sustain the theatre is a marathon and not a sprint. They are looking forward to the next five to ten years when they have their own theatre building, with full-time positions, benefits, and even more opportunities for actors and artists year-round.
Driving their work to Build a Black equity theatre are two core beliefs: One, theatre should reflect its community and secondly, incredible Black talent exists in our city.
NAATC is innovative because they are seeking to address an important need in the community in a unique way. The leaders have done important work to differentiate themselves. We credit them for crafting a message that respects existing theatres in central Indiana that they “compete” with for grant funding. NAATC’s work is beginning to resonate, and we agree there is room for numerous performing art players in Indianapolis.
The roots of Black theater organizations run deep in our city. Actor's Ink Theatre production company began in 1980 with founding artistic director Sandra Gay, who now has a theatre housed at the Phoenix Theatre Culture Centre facility. In 1982, Ophelia Wellington founded the living history museum Freetown Village, which adapts stories from Black history for kids and adults. N.A.P.I. Rep., founded by Connie Oates, James Solomon Benn, Milicent Wright, and David Alan Anderson in 1989, are role models. The Asante Art Institute of Indianapolis founded by Deborah Asante, former executive director Keesha Dixon, began more than 30 years ago as a children’s theatre now uses art to encourage social change. More recently, The African Repertory Theatre of IUPUI and Onyxfest for up-and-coming Black playwrights are both developing talent. Indy Urban Theatre and KaidyDid are also producing musical theatre opportunities. We believe now is the time for Indianapolis’ aspiration for a longstanding Black equity house like Chicago’s Congo Square or St. Louis’ Black Rep to begin.
NAATC was founded in 2022 and leaders admit the last year has been a year of “blessings and lessons.” A new plan and structure have been put in place for current and new board members, where individual giving will be mandatory. New consultants are strengthening the training and onboarding needed for sustainable best practices for the young theatre.
NAATC’s inaugural show last year Black Book and Detroit ’67 both received rave reviews with fully sold out runs. The partnerships they are cultivating with the Allen Whitehall Clowes Charitable Foundation, Central Indiana Community Foundation, The Indianapolis Foundation, The Indianapolis Recorder, Flanner House, The Indianapolis Star, 100 Black Women of Indiana and the African American Legacy Fund, among others will further strengthen the nonprofit theatre.
Rationale for Selection: It’s been a great beginning for the NAATC. We celebrate their inclusive approach and traveling a bold new path to create a truly equitable space for Black artists.
Eskenazi Health Foundation
Is honored for its community weaver solution. The key innovation is treating an under-resourced neighborhood as the “patient” and improving the overall health of its residents by weaving connection and support services to fit individual needs, while leveraging assets and strengths already residing in the local community.
Recognized as a start-up innovation embedded in a large hospital setting, Eskenazi has 12 separate locations and is the largest FQHC (federally qualified health center) in the state of Indiana offering a broad scope of services beyond primary care. Eskenazi health Center served over 100,000 patients in 2023 and is one of only a few in the country to be part of a safety net urban health care system.
The community weaver solution is a brand-new idea, and its premise is simple. Eskenazi Health is piloting the community weavers in several Eskenazi Health Center locations. Operating out of a center, community weavers create connections to the surrounding community. While there is an affinity group for community weaving, Eskenazi Health is not aware of any other health system that has tried this solution. Weaving is the practice of interconnecting people, projects, and places in synergistic and purposeful ways.
The community weaver serves a population that is not required to be an established patient or connected to Eskenazi Health Center (EHC). Their work is to serve any neighbor, and they are trained to look in their community for specific services to fulfill needs, noting that each area has different resources. The role of community weaver cited as the innovation, emerged as EHC realized they were missing opportunities to leverage the assets and strengths already residing in the local community.
In Indianapolis, the difference in life expectancy between zip codes 46201 and 46250 is 16 years; 16 miles equals 16 years. Indianapolis’ disinvested neighborhoods continue to suffer at globally disproportionate rates. Indiana is ranked among the least healthy states in the nation by several national groups or publications, and life expectancy in Indiana is two years below the national average.
Community weavers at Eskenazi Health Centers have been given an important role to improve the health of local citizens. The assignment of community weavers to navigate partnerships, access and use referral services and infrastructure is complex and requires one- on- one mentoring to build trust. They hope to influence behavior patterns and habits that have been in place for many years and the weavers realize their influence is more likely to benefit succeeding generations. To change the health of a community, the work of the community weavers and subsequent behavioral patterns is seen as a 20-year effort to achieve health equity.
Rationale for Selection: The community weavers approach appears to be novel by modern medical practice standards, perhaps replicating the implicit trust that might have existed in small or tight knit communities with individual doctors, doulas and/or midwives. Their more holistic approach to community wellness and organizing their efforts to gain trust and provide wraparound services is especially compelling in 2024.
Deeply Ingrained, Inc.
A nonprofit born during the pandemic, is honored for giving at-risk youth hands on woodworking experience to build trade-based skills. The nonprofit is the only Indianapolis organization providing industrial arts opportunities to youth in an alternative education setting for Perry Township Schools and VOICES Corp., a day-reporting system for the juvenile justice system, among others.
Recognized as a start-up innovator, Deeply Ingrained offers earlier teen access to trade skills. Stanley Black and Decker has recently published research highlighting racial inequities that says nearly half or 49 % of minority youth have never considered a career in the skilled trades. Those who saw the trades as an unfavorable career option, often cited a lack of interest and poor skill fit as the top two reasons. Plans to track Deeply Ingrained’s own data will take shape in the first quarter of 2024.
The founder of Deeply Ingrained, David Haughs, an Indianapolis native, earned a BS in accounting and finance and MS in electrical and computer engineering, both from Purdue University. After competing graduate school, Dave worked for General Motors and Allison Transmission for 15 years designing and implementing diagnostic controls and directing the new Allison eGen Flex extended hybrid program, now found on IndyGo buses.
David’s passion to help youth led him to believe that someday he would retire and teach engineering to older students. He says he has been working with wood as long as he can remember.
The 2020 COVID pandemic sped up his timeline when too much computer learning gave him the idea to provide the kids of the neighborhood and a local school with hands on woodworking projects. The precut wood pieces, helpful instructional videos and family fun grew through social media and led to the creation of Deeply Ingrained (cleverly called Socially Distant Woodworking initially) during the pandemic. Refining the nonprofit’s mission to serve underserved youth came from the new nonprofit’s strategic planning sessions with board members. David left Allison Transmission in December 2021 and became the first paid staff member of the nonprofit in the second half of 2022. This is his passion and his career; it is his only job.
Initial income for Deeply Ingrained was $40,000 in 2021 and has grown to $232,672 in 2023. As word has spread about Deeply Ingrained’s Workforce Development program, requests have also been coming in for more paid commissioned work, such as personalized cutting boards made by youth. The woodworking nonprofit seeks to extend its reach by hiring its best students new to mill and organize projects in house. By employing underserved teen as instructional assistants the ecosystem for Deeply Ingrained is also growing.
Rationale for Selection: The growth of Deeply Igraine’s budget in 2023 to $250,000 is impressive, as is the growth to 900+ monthly woodworking projects. The three-year-old nonprofit is providing new options for youth to develop employable skills that can lead to manufacturing jobs and skilled trades to strengthen the Indiana workforce.
Purdue Polytechnic High School – Englewood (PPHS)
Claims distinctiveness as the only school in the US operating without a master schedule to individualize learning for its 550 students. An internally designed technology tool affectionately named Drewber, maintains order and aligns student need, choice, and voice.
Recognized for incremental innovation, PPHS graduating classes have resulted in 6 % increase in the enrollment of Black undergraduate at Purdue University-West Lafayette. The 2022 graduation rate was 86.5% for PPHS Englewood. This rate compares to the 2022 graduation rate of 79.9% for the Indianapolis Public Schools, 89.4 % statewide in district schools and 47.7 % for charter schools in Indiana. PPHS’s 2023 graduation rate, published shortly after being awarded the Arago Honor was 90.7%.
PPHS is working around the limits of master schedules inherent in traditional schools and relies on project- based learning to engage high school students. The model maximizes 4,000 hours of high school classroom time for students and is the only high school in the US operating without a master schedule.
Through the partnership with Purdue, PPHS students earn direct admittance to Purdue University West Lafayette by meeting GPA and SAT targets. From 2014-2020 only 15 Indianapolis Public School graduates enrolled at Purdue. In PPHS’s 2022 class, 39 students gained direct admission and 34 (mostly students of color) enrolled at Purdue.
The technology tool Drewber’s “secret sauce” is its ability to process a large set of constraints (staffing, rooms, capacity, time, student credit needs, federal obligations, and student interest) to create schedules that fit each student’s personal needs. PPHS Engineering and science teacher Drew Goodin created the latest version of the scheduling tool. He named the new system Drewber—his first name plus Uber.
The affectionally named Drewber began in 2018 to maintain the school’s core design principle and maximize student need when there were fewer PPHS students. Drewber is an entirely backend solution using Google sheets that most students do not know exists. Students interact with Drewber via three front end touchpoints: on the project ranking form they complete every eight weeks; on the schedule that launches daily Google calendar appointments; and on schedule change requests allowing agile curriculum modifications. Starting in August 2023, PPHS partnered with a tech firm to scale the back end Drewber.
Enabling project- based learning for low-income students of color is at the heart of Drewber’s work. As a PPHS student, every eight weeks there are 30 potential project opportunities presented with one- minute pitches from educators (coaches). One project is Sumo Bots, where students learn engineering and math to design a bot to push another off a platform. Another is Newsies, where students learn from industry experts to produce school news. Aligning core competencies in untraditional experiences improves student interest, learning retention and energy for minority students.
PPHS has received significant financial support from XQ, Charter School Growth Fund and New Schools Venture Fund. Much of the funding was utilized during the start-up phase of the school to support staffing and facilities, but XQ still provides consultation support. The Mind Trust supported the school’s initial leadership team, including professional development opportunities for leaders to visit/study various school models.
The PPHS instructional model relies on the mindset of “community as school,” where students engage in learning beyond classroom walls. The school’s vast portfolio of partners is critical to success. In the classroom many projects include a partnership with an external organization. For example, the PPHS Cycling project allows students to practice yoga (with Breath for Change), learn healthy cooking (with Purdue Extension), exercise on stationary bikes, and go on bike excursions (with Nine13 sports). There are also partnerships for dual-credit at various universities, summer college for high school students at Purdue University and classes using design thinking to solve problems in a human-centered way.
Rationale for Selection: By taking a radically different approach to high school, PPHS is changing the trajectory of students who otherwise would not enroll in a post- secondary university or be considered for high-paying technical jobs. The statistical results of students, untraditional curriculum scheduling using a scrappy common technology tool, and many varied partnership opportunities promoting student learning, paints a strong picture of impact at this innovative charter high school.
16 Tech Community Corporation Inc.
Honored for becoming a growing and intentionally resourced operation for entrepreneurship, in the diverse and historic neighborhood on Indianapolis’ near northwest side. The 50- acre campus of 16 Tech is currently home to 200+ innovation-related entities (including 55 start- ups), employing 900+ workers.
Recognized as a disruptive innovator, 16 Tech opened its first building in 2021 and is now the site of three innovation facilities that support the tech community for life sciences and advanced manufacturing industries. The innovation hub owned and operated by 16 Tech is home to a makerspace, co-working space, and food hall with 20 + restaurants/retailers that are 65% minority and women led. Over 10,000 neighbors have accessed technical assistance, innovation services, maker workshops, events, and tailored amenities since 16 Tech began.
The strategy of an innovation district for Indianapolis materialized following regional planning efforts in the early 2000s under the mayoral administration of Bart Peterson. Ultimately, becoming a placemaking strategy for economic development, 16 Tech is addressing documented gaps in the city’s innovation ecosystem, including low rates of formation, and growth of-innovation-driven enterprises (IDEs), as well as talent deficiencies.
Despite wide support, little progress was made until 2015 when CICP (Central Indiana Corporate Partnership) formed 16 Tech as an independent 501(c)3 entity responsible for the innovation district. While 16 Tech’s longer ramp-up period may have tested the patience of stakeholders, it has also allowed the nonprofit to adjust plans and become more viable. 16 Tech in 2023 was invited to join the Global Institute on Innovation Districts (GIID), an exclusive network of 47 districts globally, connected by a shared vision to transform regional economies.
With more than 70% of the district remaining to be built-out, 16 tech’s growth will be enhanced by a new signature bridge spanning Fall Creek at West 10 th Street and Riley Hospital Drive. The bridge will connect 16 Tech to Indianapolis’ research/medical corridor and downtown and is the first of its kind to integrate a signature wave-like form. The design of the bridge is an innovative spin on the suspension bridge and will create separate user areas for pedestrians, bikers, and vehicular traffic.
The 16 Tech Bridge is both a critical piece of public infrastructure and a metaphor for 16 Tech’s mission. The new bridge symbolizes the nonprofit’s broader vision of creating a vibrant culture of innovation and entrepreneurship to connect startups, universities, corporations, and talent while addressing the spatial mismatch that often exists between good jobs, training opportunities, and where people live.
Design and construction of the new 16 Tech bridge are supported through funding from the City of Indianapolis and a $38 million grant from Lilly Endowment announced in March 2018.
Rationale for Selection: The risks taken by 16 Tech seem to be paying off after a slow beginning. This has been an unexpected win for so many on the west side of Indy and we are looking forward to the opening of the new bridge when creativity and innovation will be further enhanced for the IDE.