As crisp mornings return to Tech Square, we’re celebrating a summer full of energy and creativity, including sharing innovative ideas during Midtown Day, as part of Atlanta Tech Week, and engaging in community service events with LifeLine Animal Project, the American Red Cross, and Agape Youth & Family Center. Our fall calendar is rich with innovative and creative events designed to spark connection, curiosity, and community. But first, let’s take a moment to relive our favorite summer memories!

In communities across the country, organizations are collecting data in record amounts, but the harder task is turning those insights into progress people can see and feel.

On September 25th, Women in Technology (WIT), a nonprofit organization that is “supporting the women who are shaping the future”, hosted the 2025 WIT Career Fair at the TSQ ATL Clubhouse. Over 220 attendees engaged in dynamic conversations with tech-driven companies and formed valuable professional connections with community members.

TSQ Tuesday is a weekly happy hour/networking event that turns casual conversations into real-world collaborations, connecting researchers, entrepreneurs, and technologists. For Weiyuan “Vera” Wang, a chance meeting at the event sparked a partnership that could transform how live-animal research is conducted, reducing stress for animals while improving data accuracy.

“We hope to get everyone to catch ‘entrepreneur’s disease,’” says John Avery, referring to the contagious excitement of entrepreneurship. As director of Georgia Tech’s ATDC, Avery has helped cultivate a collaborative environment in Tech Square where mentors and founders spark ideas, share advice, and turn big concepts into startups.

Can biosignals such as heart rate, breathing, and blood pressure be integrated into immersive virtual reality experiences? For researcher-turned-entrepreneur Yuchen Zhao, this vision is at the core of her work with her startup BioVR.

San Francisco–based startup Pylon joined Bits of Good at The Clubhouse for a tech talk on modern web development, fresh off a $31M Series B.

Startups need talent. Students need experience. But too often, cost keeps them apart. Georgia Tech’s Office of Commercialization is breaking down that barrier—funding internships that give students real-world exposure while helping young companies scale.

This art exhibit in Georgia Tech’s Interactive Media Zone (IMZ), Technoterria, immerses visitors in a futuristic imagined museum in the year 2125, reflecting on 100 years of technological advancements and placing 2025 as the turning point of industrialization and AI advancement. By housing the digital skyline and interactive sculptures in a space with entrepreneurs, researchers, and students, T.W. Pilar and Ivan Reyes hope to inspire a future where technology is used for social good.

When Atlanta native Sayem Hoque saw how organizations struggle with repetitive, time-consuming administrative tasks, he knew he could make a difference. His startup, Flexbone, has emerged from stealth with AI-powered agents designed to streamline operational workflows and is now gearing up to expand across the Southeast.

Imagine a doctor’s visit that never ends. An app on your phone and a wearable on your wrist monitor your health 24/7, alerting you to potential issues before you even feel sick. It sounds utopian: no surprise illnesses, faster diagnoses, maybe even AI-guided cures. However, as Georgia Tech researcher Catherine Wieczorek has found, today’s artificial intelligence health tools carry more than medical promise.

The FlameJackets, a team of Georgia Tech students and faculty, are developing a hybrid fuel-electric drone to detect and suppress wildfires autonomously. Born out of Georgia Tech’s Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) program, the team is now a strong contender in the $11 million XPRIZE Wildfire competition.

Imagine an Atlanta where there’s a pathway for every breakthrough in a Georgia Tech lab to launch into a startup and scale to a billion-dollar “unicorn”. This isn’t a distant fantasy—it’s the vision that Dr. Raghupathy “Siva” Sivakumar, Georgia Tech’s chief commercialization officer, is championing.

“It’s the smell of the future,” says Mya Love Griesbaum, reflecting on her work with fungi. The 21-year-old materials researcher has come to appreciate the earthy odor of decomposing matter, a scent that symbolizes possibility: a future where fungi clean up pollution and transform the fashion industry. As the founder of Mycorrhiza Fashion, she is developing a sustainable approach to textiles by cultivating fungi-derived materials that can help address the pollution problem in the fashion industry.

At Memento in Atlanta, Sam Thurman’s 3D-printed light sculptures transformed architectural principles into luminous art, blending geometry, symmetry, and design to create spaces that resonated with both form and meaning. His debut show, Speculative Futures, invited viewers to experience how architecture and technology intersect with creative expression.