December 26, 2023 • 45 mins
In this episode, Ryan Myrehn and Paul Mitchell, the President of the Indy Autonomous Challenge, have a very special guest joining them from the Indiana Economic Development Corporation. Senior Vice President David Watkins sits down to delve into the future of the automobile industry in tandem with the swift evolution of autonomous technology. The discussion revolves around how the IAC is playing a pivotal role in maintaining the United States' leadership in advanced manufacturing. Tune in for insights into the intersection of autonomous technology and the automotive landscape.
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(00:04):
The world around us is changing fasterthan ever before. Ideas once only imagined
in science fiction are becoming a reality. Throughout the course of our amazing twenty
three episode season, we'll speak tosome of the greatest minds in robotics and
artificial intelligence to discuss the groundbreaking workthat's fueling it all. I'm your host
Ryan Marine, joined me and myco host Paul Mitchell, the presidents of
(00:26):
the Indian Autonomous Challenge and see whywe call this the Inside Track. Today,
we have a very special guest comingto us from the Indiana Economic Development
Corporation. Senior Vice President David Watkinssits down to discuss the future of the
automobile industry in conjunction with the rapiddevelopments of autonomous technology, and how the
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IAC is helping to keep the UnitedStates at the forefront of advanced manufacturing.
Well, David, great to haveyou on the program talking about this Indiana
and the India Autonomous Challenge and Stateof Indiana. It's even in the name
of the Indie a toad of hischallenge. So let's start right there for
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the State of Indiana, for theEconomic Development Corporation of which you are apart
what made this a project worthy ofyour support? Yeah, well, thank
you Ryan for having me on.And part of my role at the IEDC
and part of how we envision supportingeconomic development across the state includes innovation,
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entrepreneurship, technology, commercialization. Andwhen we think about the history of motorsport
in Indiana, yeah, obviously there'sa lot that goes on on the innovation
side that has been going on fordecades. A lot of modern day automotive
innovations happened in Indiana as part ofthe motorsports industry. And so when we
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flipped that on its head and kindof look at like, well, what
comes next, right, what doesthe industry look like in thirty forty fifty
years. Clearly there was has beena movement and there was an opportunity to
explore what autonomous racing might look like. And not that there's that that's the
sole purpose, but that there's alot of technology that can be tested right
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in some of the harshest of conditions. Right, You and I probably won't
be going one hundred and eighty hundredninety miles an hour around an oval,
let's hope in our personal cars.These cars obviously do. But what we're
learning from the technology can be appliedto us when we're going seventy miles an
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hour on the interstate, right.I Mean, what's striking to me is
that while the racing or the timeon the track, that's what people think
of when they think of in theautonomous challenge, but that's that's not necessarily
the end goal here. That's theconduit to get people to start thinking about
these problems in a different way.And is there more a more fun and
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exciting way to start thinking about problemslike these with race cars? Yeah?
No, I don't think so.And I think I think all you have
to do is look at this andunderstand that it's different, it's new,
it's it's innovative. And again,the piece for us as a State Economic
Development Group is not the racing aspect. It really is the technology. It
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really is the innovation, it reallyis pushing the edge of the industry.
It's it's the it's the industry engagement. It's working with the partners that that
have come together to support the IndiaAutonomous Challenge, the Cisco's and the Luminars
and other companies that have signed upand said yeah, we'd like to have
our technology on this car, totest it, to test it together,
to test it at high speeds,to test it in environments that that are
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our real life. But also,you know, the beauty of having an
autonomous vehicles that it can also bevirtual. I mean it, because there's
so much software essentially in code behindwhat these cars are doing. There's a
real opportunity actually to have both sides. But you can't beat you can't beat
the opportunity to have student teams fromacross the world working on cars here in
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Indianapolis. And I think you alludedto the history of this state and maybe
we do need to roll back theclock a little bit to the beginning of
the twentieth century, because the stateof Indiana at that time was looked at
in the same way we look atMichigan in Detroit now as a real hub
for the auto industry. And whenyou talk about the Indianapolis Motor Speedway where
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the India Autonomous Challenge made its debut, the founders of that track built that
track specifically to be a proving groundfor automotive technology. And what struck me
during that first event when we werebroadcasting it was what the Arthur Newbies of
the World and Carl Fischer's of theWorld, the founders of the Speedway,
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they would have loved this. Icompletely agree. I think you could almost
do it side by side, right, Like the things that we're getting tested
back then obviously are now widely acceptedin automotive technology. You know, who
knows where this is going to endup? I mean, but the fact
of the matter is that we're exploringwhat you know, autonomous technology looks like
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in a race car, in aracing environment, where that technology ends up
down the line safety features again,both professional and personal side opportunities for the
software improvement. I mean, wedon't quite know where the end is,
but that's okay, right. We'retrying to in a very intentional way,
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make sure that Indiana stays on theedge of that innovation, on the leading
edge of that innovation right here,you know, obviously that's our focus.
Then how important is it to havesuch a publicly facing program like this to
advertise to the world that this isa state that's very interested in being on
the cutting edge. Hugely important.I mean, you know, one of
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the big parts of the India Autonomouschallenge is obviously the engagement with universities across
the world. These are the leadinginstitutions researchers, uh, the next generation
of talent that that are taking theirtime and their effort and and their classes
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to work on an autonomous car herein in in Indiana. UH. That
obviously isn't lost on us. It'sit's not lost on them. It's it's
it's an opportunity again for Indiana tosay, we do really cool things here.
We we build really cool things here, we do really cool things here,
and you know, keeping Indiana atthe forefront of certainly automotive and and
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autonomous innovation, but but plenty ofother areas where we're looking at Indiana as
a hub for global innovation. Atthe heart of the challenge is this essence
of competition and the belief that competitiondrives everything forward. And there is a
huge competition for talent across the board, but certainly from your point of view,
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that's one area where Indiana is competingnot just with other states in the
US, but globally as well.Can you talk about what that competition looks
like and how a program like theIAC plays into a pitch. Well,
Look, I mean, motorsport isglobal, right, like If anything,
the last couple of years have taughtus that, you know, there's a
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real appetite for all different types ofracing and motorsport. But perhaps most interestingly
though, is that the India AutonomousChallenge kind of opens up a whole new
talent pipeline, if you will,that was much more focused on software and
electrical engineering than would traditionally be associatedwith motorsport. Sure, I had an
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opportunity to visit with Dallara, whichmakes the chassis for the car in Italy,
and one of their graduate students who'sworking at the facility. I expected
him to be super excited about youknow, hey, Indianapolis, you work
at Tallara, you must be ahuge Indy five hundred fan, right.
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He was a fan. I wouldn'tsay there was an overly enthusiastic, but
boy, we pivoted to the IndiaAutonomous Challenge and it was lights on and
he was, you know, graduatestudent in Italy getting a degree in electrical
engineering. I think that's an interestingpoint because really the crux of this podcast
has been how things that appear verydifferent on the surface actually are very intertwined.
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Today more than ever. Elements ofthe technological world, with the automotive
world, with the mechanical world.All of these things come together. Certainly,
that's true in the race car that'ssitting right behind us, and that's
true in the story that you tell. There where people who might not have
thought of automotive necessarily the ultimate outcomeof their studies in something like electrical engineering
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or in software coding or what haveyou. But you have to have all
of these things working in concert injust about anything you produced today. Yeah.
No, that's you're absolutely right,and that's the that's the attractive piece
for us as well, is thatyou know there is a global pipeline in
these particular areas, and this isa way in which that global pipeline comes
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together. Yes, again, it'sa race car, but we probably could
have chosen any other kind of vehicle, sure that we wanted to, and
we would still be engaging with alot of the same talent from across the
world that is dedicated to trying toimprove and solve the issues that have been
happening, but also drive the innovationto the next level. You also could
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have chosen to have one or tworace cars and probably accomplish some of the
same goals but instead the investment wasmade in I believe ten of these phenomenal
pieces of equipment, over a millmillion dollars each invested into these cars,
and that's before they hit walls andeach other and everything that comes along with
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pushing the envelope in a competition likethis. So I suppose the basic question
is simply why, Well, ifyou're going to do something, let's let's
do it at a level that's worthdoing. But I'd say, you know,
this is a partnership. You know, the the India Autonomous Challenge has
done an outstanding job bringing in corporatepartners again who are interested in testing their
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technology in these conditions as well.But certainly the demand was there from universities
across across the world. I mean, these universities wanted the opportunity to engage
in a real life opportunity to educatetheir students, build out their technology,
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and so you know, I thinkall of those pieces kind of came together
to say, well, you know, this isn't going to be one or
two cars, right, this isgoing to be a few more than that.
And again, the support has beenthere from industry. We think of
these types of things in Indiana's publicprivate partnerships. Right. So this is
not the state going in and sayingwe're going to do all of this now.
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We really want to work with industry, collaborate and make sure that that
the types of investments we're making aninnovation are really driving private sector outcomes as
well. Is that collaborative element,is that something that's always been there or
is that a pivot to some degree? You know, I think it's a
unique characteristic of the innovation ecosystem inIndiana. A lot of the work we
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do driving innovation, entrepreneurship access tocapital is through public private partnerships. Again,
it's a way, it's a wayfor state investments to be catalyzing to
induce private sector investment. Right Andultimately, if we're not driving you know,
private sector investment and innovation, thatwe're not doing our jobs. Please
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to have Paul Mitchell joining us nowfor the rest of this discussion here as
well, and so many different anglesthat I think Paul can take with this.
But one thing I'm really curious about, David, is this building that
we find ourselves in here, thee MC squared, right is what it's
called. And you could talk moreabout what exactly that stands for. But
it serves not just as the homeof the India Autonomous Challenge, but this
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is really the hub of that pushfor the next generation of talent coming to
the state that you've been talking aboutalready. Yeah. Absolutely, and actually
certainly the building itself, but eventhe campus where the building is located is
really focused on technology and innovation.So EMC squared clever naming for us Emerging
Manufacturing Collaboration Center. Obviously from thename, you understand emerging manufacturing. So
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we're really focused on what has traditionallybeen a strength for the state of Indiana,
advanced manufacturing and making sure again thatwe're driving the edge on what technologies
and innovations are being adopted or availableout in the private sector, and making
sure that Indiana is driving that edge. So it only made sense to have
the Autonomous Challenge, which is pushingthat boundary for autonomous technology, to set
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up shop within the Emerging Manufacturing CollaborationCenter EMC squared. EMC squared itself is
on a larger tech campus called thesixteen Tech Park here, and the investments
that the state in the private sectorare making here in this space again make
it an area where it made sense. It made perfect sense to have India
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Autonomous Challenge set up shop, setup a garage and store the cars and
do the work here again and evenbeyond that, just down the street from
the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Yeah,I mean, when we were thinking about
what kind of an environment do youneed for the home of India Tonomous Challenge,
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where you're going to build up,repair, change out, test,
validate the technology that goes into thesevehicles. You know, a couple of
things we wanted to make sure is, you know, its proximity to the
Unianapolis Motor Speedway and the talent poolof advanced motorsports. And really Indiana has
this unique talent pool that knows howto build up, look after repair these
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cars. But more than just themotorsports know how. We needed to be
in a place where the robotics,the connectivity, the spectrum management, the
advanced computing can all come together.And really what's cool about this facility is
if you walk around, you know, in one part of it there is
a three D metal printing studio thatGE is building up, and another part
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of it there's the Indiana five GZone, which is working on all kinds
of communication technology, of course fiveG, but also private networks and spectrum
management, which we utilize in ourvehicles. There's a battery technology company that's
building out a dry room facility whereyou can do battery prototype manufacturing. Obviously,
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our cars have actually substantial batteries inthem there even though they're not fully
electric. There's a pretty good sizedlithium battery that's in there to power all
of the computers and subsystems so thatthey're not drawing off off the engine,
which we need. We need everyhorse power on that engine to provide propulsion
for the cars. So you know, the idea that you can be working
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on a problem that's ice related,but go knock on the door and find
out maybe there's a three D printedpart. Maybe there's somebody that understands the
battery space that can tell us whywe're having power management issues. We can
go talk to, whether it's AWSor a Verizon or others who are active
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here about cloud computing or spectrum management. That idea to pull all those things
together in a facility in an urbanenvironment in Indianapolis, you know, made
this a perfect home and one thatteams from around the world come to throughout
the year and can do their workhere and feel like they have the tools
and the resources that they would haveback in their university lab environments. Yeah.
(16:18):
Absolutely, I mean everything in Paulsaid is accurate, and it really
is designed to be you know,that collaboration space in addition to the technology
and the innovation. And really we'reonly just getting started. I mean EMC
squared as a place where that typeof innovation happens in the collaborative environment.
(16:41):
We're just getting started. I thinkthere's a lot more to come there.
It's really interesting. I'm curious howthe established tech focused companies that are already
here in Indianapolis, what have theythought when this kind of popped up there
in their backyard. I'm sure they'restopping and taking note. Because we talked
about the competition for talent earlier.I'm sure a lot of these companies are
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looking at the talent that's working onthese cars as part of the university teams
and thinking how do I tap intothis? Absolutely, as they should,
I mean, this is this istop global, global talent. Uh,
there's plenty of global companies here inin in Indianapolis and Indiana that are looking
at these these students, these PhDs, these researchers that are working on the
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cars, but even just the thecompanies that work on the cars themselves.
I mean there's there is uh Ihave yet to meet a person who walks
by this car and isn't intrigued.Right, it obviously looks different than than
what they're used to seeing, iffamiliar enough, but but different enough,
and and and everyone is intrigued bythe idea. Now you know, no
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joysticks, click enter run right likeI mean, it's it's uh uh a
cross sector interest and and that typeof technology being developed here. I think
in some ways we've tried, throughour partnership with the state, to view
the vehicle as as a representation ofthis motorsports heritage, this manufacturing heritage,
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and now this kind of economy ofthe future technology innovation focus. Right,
so kind of these historical capabilities andthis new committed focus that the state has,
and you know, it's working inthe sense that, like the car
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itself gets a lot of attention fromthe general public, from global media,
but also as as as as Davidsharing from a lot of corporations. I
mean, we've been we've been luckyin that every time we need a new
key component for the car, generallyspeaking, we were able to source that
from either the market leader or theor the close to market leader within that
(19:00):
domain space. And we don't haveto tap too many phone calls or discussions
before they're like, yes, I'mall in, how do we how do
we support? How do we getinvolved? And so part of our objective
too is for those companies to understandwhat's happening in the ecosystem here within Indiana.
Doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, Continental is going to move from
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Germany to to Indiana, but asthey're thinking about their innovation hubs in the
United States and what they're doing,you know, it helps. It helps.
I think we've already we've always beenon the map. That it puts
us on a map in a differentway, not just as a place where
we're known for building legacy cars andrunning legacy motorsports, but oh, you're
doing the same kind of tech thatone might expect to find exclusively in Silicon
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Valley or areas outside of Boston orthe corridor between you know, Boston and
Washington, d C. And itprobably could have been done just just like
a show piece. I mean quitehonestly, we probably could have said,
hey, look at it, andyou know, maybe it run it once
at a low speed, right,Like, No, we are really pushing
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the envelope. As those who havewatched or been to the the events that
we've held, you know, thecars are going fast yea, and the
technology is being pushed to the veryedge of its limits, right, And
I think that's attractive. Obviously,that's attractive to the companies that have already
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engaged with the India Autonomous Challenge.Again, now it's not just the technology
and the innovation, but it's it'sthe real test bed to say, like,
this is what it should do.Does it do that when we're going
you know, one hundred ninety milesan hour, right, David. One
thing I was thinking about is,you know, this transition that we're making
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to running We've only run events inthe US, right. We run here
in Indianapolis, in Las Vegas,we had one in Texas. And this
transition to run overseas and and goingto Europe, it was not an easy
decision, right. It's it's ait's a it's a big investment in time
and resources, and there's it's fraughtwith risks. Anytime you take you know,
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million dollar machines and and bring themoverseas and deliver them to a place
they've never run before, there's alwaysa lot that has to go behind that.
And so you know, for IndyAutonomous Challenge, we we don't make
those kinds of decisions without close coordinationwith our commercial partners, our industry partners,
who were quite excited about it becausethey have a lot of operations in
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Europe and you know there's a lotof fan base and and marketing opportunity there.
But it was also equally important thatwe talked to the state and I
just you know how that opportunity isviewed by the state. Maybe you can
can speak to like what are youlooking to achieve out of this opportunity to
go to Manza and to bring thisstore to Europe. Look, Indiana competes
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on a global stage, so theIndia Autonomous Challenge should also compete on a
global stage. So I can thinkof no better thing for us to do
than to be able to take IndiaAutonomous Challenge and bring it to Manza.
I mean, of all the placeswe could have picked, Manza's like pretty
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darn high up there right and andin northern Italy. The connection between Italy
and Indiana is strong. Industry wise, there's a ton but like just beyond
that, Indiana businesses compete on aglobal stage. Indiana competes on a global
stage for talent, Indiana competes ona global stage for investment. So the
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idea that that India Autonomous Challenge shouldalso be global in many ways was was
pretty straightforward decision to make. Tobe able to to say, this is
a live, moving, active pieceof technology machinery that is a walking driving,
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I guess rolling embodiment of hopefully drivingfast, yes, versus crawling sometimes
it crawls, but but but itis. It is a you know,
real life embodiment of what goes onin Indiana, extremely high tech, extremely
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well built, a a a exampleof the type of collaboration and innovation that
goes on here. So yeah,it made a lot of sense to be
able to say to folks who willbe at the Milanmoto Show that will be
seeing the cars on the track forthe first time at Manza again of all
places, uh, and not justfor the Italians but all the teams that
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will be coming down and utilizing thattime to explore what it means to get
the car on a road track.Can you give some examples of how this
message resonates when you're taking this storyoverseas as you do, or elsewhere within
the country. Do eyes kind ofopen? Do do people start to look
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at the state in a different waywhen you start to tell this story?
Yeah? I think you know,as Paul mentioned, it's economy of the
future, right, So, oh, yeah, you know, we knew
that Indiana did racing. Oh,we didn't realize that Indiana was investing in
you know, autonomous technology as partof the investments that we're making. And
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I think you see as as ourgovernors, our secretary of Commerce, you
know, they're not shy about goingaround the world and going on these international
missions and delegations to tell that story, to say, you know, we've
got great universities, we've got greatpeople, we have great technology, you
have an awesome quality of life inIndiana and an ability to build things here
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and do things here, uh thatyou you can't do anywhere else. And
so again I'm I think there's alot of opportunity to expose people to Indiana
again in a way they've never beenexposed before. You know, I've I've
traveled quite a bit, uh aspart of of my job and my career,
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and people know a few things aboutIndiana. Indy five hundred comes up
there pretty often. The pacers comeup there pretty often as well. Sometimes
the cults depending on you know whatwhat decade decades, uh, And sometimes
you know, people don't don't don'tthink of much else. We're giving them
(25:48):
something else to think about. Yeah, I think the the the idea of
it being the ultimate conversation starter oror like dinner tall. But then there's
more to it than just the shinyobject or the wow factor, right,
because you know, I think everybodyintuitively understands that you don't get a race
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car to go autonomously at one hundredand eighty miles an hour without a ton
of overlapping and coordinated innovation and effortand work. And I don't know if
we got into it earlier in theconversations, but you know, and David's
tenure with the I d c Sfive plus years, so you know,
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he's been he's been there from thebeginning. When you know, the state
made a bet on an idea itwasn't called in the autonomous challenge. It
was just a you know, aparagraph and a PowerPoint presentation from Energy Systems
Network, the organization I've led fora number of years, along with some
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other ideas in the alternative energy andtransportation space. But you know, one
of them was, you know,autonomous racing exhibition at Indianapolis Motor Speedway,
right, and whether that was goingto be a global price competition or as
David said, a one off youknow vehicle design. You know, the
State always said, you know,if we can pull this off, it's
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it's it's going to be a majorreturn on on these initial dollars of investment.
And so the first seed money isthe first few hundred thousand dollars not
not an insignificant amount of money,but State's invested a lot over the years
in this Those first couple of hundredthousand dollars was really what allowed us to
go out and start having the conversationswith industry, talk to the universities,
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build the relationship up with the IndianapolisMotor Speedway to and and so that like
vote of faith in an idea.I don't know that that that that happens
in every in every state, right. I think also the fact that I
think the people there at the timeDavid has been there, but you know,
(28:03):
that was long enough ago that thepeople kind of making that initial investment
didn't know if it's going to playout in their tenuere or their budget cycle.
Right. A lot of times ingovernment, it's like, you want
to do what, well, what'sit going to do in the next twelve
months? All right, because we'regoing to have to show results right away.
So like placing that bet in aeconomy of the future idea that was
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was the economy of the maybe notso near future, was a big investment,
and I want to be careful,State. I got to be careful.
I got some other powerpoints and littleparagraphs like what if we did this,
Yeah, a few years down theline, we may be talking about
something completely different based on a paragraphor a PowerPoint. Sure, So if
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this is the ultimate conversation starter,you've gotten me hooked. So then where
do you transition? What's next inyour elevator pitch? Yeah? Well,
I think you know, the wekind of look at the areas in which
Indiana has traditionally been industrially focused andindustrially strong right, manufacturing one of those,
(29:15):
automotive mobility one of those, butalso sports, right, Like this
is a sports town, not justwe've been talking about obviously the motorsport,
but you know there's a lot ofother sports assets and sports history here and
and certainly long term but also inrecent history. Super Bowl hosted here,
you know, upcoming NBA All StarGame. Right, So we kind of
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take a look at what those industriesare and assess how can technology be applied
as a as not its own verticalbut as a horizontal. How can technology
be applied to the automotive industry,How can technology be applied to sports,
sports technology innovations, How can technologybe applied to manufactur strings start talking smart
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manufacturing industry for dot zho Internet ofthings, those type of things. So
you know, this is you knowan investment that uh uh you know has
has gone a long way and reallyreally returned you know, massive dividends to
the state. But there there area lot of other areas where we're looking
(30:22):
to make those types of uh,forward looking investments again with the thought that
what can we put some dollars behindnow that fill a need or a gap
or an opportunity to innovate for theprivate sector that that grows well beyond you
know what what our initial investment was, and and and again does start to
solve needs and push innovation to adifferent level. You know that that kind
(30:48):
of triple helix of government, academiaand industry swimming in the same direction is
really powerful. And you know,some of those first dollars in typically have
to come from from government. Butas as David said, it wasn't just
a hey, we're going to fundall of this and see what happens.
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It was we'll put some dollars into see if there's interest. And then
there's an expectation at industry and allthe logos on the cars behind us and
a whole bunch of companies whose logosaren't even on there are going to have
to invest and put their resources intoit. And from the academic world,
you know, some of these teamsare ten twelve PhD student deep, and
(31:36):
they're not just any PhD students.They're they're studying AI, machine learning,
you know, vehicle telemetry, sensorfusion. So these are like very in
demand areas of research, you know, and that costs those institutions those countries
a lot of resources themselves, right, so that you know, collectively you're
able to get you know, maybesomething north of one hundred million dollars invested
(32:01):
in an overall program by the government, you know, stepping in and providing
some of those initial foundational investments.And I think that one thing Indiana has
done well is each step of theway, the question is always what is
the match where which industry, whichcorporate partners are going to come alongside this.
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I think there's a certain respect forthe international universities as well, but
what are the what are the industryinvestments that this is going to generate?
And the reality is if you ifyou're all swimming in the same direction,
government, academia and industry, usuallythe outcomes have those positive public policy,
(32:47):
maybe idealistic things that perhaps our prioritiesin priorities in Indiana, but maybe have
priorities in other states, whether it'ssustainability or you know, road safety.
But doing it in that collaborative manneris what's been successful. Yeah, I
think there's no use in us thinkingabout this as an investment that was made
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in a vacuum. It wasn't rightlike there were outside partners, there were
industry partners. There were universities,there were, and that's basically that's a
basic requirement, right, There's nosense in us looking at investments that don't
have that type of buy in.We're not the experts. We know the
(33:31):
experts, and we want to We'reinterested in how the state can play a
constructive role in catalyzing those type ofinvestments. It's the same approach we take
with with with entrepreneurship and venture capital, right, like, how can we
play a role de risking catalyzing privatesector investment uh to to provide runway uh
(33:52):
to you know, do something reallycool. I want to ask your thoughts,
David on kind of the concept ofentrepreneurship and how you and how the
state of Indiana sort of defines that. And one of the one of the
observations I've had with India Autonomous challenges. You walk around the paddock and you
see these brilliant minds working on thecars, and in my I view them
(34:14):
all as entrepreneurs, right, They'reall they're all solving problems, they're all
working on a limited budget. They'reall, you know, trying to do
something that somebody else hasn't done,or try to exponentially improve somebody else's work,
but not necessarily. Are all ofthem going to go out and found
a company and raise raise venture capitalto do it? Some of them,
(34:36):
I think will and already starting to. But sort of how do you view
this kind of concept of entrepreneurship anddefine that within the context of the state.
Yeah, very broadly, right,And I think you said the words
Paul problem solvers, right, Seeingproblems as opportunities is big. And I'm
(34:57):
a firm believer that the mindset thatyou just described is applicable whether you choose
to actually go into business on yourown and and and be an owner and
raise money or take a take aloan, or whether you end up being
someone else's co founder, first,second, third employee or the employee at
a at a large you know enterprisethat that there's a lot of innovation that
(35:20):
comes out of large enterprises as well. And so I think the entrepreneurial mindset
is applicable whether you go off andstart your own company or or not.
And I think in Indiana, youknow, we we have this history of
of entrepreneurship. Some of the companiesthat people associate with UH Indiana literally bear
the name of the entrepreneur who startedthem, right, Like, like that's
(35:44):
that's that there's no book, right, Uh, there's there's a clear example
of what it means to be anentrepreneur. Uh all started from kind of
small beginnings, right, And andand I think when we think about how
do we invest in the future entrepreneurs, right, there's a lot of direct
(36:07):
entrepreneur support programming that we invest in, but it's also investing in the innovations
and the technologies that may be thecompanies of tomorrow could be the companies of
fifty years down the road. Notsure. Right, Sometimes we get the
technology right, but it takes thirtyyears to get a business around it.
Sure. Other times it's a littlebit more immediate. And so I think
(36:30):
there's an ecosystem in Indiana that supportsinnovation and entrepreneurship. It's a strong ecosystem.
The survivability of companies that do starthere is is you know, tops
in the nation. And so thatopportunity to support entrepreneurs of various kinds,
and you know, whether they're they'reactually running their own company or even running
(36:52):
a seventh generation family owned company thatthey're pivoting ancestors. Had you know started
years ago. You know, wetake a pretty broad view of of of
what it means to be an entrepreneur. It helps that you know, uh,
my boss is an entrepreneur, right, and and that we, uh,
we have an entrepreneurial spirit that's guidingthe way we think about economic development
(37:15):
in the state and the investments thatwe make. I like the idea that
that the concept of an entrepreneurial mindsetis what you're really working to cultivate.
Whether or not they all become entrepreneursin the Webster's Dictionary definition really hard to
measure, but like everybody has asense that that's a really good thing,
(37:36):
right, Like the entrepreneur mindset makeslike better workers, more innovative, absolutely
more companies, but better citizens.I mean, there's there's there's there's a
sense that this is the right typeof investment to be making of people.
Anything else from me, Paul,just you know, one of the topics
we try to hit on on eachof these conversations is AI. Sure,
(37:57):
and I think, you know,as somebody who's part of government trying to
understand, you know, the perspectiveof AI in society at a state level.
Obviously there's a lot of national conversations, international conversations about whether AI is
is a good thing is bad thing? You know, we we we try
(38:19):
to think about the use cases ofAI, and clearly in Indy Autonomous Challenge,
it's around saving lives through making mobilitysafer, not just for race cars
but passenger cars that we're in nowand in the future. But obviously there's
there's all kinds of other applications ofAI, you know, chat, GPT
and these kinds of things. Doesdoes Indiana does? Do you have a
(38:43):
perspective on this in terms of ofIndiana's innovation ecosystem? Are we are we
embracing uh the emergence of AI?Are we resistant to it? Are we
just keeping an eye on it?Sort of? Any any comments on that?
Yeah, I can tell you that, Uh, our high school entrepreneurs
are are are looking into it towrite there. Yeah, maybe I don't
(39:07):
know they. Uh. I thinkit's it's becoming more and more pervasive.
It's not lost on me that injudging a high school pitch competition here in
Indianapolis last week, out of tenof the pitches, I think fully on
seven of them were essentially AI appliedto this problem. I applied to this
problem, and you know some ofthem were A I applied to school,
(39:30):
A I applied to sports, aI applied to uh, you know,
volunteer activities, right like. Butbut in the same way that I think,
you know, there was a boomof Internet applied to correct machines,
Internet applied to cars, Internet appliedto your personal life and the devices that
you carry. Yeah, I thinkthat same type of thing is kind of
(39:52):
going on right like right now,and you're seeing it come out of the
younger right what we're seeing, we're, yeah, who are forming their sense
of innovation and entrepreneurship with the existenceof these tools that that many of us,
it's kind of are kind oft already. They don't have to adapt like
(40:12):
we do. No, no,And so all that to say, certainly,
you know, large corporations are arelooking into this. You know,
the state makes investments in uh,you know, data analysis and smart manufacturing
and sensorization of equipment and those typesof things. But to me, the
more telling trend is just the factthat you know, high school entrepreneurs who
(40:36):
are having maybe their first kind ofidea or interaction with entrepreneurship. Ever,
like, this is what they're goingto they can't imagine an outcome without it.
It sounds like that's taken for Granted'ssuper interesting. Wow, well,
a wonderful conversation. Thank you somuch for sharing some time and and all
the support as well for the inthe Autonomous Challenge. I hope to see
you out a racetrack here pretty soon. Absolutely, thanks, Ryan, appreciate
(41:00):
it. Well, certainly for thoselistening, there's a likelihood that they've got
to bent towards this entrepreneurial spirit thatthat we're talking about right here. And
if this is sounding like an environmentin which they would like to launch themselves,
what would you suggest in terms ofreaching out and seeking out the support
of the state of Indiana. Yeah, well, I mean I would say
(41:21):
there's there's obvious condo us through theIndia Autonomous Challenge. You know, our
team is active across the state,across the globe. You know, we
we at the i EDC, weobviously are focused on economic development, entrepreneurial
development, investments, and innovation.Our website is certainly available for people to
learn a little bit more about wherewe're making investments in the economy of the
(41:43):
future, those advanced industries, thoseaccelerators that we're investing in, those innovation
public private partnerships that we're launching andbuilding, And if I may just even
tease, we do have a whatshould be a really really innovative for a
state to invest in soon to belaunched portal which is solely designed to connect
(42:07):
entrepreneurs and innovators with resources in thestate of Indiana that can help their business
grow, access capital, access advising, and connect with other innovators and entrepreneurs.
So, you know, yet tocome really exciting things that kind of
continue this legacy of innovation. Iassume that portal will be identifiable through the
(42:29):
Indian Economic Development Corporation's website if whenit's ready and when it's the right time,
and they'll probably be it'll be fair, It'll be identifiable on the website,
it'll be I think identifiable in marketsacross the globe, and a big
part of what we talk about whenwe go out and participate in events alongside
India Thomas Challenge. Certainly, I'lljust add to that that we've seen through
(42:52):
the IC, We've seen, youknow, students from some of the universities
that have developed relationships and interest inIndiana and you're thinking about either creating companies
here or if they're from another country, perhaps they're founding the company in that
home country, but they know they'regoing to need a North American site or
(43:13):
jumping off point, you know.And I think the other, uh,
the other observation is is, youknow, the the the marketing that you
see from India Autonomous Challenge typically generatesand understanding that there's some linkage back to
India to Indiana, right, andwe're gonna work really hard as we go
(43:36):
forward at more events to to makethat even more front and center and help
people make that connection that that theIndia and India Autonomous Challenge is really all
about Indiana's innovation ecosystem. Tangible example, uh, one of the corporate partners
for the India Autonomous Challenge essentially gaveexposure through their own network of companies and
(44:04):
startups that they're interacting with that somebodylearned about the cool stuff that's going on
in Indiana. That founder, youknow, reached out connected and is now
exploring the opportunity to go through anadvanced Mobility accelerator that the state sponsors every
year here in Indianapolis. I thinkthat's a that's a tangible example of how
(44:24):
you know there's engagement and that isa global company that's that's not from the
United States. It's looking at comingand making that accelerator part of their growth
structure. That's good to do itthis week on the Inside Track, Big
thanks again to David Watkins, SeniorVice President of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation,
(44:45):
for sharing his insights on what thefuture of the automotive manufacturing field might
look like and how Indiana is holdingfast is a hub of cutting edge technology
The world around us is changing fasterthan ever before. Ideas once only imagined
in science fiction are becoming a reality. Throughout the course of our amazing twenty
three episode season, we'll speak tosome of the greatest minds in robotics and
artificial intelligence to discuss the groundbreaking workthat's fueling it all. I'm your host
Ryan Marine, joined me and myco host Paul Mitchell, the presidents of
(00:26):
the Indian Autonomous Challenge and see whywe call this the Inside Track. Today,
we have a very special guest comingto us from the Indiana Economic Development
Corporation. Senior Vice President David Watkinssits down to discuss the future of the
automobile industry in conjunction with the rapiddevelopments of autonomous technology, and how the
(00:46):
IAC is helping to keep the UnitedStates at the forefront of advanced manufacturing.
Well, David, great to haveyou on the program talking about this Indiana
and the India Autonomous Challenge and Stateof Indiana. It's even in the name
of the Indie a toad of hischallenge. So let's start right there for
(01:08):
the State of Indiana, for theEconomic Development Corporation of which you are apart
what made this a project worthy ofyour support? Yeah, well, thank
you Ryan for having me on.And part of my role at the IEDC
and part of how we envision supportingeconomic development across the state includes innovation,
(01:30):
entrepreneurship, technology, commercialization. Andwhen we think about the history of motorsport
in Indiana, yeah, obviously there'sa lot that goes on on the innovation
side that has been going on fordecades. A lot of modern day automotive
innovations happened in Indiana as part ofthe motorsports industry. And so when we
(01:55):
flipped that on its head and kindof look at like, well, what
comes next, right, what doesthe industry look like in thirty forty fifty
years. Clearly there was has beena movement and there was an opportunity to
explore what autonomous racing might look like. And not that there's that that's the
sole purpose, but that there's alot of technology that can be tested right
(02:21):
in some of the harshest of conditions. Right, You and I probably won't
be going one hundred and eighty hundredninety miles an hour around an oval,
let's hope in our personal cars.These cars obviously do. But what we're
learning from the technology can be appliedto us when we're going seventy miles an
(02:43):
hour on the interstate, right.I Mean, what's striking to me is
that while the racing or the timeon the track, that's what people think
of when they think of in theautonomous challenge, but that's that's not necessarily
the end goal here. That's theconduit to get people to start thinking about
these problems in a different way.And is there more a more fun and
(03:05):
exciting way to start thinking about problemslike these with race cars? Yeah?
No, I don't think so.And I think I think all you have
to do is look at this andunderstand that it's different, it's new,
it's it's innovative. And again,the piece for us as a State Economic
Development Group is not the racing aspect. It really is the technology. It
(03:28):
really is the innovation, it reallyis pushing the edge of the industry.
It's it's the it's the industry engagement. It's working with the partners that that
have come together to support the IndiaAutonomous Challenge, the Cisco's and the Luminars
and other companies that have signed upand said yeah, we'd like to have
our technology on this car, totest it, to test it together,
to test it at high speeds,to test it in environments that that are
(03:52):
our real life. But also,you know, the beauty of having an
autonomous vehicles that it can also bevirtual. I mean it, because there's
so much software essentially in code behindwhat these cars are doing. There's a
real opportunity actually to have both sides. But you can't beat you can't beat
the opportunity to have student teams fromacross the world working on cars here in
(04:14):
Indianapolis. And I think you alludedto the history of this state and maybe
we do need to roll back theclock a little bit to the beginning of
the twentieth century, because the stateof Indiana at that time was looked at
in the same way we look atMichigan in Detroit now as a real hub
for the auto industry. And whenyou talk about the Indianapolis Motor Speedway where
(04:35):
the India Autonomous Challenge made its debut, the founders of that track built that
track specifically to be a proving groundfor automotive technology. And what struck me
during that first event when we werebroadcasting it was what the Arthur Newbies of
the World and Carl Fischer's of theWorld, the founders of the Speedway,
(04:58):
they would have loved this. Icompletely agree. I think you could almost
do it side by side, right, Like the things that we're getting tested
back then obviously are now widely acceptedin automotive technology. You know, who
knows where this is going to endup? I mean, but the fact
of the matter is that we're exploringwhat you know, autonomous technology looks like
(05:18):
in a race car, in aracing environment, where that technology ends up
down the line safety features again,both professional and personal side opportunities for the
software improvement. I mean, wedon't quite know where the end is,
but that's okay, right. We'retrying to in a very intentional way,
(05:41):
make sure that Indiana stays on theedge of that innovation, on the leading
edge of that innovation right here,you know, obviously that's our focus.
Then how important is it to havesuch a publicly facing program like this to
advertise to the world that this isa state that's very interested in being on
the cutting edge. Hugely important.I mean, you know, one of
(06:02):
the big parts of the India Autonomouschallenge is obviously the engagement with universities across
the world. These are the leadinginstitutions researchers, uh, the next generation
of talent that that are taking theirtime and their effort and and their classes
(06:23):
to work on an autonomous car herein in in Indiana. UH. That
obviously isn't lost on us. It'sit's not lost on them. It's it's
it's an opportunity again for Indiana tosay, we do really cool things here.
We we build really cool things here, we do really cool things here,
and you know, keeping Indiana atthe forefront of certainly automotive and and
(06:45):
autonomous innovation, but but plenty ofother areas where we're looking at Indiana as
a hub for global innovation. Atthe heart of the challenge is this essence
of competition and the belief that competitiondrives everything forward. And there is a
huge competition for talent across the board, but certainly from your point of view,
(07:06):
that's one area where Indiana is competingnot just with other states in the
US, but globally as well.Can you talk about what that competition looks
like and how a program like theIAC plays into a pitch. Well,
Look, I mean, motorsport isglobal, right, like If anything,
the last couple of years have taughtus that, you know, there's a
(07:29):
real appetite for all different types ofracing and motorsport. But perhaps most interestingly
though, is that the India AutonomousChallenge kind of opens up a whole new
talent pipeline, if you will,that was much more focused on software and
electrical engineering than would traditionally be associatedwith motorsport. Sure, I had an
(07:56):
opportunity to visit with Dallara, whichmakes the chassis for the car in Italy,
and one of their graduate students who'sworking at the facility. I expected
him to be super excited about youknow, hey, Indianapolis, you work
at Tallara, you must be ahuge Indy five hundred fan, right.
(08:16):
He was a fan. I wouldn'tsay there was an overly enthusiastic, but
boy, we pivoted to the IndiaAutonomous Challenge and it was lights on and
he was, you know, graduatestudent in Italy getting a degree in electrical
engineering. I think that's an interestingpoint because really the crux of this podcast
has been how things that appear verydifferent on the surface actually are very intertwined.
(08:41):
Today more than ever. Elements ofthe technological world, with the automotive
world, with the mechanical world.All of these things come together. Certainly,
that's true in the race car that'ssitting right behind us, and that's
true in the story that you tell. There where people who might not have
thought of automotive necessarily the ultimate outcomeof their studies in something like electrical engineering
(09:03):
or in software coding or what haveyou. But you have to have all
of these things working in concert injust about anything you produced today. Yeah.
No, that's you're absolutely right,and that's the that's the attractive piece
for us as well, is thatyou know there is a global pipeline in
these particular areas, and this isa way in which that global pipeline comes
(09:24):
together. Yes, again, it'sa race car, but we probably could
have chosen any other kind of vehicle, sure that we wanted to, and
we would still be engaging with alot of the same talent from across the
world that is dedicated to trying toimprove and solve the issues that have been
happening, but also drive the innovationto the next level. You also could
(09:45):
have chosen to have one or tworace cars and probably accomplish some of the
same goals but instead the investment wasmade in I believe ten of these phenomenal
pieces of equipment, over a millmillion dollars each invested into these cars,
and that's before they hit walls andeach other and everything that comes along with
(10:07):
pushing the envelope in a competition likethis. So I suppose the basic question
is simply why, Well, ifyou're going to do something, let's let's
do it at a level that's worthdoing. But I'd say, you know,
this is a partnership. You know, the the India Autonomous Challenge has
done an outstanding job bringing in corporatepartners again who are interested in testing their
(10:31):
technology in these conditions as well.But certainly the demand was there from universities
across across the world. I mean, these universities wanted the opportunity to engage
in a real life opportunity to educatetheir students, build out their technology,
(10:52):
and so you know, I thinkall of those pieces kind of came together
to say, well, you know, this isn't going to be one or
two cars, right, this isgoing to be a few more than that.
And again, the support has beenthere from industry. We think of
these types of things in Indiana's publicprivate partnerships. Right. So this is
not the state going in and sayingwe're going to do all of this now.
(11:16):
We really want to work with industry, collaborate and make sure that that
the types of investments we're making aninnovation are really driving private sector outcomes as
well. Is that collaborative element,is that something that's always been there or
is that a pivot to some degree? You know, I think it's a
unique characteristic of the innovation ecosystem inIndiana. A lot of the work we
(11:39):
do driving innovation, entrepreneurship access tocapital is through public private partnerships. Again,
it's a way, it's a wayfor state investments to be catalyzing to
induce private sector investment. Right Andultimately, if we're not driving you know,
private sector investment and innovation, thatwe're not doing our jobs. Please
(12:03):
to have Paul Mitchell joining us nowfor the rest of this discussion here as
well, and so many different anglesthat I think Paul can take with this.
But one thing I'm really curious about, David, is this building that
we find ourselves in here, thee MC squared, right is what it's
called. And you could talk moreabout what exactly that stands for. But
it serves not just as the homeof the India Autonomous Challenge, but this
(12:26):
is really the hub of that pushfor the next generation of talent coming to
the state that you've been talking aboutalready. Yeah. Absolutely, and actually
certainly the building itself, but eventhe campus where the building is located is
really focused on technology and innovation.So EMC squared clever naming for us Emerging
Manufacturing Collaboration Center. Obviously from thename, you understand emerging manufacturing. So
(12:54):
we're really focused on what has traditionallybeen a strength for the state of Indiana,
advanced manufacturing and making sure again thatwe're driving the edge on what technologies
and innovations are being adopted or availableout in the private sector, and making
sure that Indiana is driving that edge. So it only made sense to have
the Autonomous Challenge, which is pushingthat boundary for autonomous technology, to set
(13:18):
up shop within the Emerging Manufacturing CollaborationCenter EMC squared. EMC squared itself is
on a larger tech campus called thesixteen Tech Park here, and the investments
that the state in the private sectorare making here in this space again make
it an area where it made sense. It made perfect sense to have India
(13:39):
Autonomous Challenge set up shop, setup a garage and store the cars and
do the work here again and evenbeyond that, just down the street from
the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Yeah,I mean, when we were thinking about
what kind of an environment do youneed for the home of India Tonomous Challenge,
(14:00):
where you're going to build up,repair, change out, test,
validate the technology that goes into thesevehicles. You know, a couple of
things we wanted to make sure is, you know, its proximity to the
Unianapolis Motor Speedway and the talent poolof advanced motorsports. And really Indiana has
this unique talent pool that knows howto build up, look after repair these
(14:24):
cars. But more than just themotorsports know how. We needed to be
in a place where the robotics,the connectivity, the spectrum management, the
advanced computing can all come together.And really what's cool about this facility is
if you walk around, you know, in one part of it there is
a three D metal printing studio thatGE is building up, and another part
(14:48):
of it there's the Indiana five GZone, which is working on all kinds
of communication technology, of course fiveG, but also private networks and spectrum
management, which we utilize in ourvehicles. There's a battery technology company that's
building out a dry room facility whereyou can do battery prototype manufacturing. Obviously,
(15:09):
our cars have actually substantial batteries inthem there even though they're not fully
electric. There's a pretty good sizedlithium battery that's in there to power all
of the computers and subsystems so thatthey're not drawing off off the engine,
which we need. We need everyhorse power on that engine to provide propulsion
for the cars. So you know, the idea that you can be working
(15:31):
on a problem that's ice related,but go knock on the door and find
out maybe there's a three D printedpart. Maybe there's somebody that understands the
battery space that can tell us whywe're having power management issues. We can
go talk to, whether it's AWSor a Verizon or others who are active
(15:52):
here about cloud computing or spectrum management. That idea to pull all those things
together in a facility in an urbanenvironment in Indianapolis, you know, made
this a perfect home and one thatteams from around the world come to throughout
the year and can do their workhere and feel like they have the tools
and the resources that they would haveback in their university lab environments. Yeah.
(16:18):
Absolutely, I mean everything in Paulsaid is accurate, and it really
is designed to be you know,that collaboration space in addition to the technology
and the innovation. And really we'reonly just getting started. I mean EMC
squared as a place where that typeof innovation happens in the collaborative environment.
(16:41):
We're just getting started. I thinkthere's a lot more to come there.
It's really interesting. I'm curious howthe established tech focused companies that are already
here in Indianapolis, what have theythought when this kind of popped up there
in their backyard. I'm sure they'restopping and taking note. Because we talked
about the competition for talent earlier.I'm sure a lot of these companies are
(17:02):
looking at the talent that's working onthese cars as part of the university teams
and thinking how do I tap intothis? Absolutely, as they should,
I mean, this is this istop global, global talent. Uh,
there's plenty of global companies here inin in Indianapolis and Indiana that are looking
at these these students, these PhDs, these researchers that are working on the
(17:22):
cars, but even just the thecompanies that work on the cars themselves.
I mean there's there is uh Ihave yet to meet a person who walks
by this car and isn't intrigued.Right, it obviously looks different than than
what they're used to seeing, iffamiliar enough, but but different enough,
and and and everyone is intrigued bythe idea. Now you know, no
(17:45):
joysticks, click enter run right likeI mean, it's it's uh uh a
cross sector interest and and that typeof technology being developed here. I think
in some ways we've tried, throughour partnership with the state, to view
the vehicle as as a representation ofthis motorsports heritage, this manufacturing heritage,
(18:12):
and now this kind of economy ofthe future technology innovation focus. Right,
so kind of these historical capabilities andthis new committed focus that the state has,
and you know, it's working inthe sense that, like the car
(18:33):
itself gets a lot of attention fromthe general public, from global media,
but also as as as as Davidsharing from a lot of corporations. I
mean, we've been we've been luckyin that every time we need a new
key component for the car, generallyspeaking, we were able to source that
from either the market leader or theor the close to market leader within that
(19:00):
domain space. And we don't haveto tap too many phone calls or discussions
before they're like, yes, I'mall in, how do we how do
we support? How do we getinvolved? And so part of our objective
too is for those companies to understandwhat's happening in the ecosystem here within Indiana.
Doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, Continental is going to move from
(19:22):
Germany to to Indiana, but asthey're thinking about their innovation hubs in the
United States and what they're doing,you know, it helps. It helps.
I think we've already we've always beenon the map. That it puts
us on a map in a differentway, not just as a place where
we're known for building legacy cars andrunning legacy motorsports, but oh, you're
doing the same kind of tech thatone might expect to find exclusively in Silicon
(19:45):
Valley or areas outside of Boston orthe corridor between you know, Boston and
Washington, d C. And itprobably could have been done just just like
a show piece. I mean quitehonestly, we probably could have said,
hey, look at it, andyou know, maybe it run it once
at a low speed, right,Like, No, we are really pushing
(20:07):
the envelope. As those who havewatched or been to the the events that
we've held, you know, thecars are going fast yea, and the
technology is being pushed to the veryedge of its limits, right, And
I think that's attractive. Obviously,that's attractive to the companies that have already
(20:29):
engaged with the India Autonomous Challenge.Again, now it's not just the technology
and the innovation, but it's it'sthe real test bed to say, like,
this is what it should do.Does it do that when we're going
you know, one hundred ninety milesan hour, right, David. One
thing I was thinking about is,you know, this transition that we're making
(20:51):
to running We've only run events inthe US, right. We run here
in Indianapolis, in Las Vegas,we had one in Texas. And this
transition to run overseas and and goingto Europe, it was not an easy
decision, right. It's it's ait's a it's a big investment in time
and resources, and there's it's fraughtwith risks. Anytime you take you know,
(21:15):
million dollar machines and and bring themoverseas and deliver them to a place
they've never run before, there's alwaysa lot that has to go behind that.
And so you know, for IndyAutonomous Challenge, we we don't make
those kinds of decisions without close coordinationwith our commercial partners, our industry partners,
who were quite excited about it becausethey have a lot of operations in
(21:36):
Europe and you know there's a lotof fan base and and marketing opportunity there.
But it was also equally important thatwe talked to the state and I
just you know how that opportunity isviewed by the state. Maybe you can
can speak to like what are youlooking to achieve out of this opportunity to
go to Manza and to bring thisstore to Europe. Look, Indiana competes
(22:04):
on a global stage, so theIndia Autonomous Challenge should also compete on a
global stage. So I can thinkof no better thing for us to do
than to be able to take IndiaAutonomous Challenge and bring it to Manza.
I mean, of all the placeswe could have picked, Manza's like pretty
(22:26):
darn high up there right and andin northern Italy. The connection between Italy
and Indiana is strong. Industry wise, there's a ton but like just beyond
that, Indiana businesses compete on aglobal stage. Indiana competes on a global
stage for talent, Indiana competes ona global stage for investment. So the
(22:48):
idea that that India Autonomous Challenge shouldalso be global in many ways was was
pretty straightforward decision to make. Tobe able to to say, this is
a live, moving, active pieceof technology machinery that is a walking driving,
(23:14):
I guess rolling embodiment of hopefully drivingfast, yes, versus crawling sometimes
it crawls, but but but itis. It is a you know,
real life embodiment of what goes onin Indiana, extremely high tech, extremely
(23:37):
well built, a a a exampleof the type of collaboration and innovation that
goes on here. So yeah,it made a lot of sense to be
able to say to folks who willbe at the Milanmoto Show that will be
seeing the cars on the track forthe first time at Manza again of all
places, uh, and not justfor the Italians but all the teams that
(24:03):
will be coming down and utilizing thattime to explore what it means to get
the car on a road track.Can you give some examples of how this
message resonates when you're taking this storyoverseas as you do, or elsewhere within
the country. Do eyes kind ofopen? Do do people start to look
(24:25):
at the state in a different waywhen you start to tell this story?
Yeah? I think you know,as Paul mentioned, it's economy of the
future, right, So, oh, yeah, you know, we knew
that Indiana did racing. Oh,we didn't realize that Indiana was investing in
you know, autonomous technology as partof the investments that we're making. And
(24:45):
I think you see as as ourgovernors, our secretary of Commerce, you
know, they're not shy about goingaround the world and going on these international
missions and delegations to tell that story, to say, you know, we've
got great universities, we've got greatpeople, we have great technology, you
have an awesome quality of life inIndiana and an ability to build things here
(25:07):
and do things here, uh thatyou you can't do anywhere else. And
so again I'm I think there's alot of opportunity to expose people to Indiana
again in a way they've never beenexposed before. You know, I've I've
traveled quite a bit, uh aspart of of my job and my career,
(25:27):
and people know a few things aboutIndiana. Indy five hundred comes up
there pretty often. The pacers comeup there pretty often as well. Sometimes
the cults depending on you know whatwhat decade decades, uh, And sometimes
you know, people don't don't don'tthink of much else. We're giving them
(25:48):
something else to think about. Yeah, I think the the the idea of
it being the ultimate conversation starter oror like dinner tall. But then there's
more to it than just the shinyobject or the wow factor, right,
because you know, I think everybodyintuitively understands that you don't get a race
(26:12):
car to go autonomously at one hundredand eighty miles an hour without a ton
of overlapping and coordinated innovation and effortand work. And I don't know if
we got into it earlier in theconversations, but you know, and David's
tenure with the I d c Sfive plus years, so you know,
(26:33):
he's been he's been there from thebeginning. When you know, the state
made a bet on an idea itwasn't called in the autonomous challenge. It
was just a you know, aparagraph and a PowerPoint presentation from Energy Systems
Network, the organization I've led fora number of years, along with some
(26:55):
other ideas in the alternative energy andtransportation space. But you know, one
of them was, you know,autonomous racing exhibition at Indianapolis Motor Speedway,
right, and whether that was goingto be a global price competition or as
David said, a one off youknow vehicle design. You know, the
State always said, you know,if we can pull this off, it's
(27:18):
it's it's going to be a majorreturn on on these initial dollars of investment.
And so the first seed money isthe first few hundred thousand dollars not
not an insignificant amount of money,but State's invested a lot over the years
in this Those first couple of hundredthousand dollars was really what allowed us to
go out and start having the conversationswith industry, talk to the universities,
(27:41):
build the relationship up with the IndianapolisMotor Speedway to and and so that like
vote of faith in an idea.I don't know that that that that happens
in every in every state, right. I think also the fact that I
think the people there at the timeDavid has been there, but you know,
(28:03):
that was long enough ago that thepeople kind of making that initial investment
didn't know if it's going to playout in their tenuere or their budget cycle.
Right. A lot of times ingovernment, it's like, you want
to do what, well, what'sit going to do in the next twelve
months? All right, because we'regoing to have to show results right away.
So like placing that bet in aeconomy of the future idea that was
(28:29):
was the economy of the maybe notso near future, was a big investment,
and I want to be careful,State. I got to be careful.
I got some other powerpoints and littleparagraphs like what if we did this,
Yeah, a few years down theline, we may be talking about
something completely different based on a paragraphor a PowerPoint. Sure, So if
(28:52):
this is the ultimate conversation starter,you've gotten me hooked. So then where
do you transition? What's next inyour elevator pitch? Yeah? Well,
I think you know, the wekind of look at the areas in which
Indiana has traditionally been industrially focused andindustrially strong right, manufacturing one of those,
(29:15):
automotive mobility one of those, butalso sports, right, Like this
is a sports town, not justwe've been talking about obviously the motorsport,
but you know there's a lot ofother sports assets and sports history here and
and certainly long term but also inrecent history. Super Bowl hosted here,
you know, upcoming NBA All StarGame. Right, So we kind of
(29:38):
take a look at what those industriesare and assess how can technology be applied
as a as not its own verticalbut as a horizontal. How can technology
be applied to the automotive industry,How can technology be applied to sports,
sports technology innovations, How can technologybe applied to manufactur strings start talking smart
(30:00):
manufacturing industry for dot zho Internet ofthings, those type of things. So
you know, this is you knowan investment that uh uh you know has
has gone a long way and reallyreally returned you know, massive dividends to
the state. But there there area lot of other areas where we're looking
(30:22):
to make those types of uh,forward looking investments again with the thought that
what can we put some dollars behindnow that fill a need or a gap
or an opportunity to innovate for theprivate sector that that grows well beyond you
know what what our initial investment was, and and and again does start to
solve needs and push innovation to adifferent level. You know that that kind
(30:48):
of triple helix of government, academiaand industry swimming in the same direction is
really powerful. And you know,some of those first dollars in typically have
to come from from government. Butas as David said, it wasn't just
a hey, we're going to fundall of this and see what happens.
(31:11):
It was we'll put some dollars into see if there's interest. And then
there's an expectation at industry and allthe logos on the cars behind us and
a whole bunch of companies whose logosaren't even on there are going to have
to invest and put their resources intoit. And from the academic world,
you know, some of these teamsare ten twelve PhD student deep, and
(31:36):
they're not just any PhD students.They're they're studying AI, machine learning,
you know, vehicle telemetry, sensorfusion. So these are like very in
demand areas of research, you know, and that costs those institutions those countries
a lot of resources themselves, right, so that you know, collectively you're
able to get you know, maybesomething north of one hundred million dollars invested
(32:01):
in an overall program by the government, you know, stepping in and providing
some of those initial foundational investments.And I think that one thing Indiana has
done well is each step of theway, the question is always what is
the match where which industry, whichcorporate partners are going to come alongside this.
(32:25):
I think there's a certain respect forthe international universities as well, but
what are the what are the industryinvestments that this is going to generate?
And the reality is if you ifyou're all swimming in the same direction,
government, academia and industry, usuallythe outcomes have those positive public policy,
(32:47):
maybe idealistic things that perhaps our prioritiesin priorities in Indiana, but maybe have
priorities in other states, whether it'ssustainability or you know, road safety.
But doing it in that collaborative manneris what's been successful. Yeah, I
think there's no use in us thinkingabout this as an investment that was made
(33:08):
in a vacuum. It wasn't rightlike there were outside partners, there were
industry partners. There were universities,there were, and that's basically that's a
basic requirement, right, There's nosense in us looking at investments that don't
have that type of buy in.We're not the experts. We know the
(33:31):
experts, and we want to We'reinterested in how the state can play a
constructive role in catalyzing those type ofinvestments. It's the same approach we take
with with with entrepreneurship and venture capital, right, like, how can we
play a role de risking catalyzing privatesector investment uh to to provide runway uh
(33:52):
to you know, do something reallycool. I want to ask your thoughts,
David on kind of the concept ofentrepreneurship and how you and how the
state of Indiana sort of defines that. And one of the one of the
observations I've had with India Autonomous challenges. You walk around the paddock and you
see these brilliant minds working on thecars, and in my I view them
(34:14):
all as entrepreneurs, right, They'reall they're all solving problems, they're all
working on a limited budget. They'reall, you know, trying to do
something that somebody else hasn't done,or try to exponentially improve somebody else's work,
but not necessarily. Are all ofthem going to go out and found
a company and raise raise venture capitalto do it? Some of them,
(34:36):
I think will and already starting to. But sort of how do you view
this kind of concept of entrepreneurship anddefine that within the context of the state.
Yeah, very broadly, right,And I think you said the words
Paul problem solvers, right, Seeingproblems as opportunities is big. And I'm
(34:57):
a firm believer that the mindset thatyou just described is applicable whether you choose
to actually go into business on yourown and and and be an owner and
raise money or take a take aloan, or whether you end up being
someone else's co founder, first,second, third employee or the employee at
a at a large you know enterprisethat that there's a lot of innovation that
(35:20):
comes out of large enterprises as well. And so I think the entrepreneurial mindset
is applicable whether you go off andstart your own company or or not.
And I think in Indiana, youknow, we we have this history of
of entrepreneurship. Some of the companiesthat people associate with UH Indiana literally bear
the name of the entrepreneur who startedthem, right, Like, like that's
(35:44):
that's that there's no book, right, Uh, there's there's a clear example
of what it means to be anentrepreneur. Uh all started from kind of
small beginnings, right, And andand I think when we think about how
do we invest in the future entrepreneurs, right, there's a lot of direct
(36:07):
entrepreneur support programming that we invest in, but it's also investing in the innovations
and the technologies that may be thecompanies of tomorrow could be the companies of
fifty years down the road. Notsure. Right, Sometimes we get the
technology right, but it takes thirtyyears to get a business around it.
Sure. Other times it's a littlebit more immediate. And so I think
(36:30):
there's an ecosystem in Indiana that supportsinnovation and entrepreneurship. It's a strong ecosystem.
The survivability of companies that do starthere is is you know, tops
in the nation. And so thatopportunity to support entrepreneurs of various kinds,
and you know, whether they're they'reactually running their own company or even running
(36:52):
a seventh generation family owned company thatthey're pivoting ancestors. Had you know started
years ago. You know, wetake a pretty broad view of of of
what it means to be an entrepreneur. It helps that you know, uh,
my boss is an entrepreneur, right, and and that we, uh,
we have an entrepreneurial spirit that's guidingthe way we think about economic development
(37:15):
in the state and the investments thatwe make. I like the idea that
that the concept of an entrepreneurial mindsetis what you're really working to cultivate.
Whether or not they all become entrepreneursin the Webster's Dictionary definition really hard to
measure, but like everybody has asense that that's a really good thing,
(37:36):
right, Like the entrepreneur mindset makeslike better workers, more innovative, absolutely
more companies, but better citizens.I mean, there's there's there's there's a
sense that this is the right typeof investment to be making of people.
Anything else from me, Paul,just you know, one of the topics
we try to hit on on eachof these conversations is AI. Sure,
(37:57):
and I think, you know,as somebody who's part of government trying to
understand, you know, the perspectiveof AI in society at a state level.
Obviously there's a lot of national conversations, international conversations about whether AI is
is a good thing is bad thing? You know, we we we try
(38:19):
to think about the use cases ofAI, and clearly in Indy Autonomous Challenge,
it's around saving lives through making mobilitysafer, not just for race cars
but passenger cars that we're in nowand in the future. But obviously there's
there's all kinds of other applications ofAI, you know, chat, GPT
and these kinds of things. Doesdoes Indiana does? Do you have a
(38:43):
perspective on this in terms of ofIndiana's innovation ecosystem? Are we are we
embracing uh the emergence of AI?Are we resistant to it? Are we
just keeping an eye on it?Sort of? Any any comments on that?
Yeah, I can tell you that, Uh, our high school entrepreneurs
are are are looking into it towrite there. Yeah, maybe I don't
(39:07):
know they. Uh. I thinkit's it's becoming more and more pervasive.
It's not lost on me that injudging a high school pitch competition here in
Indianapolis last week, out of tenof the pitches, I think fully on
seven of them were essentially AI appliedto this problem. I applied to this
problem, and you know some ofthem were A I applied to school,
(39:30):
A I applied to sports, aI applied to uh, you know,
volunteer activities, right like. Butbut in the same way that I think,
you know, there was a boomof Internet applied to correct machines,
Internet applied to cars, Internet appliedto your personal life and the devices that
you carry. Yeah, I thinkthat same type of thing is kind of
(39:52):
going on right like right now,and you're seeing it come out of the
younger right what we're seeing, we're, yeah, who are forming their sense
of innovation and entrepreneurship with the existenceof these tools that that many of us,
it's kind of are kind oft already. They don't have to adapt like
(40:12):
we do. No, no,And so all that to say, certainly,
you know, large corporations are arelooking into this. You know,
the state makes investments in uh,you know, data analysis and smart manufacturing
and sensorization of equipment and those typesof things. But to me, the
more telling trend is just the factthat you know, high school entrepreneurs who
(40:36):
are having maybe their first kind ofidea or interaction with entrepreneurship. Ever,
like, this is what they're goingto they can't imagine an outcome without it.
It sounds like that's taken for Granted'ssuper interesting. Wow, well,
a wonderful conversation. Thank you somuch for sharing some time and and all
the support as well for the inthe Autonomous Challenge. I hope to see
you out a racetrack here pretty soon. Absolutely, thanks, Ryan, appreciate
(41:00):
it. Well, certainly for thoselistening, there's a likelihood that they've got
to bent towards this entrepreneurial spirit thatthat we're talking about right here. And
if this is sounding like an environmentin which they would like to launch themselves,
what would you suggest in terms ofreaching out and seeking out the support
of the state of Indiana. Yeah, well, I mean I would say
(41:21):
there's there's obvious condo us through theIndia Autonomous Challenge. You know, our
team is active across the state,across the globe. You know, we
we at the i EDC, weobviously are focused on economic development, entrepreneurial
development, investments, and innovation.Our website is certainly available for people to
learn a little bit more about wherewe're making investments in the economy of the
(41:43):
future, those advanced industries, thoseaccelerators that we're investing in, those innovation
public private partnerships that we're launching andbuilding, And if I may just even
tease, we do have a whatshould be a really really innovative for a
state to invest in soon to belaunched portal which is solely designed to connect
(42:07):
entrepreneurs and innovators with resources in thestate of Indiana that can help their business
grow, access capital, access advising, and connect with other innovators and entrepreneurs.
So, you know, yet tocome really exciting things that kind of
continue this legacy of innovation. Iassume that portal will be identifiable through the
(42:29):
Indian Economic Development Corporation's website if whenit's ready and when it's the right time,
and they'll probably be it'll be fair, It'll be identifiable on the website,
it'll be I think identifiable in marketsacross the globe, and a big
part of what we talk about whenwe go out and participate in events alongside
India Thomas Challenge. Certainly, I'lljust add to that that we've seen through
(42:52):
the IC, We've seen, youknow, students from some of the universities
that have developed relationships and interest inIndiana and you're thinking about either creating companies
here or if they're from another country, perhaps they're founding the company in that
home country, but they know they'regoing to need a North American site or
(43:13):
jumping off point, you know.And I think the other, uh,
the other observation is is, youknow, the the the marketing that you
see from India Autonomous Challenge typically generatesand understanding that there's some linkage back to
India to Indiana, right, andwe're gonna work really hard as we go
(43:36):
forward at more events to to makethat even more front and center and help
people make that connection that that theIndia and India Autonomous Challenge is really all
about Indiana's innovation ecosystem. Tangible example, uh, one of the corporate partners
for the India Autonomous Challenge essentially gaveexposure through their own network of companies and
(44:04):
startups that they're interacting with that somebodylearned about the cool stuff that's going on
in Indiana. That founder, youknow, reached out connected and is now
exploring the opportunity to go through anadvanced Mobility accelerator that the state sponsors every
year here in Indianapolis. I thinkthat's a that's a tangible example of how
(44:24):
you know there's engagement and that isa global company that's that's not from the
United States. It's looking at comingand making that accelerator part of their growth
structure. That's good to do itthis week on the Inside Track, Big
thanks again to David Watkins, SeniorVice President of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation,
(44:45):
for sharing his insights on what thefuture of the automotive manufacturing field might
look like and how Indiana is holdingfast is a hub of cutting edge technology
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