Innovate Alabama, a public-private partnership supporting technology, entrepreneurship and innovation, held an event in Huntsville on Monday evening as part of its statewide “Connecting Alabama: Igniting Regional Innovation” tour.

The event at the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber recognized the contributions of more than 70 organizations across Madison, Limestone, Morgan, Lawrence, Franklin, Colbert and Lauderdale counties who aim to attract investment and support the region’s growth.

Innovate Alabama has invested more than $30 million into the region, offering opportunities through network designation, Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) supplemental grants, the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI), talent programs, an outdoor recreation grant and the Innovating Alabama Tax Credit.

“I know that sometimes there’s a conversation around, ‘This doesn’t look like traditional economic development,’ and it’s not intended to be. What we do is very, very different. We’re not trying to build Silicon Valley, but there is definitely an appetite for innovative businesses, tech businesses, in the state of Alabama, especially in Huntsville,” Innovate Alabama CEO Cynthia Crutchfield told the crowd at Monday’s event. “So our goal is to make sure those companies have an opportunity to build and grow right here in the state.”

Innovate Alabama CEO Cynthia Crutchfield. Photo: Kara Coleman Fields

Various Innovate Alabama staff members spoke about how their respective departments and programs foster growth and innovation throughout the state and the North Alabama region specifically.

Shannon Allen, Innovate Alabama’s director of future talent strategies, said that her department’s mission is twofold: ensuring young Alabamians develop the skills to join an innovation workforce, and fostering an entrepreneurial spirit in them.

“We are definitely bold enough to believe that the next huge tech idea could come from an Alabama college student,” she said. “We put a lot of effort and energy and resources into helping really spur on that entrepreneurial mindset and spirit in our students, where ultimately, even if they don’t become founders, they gain skills that will be valuable for the companies that they’ll work with when hopefully they stay in Alabama.”

Representatives from some local organizations that have worked with Innovate Alabama also spoke at the event, including Peggy Sammon, co-founder and CEO of GeneCapture, which is based at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology.

“Our company’s developing something – I’m on the business side, so my hat’s off to the innovators on the science side – but a way of determining and diagnosing an infection without using a lab,” she said. “I think you all know today, if you were to go to a doctor’s office or a clinic, they’ll say, ‘Yep, we’ll let you know in a couple of days what it is, and we’ll maybe take a guess at which antibiotic to give you now, or make you wait.’ But we’ve got a way to do it in an hour. And it’s elegant and it’s simplified when it’s all done, but you know it takes a lot of effort to get to that point.”

Sammon said GeneCapture took advantage of the SBIR/STTR matching program to expand the depth of its research.

John Joseph, executive director of the Decatur-Morgan County Entrepreneurial Center business incubator, said the E-Center is partnering with Innovate Alabama to launch the state’s first artificial intelligence accelerator. The goals of the AI accelerator are to identify and help grow AI companies, and help Alabamians utilize AI to create businesses.

“We’re also going to build an agentic infrastructure – so just think, the AI agents, the tech that’s already there – to help current Alabama residents vet your own business ideas and start your own businesses using AI,” Joseph said. “We see a day where there’s people in every city, community and town in Alabama who can go back to their back bedroom, quickly figure out within a matter of a day or a week or a couple weeks, if they have a business idea with some legs, and then have 80% or more of that business already started with technology that already exists.”

Tiffany Dunlap, Innovate Alabama’s executive director for outdoor recreation, explained how the state’s geography and natural resources are a selling point for attracting and retaining innovators.

“You may not understand how outdoor recreation relates to what we do here, but it’s actually a very important piece of what we do, because we’re talking about quality of life,” Dunlap said. “Founders, startups and entrepreneurs – people are working super hard. A lot of times, it’s a really stressful job. And we in Alabama have the most amazing outdoor assets of any state in the nation.

“The mission is to help bring entrepreneurs, innovators and tech talent to our state by promoting these outdoor resources,” she added. “Where else can you live where you have mountains right here beside us? We have the great Tennessee River and all the waterways. We have the beach within half a day’s drive from us.”

The event concluded with a slideshow recognizing the North Alabama organizations that work with Innovate Alabama in some way. In addition to higher education institutions Alabama A&M University, Drake State Community & Technical College and The University of Alabama in Huntsville, a few honorees with footprints in the Rocket City include:

The Arc of Madison County
HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology
Huntsville Metro Black Chamber of Commerce
HyBird Space Systems
Institute for Digital Enterprise Advancement (IDEA)
KODA Technologies, Inc.
Microcollective for AI, Robotics and the Sciences (MARS)
National Speleological Society
U.S. Space & Rocket Center Education Foundation

This was one of eight “Connecting Alabama: Igniting Regional Innovation” stops throughout the state. While Monday’s event in Huntsville focused on North Alabama, the other regional events recognized innovation in West Alabama, East Alabama, Northeast Alabama, the Wiregrass Region, South Alabama and the River Region. The series will conclude in Central Alabama.