1871 Announces AI Innovation Lab 2023 Cohort

CHICAGO (April 4th, 2023)– Non-profit global innovation hub 1871 announces its first-ever list of cohort members for their AI Innovation Lab 2023. The program has been strategically built with execution partner Why of AI, and supported by anchor partner Discover and several other partners. 

This is 1871’s third tech innovation lab, designed to connect startups, growth scalers, and corporate innovators together, while also introducing VCs, AI experts, and talent to collectively solve various challenges across industries with the support of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies. 

The 39 cohort participants will collaborate through curated programming, workshops, and inspiration sessions, designed to foster meaningful connections and accelerate growth. They’ll hear from world renowned speakers, deep dive into how AI is changing various functions and industries, and take the stage themselves to share how they’re disrupting through AI. 

Cohort Members 

7 QUBES | Chase Yeung, CEO

7QUBES is a cloud-based CRM platform designed to revolutionize how small businesses manage their customer relationships, operations, data analytics, finance, and inventory. With advanced AI-driven tools, 7QUBES empowers businesses to prepare for the future and stay ahead of the competition.

ANDRALOGY ™ |  Dege Nsoki, Founder & CLO Products Analytics

ANDRALOGY™ has the vision to create a future of work for all. We are on a mission to help learners to design, build and deploy their own personalized Analytics, Machine Learning and AI projects.

Arvist | Nilay Parikh, Founder & CEO

Arvist uses existing security cameras and AI-powered Digital Twin technology to provide real-time critical event awareness for warehouse operators, helping to reduce supply chain disruptions and optimize operations.

Arvo | Alane Boyd, Co-Founder & CEO

Arvo is an AI-powered sales tool with a drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy for users to create stunning digital sales assets such as proposals, case studies, how-tos, client portals, and even follow-ups, in minutes.

BannerBoo | Nadiia Yuzkova, CTO

BannerBoo is an AI-powered no code banner editor that allows businesses to accelerate and automate ad creation processes. 

Biologit | Nicole Baker, Co-Founder & CEO

AI-enabled Scientific Literature monitoring for Pharmacovigilance, Cosmetovigilance, Nutrivigilance and medical devices. 

Bizbaz | Hayk Hakobyan, CEO 

Bizbaz offers comprehensive customer intelligence and risk assessment capabilities. 

BlackInc AI | Eric Mills, Founder

BlackInk AI helps tattoo enthusiasts and artists quickly and easily generate unique and personalized tattoo designs. With a vast catalog of pre-made designs and a creation tool, BlackInk streamlines the tattoo design process for everyone.

Bloomfield | Mark DeSantis, CEO 

Bloomfield offers precise, objective and accurate plant-level health and performance assessments, continuously at any scale. 

Brighten AI | John Berkey, CEO/CTO 

Next generation Conversational Ai hardware and software platforms, enabling great conversations, even without an internet connection. 

CharacTour  | Kimberly Foerster, Founder & CEO

CharacTour is a patented platform that provides truly personalized recommendations for its 8 million registered users: based on 46 demensions of their complex personalities. Leveraging its psychographic data, CharacTour also building AI technology to precisely calculate the “personality” of a brand, determine target consumers using advanced statistical techniques, and generate ad copy using words and phrases to appeal to specific personas. 

ClearCOGS | Osayanmo (Osa) Osarenkhoe, Co-Founder & CPO

ML/AI driven demand forecasting and operation optimization for restaurants. 

Community Wellness Technology Inc. | Bonnie Johnson and Jon Fenner, CISO, CTO

We are a patient first, physician led organization improving outcomes and reducing costs in support of patients living with multiple chronic conditions. We partner with hospitals and managed care organizations to produce outcomes at scale.

Course Collab | Jamie Gladfelter, Founder 

AI-first productivity tools for higher education faculty. 

Encounter AI | Derrick Johnson, CEO 

Encounter AI, a cutting-edge voice AI system that streamlines the customer ordering process at drive-thrus. Our tech was developed with SRI International, the makers of Siri and Nuance.

Folder Front | Bryan Mulcrone, Founder

Folder Front has developed a Revolutionary AI-File Manager, that allows Users to organize files in seconds with the latest Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, as well as to find files faster than ever before with our Patent-Pending Folder Technology. 

Justpoint | Gregory Zarrillo, Chief of Staff 

Justpoint identifies products and practices causing public harm and holds responsible parties accountable by pursuing justice for victims.

LISA Insurtech | Gino Volpi, CEO

We are helping insurance carriers worldwide deliver a better, simpler, and faster claims experience to their customers.

Mercurial AI Inc. | Dennis Trujillo, CEO 

Creating AI solutions for improving cancer care. 

Outboundly | Miguel Dey, Founder

Outboundly extends LinkedIn with the ability to Instantly analyze  profiles and generate highly personalized cold outreach messages in one click using AI. You can also use Outboundly to analyze website text and generate cold email. 

Parkva | Rob Benson, CEO 

By leveraging computer vision (CV) and artificial intelligence (AI), Parkva solutions detect parking occupancy and violations 24/7 without human intervention.

Photos.live | Leonardo Araujo de Assis, CEO 

We deliver measurable, memorable guest experiences that help brands gain data-driven insights into their events. 

Qilo | Dave Brost, Co-Founder & CEO 

Qilo enhances electric utility data with AI to create a stronger grid.

Quadratic Systems Inc. | Anil Koripelly, Principal 

Quadratic is a pure-play Analytics firm helping our customers in their journey towards data democratization, AI/ML Automation and digital transformation.  

Rentervention | Conor Malloy, Rentervention Project Director 

Rentervention, a service of the Law Center for Better Housing, is a virtual assistant for tenants in crisis. Through Rentervention, tenants can access free legal information, document assembly and referrals to legal and social services. 

ReVert Technologies Inc. | Ryan Li, CEO 

With AI enabled power adapters, we make it easy to turn things off and save energy.

SC Tech | Jeff Beyle, CEO 

Provide advanced Industrial IoT technologies in a system that is easy to implement and straightforward to use. 80% of the power of the high-end Industrial IoT systems at <20% of the cost and complexity.

Sign-Speak Inc. | Yamillet Payano, Co-Founder & CEO

Snips Media | David Zaretsky, Founder, CEO, & Chief Scientist 

Snips is the first performance-driven influencer marketing platform that empowers influencers with business tools to grow their audience and monetize their social networks, while enabling brands to run performance-driven influencer programs built on true measurability and scale. 

Socian Technologies | Marc Ward, Founder & CEO 

Socian Technologies builds autonomous drone systems powered by an advanced AI to provide on-scene visualization services to first responders. 

Socrates.ai | Melissa Swisher, Chief Revenue Officer 

Socrates is the leader in the Employee Experience Platform space focusing on delivering one place for the employee to go for anything they want to ask or do all through a conversational experience.   

SpaceBot | Dave Turner  & Angelo Garetto, Co-Founder 

SpaceBot is a spatial research and AI operations platform dedicated to improving the health and well-being of space users through data democratization, micro-conveniences, and automations.

Studio AI | Deepak Bandi, Founder 

Unlock the power of AI within your SaaS platform. 

Tribaja | Shannon Morales, CEO

Tribaja is solving for the world’s talent shortages using AI and predictive analytics to increase learning outcomes for the working class. 

UBIVIS | Paulo Henrique Garcia de Souza, Founder & CEO

Ubivis Industrial IoT collects machinery data from Operations Technology.  On Cloud SaaS or on-premises Ubivis systems perform real time analytics using BI. Digital Twin provides real time Artificial Intelligence manufacturing and/or maintenance simulation and our software robot executes autonomous machinery operation. 

Under | Michael Abramovic, Co-Founder

Beautiful digital applications, identity verification, and integrations with a few clicks. 

Verbal Transactions | Nancy Munro, CEO

Verbal Transactions accelerates the rate in which customer facing employees reach mastery of critical business skills. Our software platform, ACES, builds highly customized hands-on simulations with a built-in coaching bot and NLP to create realistic scenarios to experience deliberate practice.

Verity XR | Shiva Rallapalli, CTO & COO

Verity XR is a HealthTech company leveraging the power of virtual reality to provide treatment solutions for pain management and physical rehabilitation.  

Vetelligence | Zachary Oshinbanjo, Founder 

Vetelligence is a post service navigation platform built to help service members determine their next steps. We leverage data in order to guide service members towards new careers, education or entrepreneurship.

About the program 

Led and facilitated by Gabby Snedeker, 1871’s Senior Director of Innovation Labs, cohort members will participate in 4-weeks of hybrid programming, alternating each week for virtual and in-person experiences in April, May, and June 2023. 

The program culminates with a capstone-like event, the AI Innovation Summit, open to the public on 6.29.23. The summit is a full day of programming, centered on AI and machine-learning tech innovation, and highlighting the startups in the cohort. 

Subscribe to stay up-to-date on all AI Innovation Lab news + summit. 

For inquiries about involvement in partnering with 1871  or learning more about sponsor options for either our AI Innovation Labs or AI Innovation Summit, connect with our team at corpinno@1871.com.

About Why of AI

Why of AI helps startups to Fortune 100s bridge company-wide gaps in AI knowledge, strategy, and innovation. Our AI strategy consulting and training services help companies understand AI and develop responsible AI roadmaps to drive business growth, customer success, and competitive advantage. Why of AI is led by Alex Castrounis, a best-selling book author on AI and professor of AI at Northwestern University’s Kellogg / McCormick MBAi program. Alex is also a former INDYCAR engineer, race strategist, and data scientist that drove winning results for teams such as Andretti Autosport in world-renowned races, including the Indy 500. 

About 1871

1871 is Chicago’s innovation hub and the #1 ranked private business incubator in the world. It exists to inspire, equip, and support early stage, growth stage and corporate innovators in building extraordinary businesses. 1871 is home to ~400 technology startups, ~200 growth stage companies, and ~1,500 members, and is supported by an entire ecosystem focused on accelerating their growth and creating jobs in the Chicagoland area. The member experience includes virtual and in-person access to workshops, events, mentorship, and more. The nonprofit organization has 350 mentors available to its members, alongside access to more than 200 partner corporations, universities, education programs, accelerators, venture funds and others. Since its inception in 2012, more than 850 alumni companies are currently still active, have created over 14,500 jobs, and have raised more than $3.5 billion in follow-on capital.