Amplify Bloomington

Join the Chamber in a ribbon cutting celebration with Amplify Bloomington and all new Chamber members within the Mill on Wednesday, June 17th with the ribbon cutting starting at 11am! We hope to see you there! #ChamberBloom #RibbonCutting

Yesterday, Elevate Ventures brought their annual Indiana Uplands Ecosystem Exchange to us here at The Mill. The room included ecosystem practitioners from across the region, Senator Shelli Yoder, Brad Wisler from Paragraph, and Ravi Bhatt, CEO of Folia, who received the Regional Spotlight Award. Ravi is an Indiana University Bloomington alum who left for Chicago, built something real, and came back to keep building it here. His platform now serves over a million people worldwide. You might have heard Ravi's story before, but what felt different yesterday is seeing the room it takes to make that story normal. Elevate, Paragraph, the state senate, founders, ecosystem builders from across the region. All in the same place, having the same conversation. That's the infrastructure that matters.

We're co-hosting the Indiana Uplands Ecosystem Exchange with Elevate Ventures on May 13 at The Mill. Practitioners, founders, and community members are invited to join us for a morning of networking, shared learning, and a community panel featuring state and local policymakers, local founders, and Elevate CEO Toph Day. Breakfast and coffee provided. 📅 May 13, 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM 📍 The Mill, Bloomington Link to register in the comments.

Today we're welcoming Tobey Wyatt as Head of Entrepreneurship Growth at Amplify Bloomington. Tobey has spent more than 15 years sitting across from founders, helping them turn ambition into the operating systems and teams that hold up under growth. She's done it as the founder of Motherlode Consulting, as VP of Operations at MPA Healthcare Solutions, as Chief of Staff at Boeing, and as a mentor at MATTER and 1871. Now she's bringing that work to Bloomington. Tobey will lead Amplify Bloomington's entrepreneurship programs, partnerships, and the pathways that move founders from early idea to scale. That includes Startup Summer, Founders Friday, 90 Days to Scale, and sector-focused work across GovTech, HealthTech, and the creative economy. For founders here, what changes most immediately is access. Tobey is already meeting with builders across sectors and stages, and she wants to hear from you. Welcome, Tobey. We're glad you're here. Full story in the comments.

Want free tech training? Code IT Academy is a 10 week program where you can build real IT skills and gain a CompTIA Tech+ certification. Perfect if you are starting out in tech. No experience needed. Classes start May 5 - apply today! Get started here: https://lnkd.in/gS_GHYKB

This morning, Benedict Jones joined us at The Mill for Bloomington Breakfast Club to talk about creativity as an everyday practice. "I think the stuff that lasts, the meaningful stuff, often comes from patience and struggle and messy, nonlinear work." Another one of his key points: there's something irreplaceable about being in the room. "There is something to being physically present that I don't think we can replicate digitally...something about being in the space, being around the energy, seeing what's happening, that you can't get any other way." It's a message that resonated with everyone there who had made the choice to show up, in person, on a Friday morning. Benedict's work spans photography (some of which he shared with attendees), startups, media, and community storytelling. He's Photo Crew Chief for SXSW , founder of NOV.AS and Trekkable, and a news anchor with WFHB. What came through most clearly was his belief that creativity lives in the choices we make every day, including the choice to be present. Thanks to Benedict for bringing this perspective to our community, and to Blueline for partnering with us to make Bloomington Breakfast Club happen. Follow us here to catch details on the next Breakfast Club (May) when they're posted. #AmplifyBloomington #BloomingtonBreakfastClub #BloomingtonIN

This edition of Ambition in Bloom is a community voice from Pat East, founder of several Indiana companies and the former executive director of Dimension Mill, now Amplify Bloomington. Pat writes about a quiet but consequential challenge facing Indiana: many of the businesses that anchor our communities have no succession plan. Founders are nearing retirement, and without intentional transition strategies, we risk losing companies that provide jobs, stability, and economic foundation. This is not a distant problem. It is unfolding now in towns and industries across the state, including here in Bloomington. Pat makes the case for why Indiana should build a statewide succession planning initiative, what it would look like, and why it matters for the durability of our economy. #AmplifyBloomington #BloomingtonIN #AmbitionInBloom

Join us April 23rd at 10 AM for some coffee and bagels with Plug and Play Tech Center! ✨ Meet the Plug and Play Indianapolis team and learn about the programs and resources available to founders. Whether you’re building something technical or just exploring, this is a great way to connect with Indiana’s innovation ecosystem! 💡 RSVP below: https://lnkd.in/g4q4nBvS Location: 517 E Kirkwood Avenue, Bloomington, IN #entrepreneurship #innovation #networking