Innovation dashboard fills in gaps for Middle Ga. entrepreneurs

A new AI-powered tool will “connect the dots” between business resources and Middle Georgia entrepreneurs, building on an existing dashboard for developing the region’s network of businesses.

Macon’s Inclusive Innovation Ecosystem Dashboard received a $40,000 grant in September from the Partnership for Innovation, an innovation lab out of Georgia Tech.

Christele Parham is the project’s manager and founder of Macon Black Tech, a nonprofit with a similar function for tech entrepreneurs in Middle Georgia.

Parham said the dashboard is intended to connect resources across Macon’s business landscape, between educational organizations, nonprofits, healthcare organizations, the Chamber of Commerce, NewTown Macon and more. 

The expanded dashboard will contain information on everything from mentor programs to networking events. An AI agent will present information to users in the same way a ChatGPT query works. 

“We don’t have a place right now that is a one stop shop where entrepreneurs can find resources,” she said. 

Before landing the partnership’s grant, Parham mapped out Macon’s businesses in an online interactive web of connections, the first part of the Inclusive Innovation Ecosystem Dashboard.

She and her team tried to figure out what innovation meant in Bibb County and understand how people were scaling up their ideas.

“One of the things that came up was recognizing we might not always have capital, but what people have is relationships, like social capital,” Parham said. 

Parham hopes to add more businesses and organizations to grow the network and serve as a focus group to see what entrepreneurs are looking for and show them how they fit into Macon’s “ecosystem.”

Entrepreneurs will also have access to data collected from the dashboard. Users will fill out forms about their experiences and project managers will use search data to see what entrepreneurs are looking for and to find gaps in resources. 

Parham and her project were funded along with two projects under the Partnership for Innovation’s Regional Leaders cohort for 2025.

The Georgia Tech public-private partnership hopes to build out an alumni network with cohort members that will act as a basis for a regional entrepreneur network in the South.

Jamal Lewis, associate director of impact of the Partnership for Innovation, said members of the cohort attend workshops to learn about tech-based economic development, social infrastructure and public private partnerships.

“Having a project that has AI that’s really looking to utilize technology to make sure that the local ecosystem is met is very exciting,” he said of the dashboard.