A Look at How the Metals Innovation Initiative Was Forged

The Metals Innovation Initiative is a nonprofit organization focused on a mission to facilitate companies and strategic partners as they work together to make Kentucky the preeminent destination for metals innovation.

Since launching less than five months ago, MI2 has established a series of strategy groups around strategic focus areas identified by metals industry leadership and a host of emerging initiatives aimed at those focuses. These initiatives are all in support of open, collaborative, pre-competitive, and de-risked innovation in Kentucky’s metals ecosystem.

MI2 launched with the support of founding member companies Kobe Aluminum Automotive Products, Logan Aluminum, North American Stainless, Novelis, Nucor, River Metals Recycling, Tri-Arrows Aluminum, and Wieland.

But that immediate momentum is only possible because of the leadership and early thinking of several key stakeholders in the Kentucky metals innovation ecosystem.

As we kick off MI2’s new Monthly Update, we wanted to lead with the story of how the Metals Innovation Initiative came to be.

2017-2019: Exploring Kentucky’s Regional Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystem

In 2017, a community of Kentucky innovators began working with stakeholders at MIT to consider “the future of work” in the Commonwealth. This included MIT innovation tours in the Western Kentucky Coalfields/Bowling Green and Appalachian Kentucky, and a Kentucky cohort visiting with about a dozen labs at MIT. Included on that tour was a visit for the MIT cohort to Logan Aluminum, and an introduction to Kentucky's fast-growing metals industry.

As a result of this dialogue, in Spring 2018, Kentucky became the first U.S. state selected to join MIT’s Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program (MIT REAP), with direct involvement from Logan Aluminum, the University of Kentucky, the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, and various other partners.

From Fall 2018 through the end of 2020, the Kentucky team went through that program and learned from MIT faculty and innovation-focused regions around the world about best practices in establishing an ecosystem supportive of innovation and entrepreneurship–built around a cross-stakeholder model focused on the region’s comparative advantages. Kentucky participated in the MIT REAP in an international cohort that also included leadership teams from Sydney, Australia; Central Denmark; Guayaquil, Ecuador; Campania, Italy; Lebanon; Monterrey, Mexico; Oslo and Viken, Norway; and Leeds City, United Kingdom.

Writing about the initiatives developing between Kentucky and MIT during this time period and Kentucky's focus on its innovation ecosystem and jobs of the future, The Boston Globe’s Jeff Howe said, “What’s happening in Kentucky right now is, if we’re lucky, 20 years ahead of what’s going to happen elsewhere. Huge numbers of Americans, including those in booming coastal cities like Boston, are going to need help re-imagining themselves. We all need to hope MIT learns as much as it can from Kentucky.”

MI2 applies that look toward the future and connecting the innovation ecosystem to an industry that is one of Kentucky's strongest comparative advantages: its vibrant primary metals industry.

2020-Spring 2021: A Series of Like-Minded Conversations

In 2020, KY Innovation–a division of the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development–facilitated a series of focus groups to highlight challenges and opportunities that the state could invest in to drive innovation and growth in Kentucky’s economy. In particular, out of the corporate focus group gathered by KY Innovation came a vision for creating industry cluster groups meant to help promote an innovation ecosystem around industries that are strong economic drivers in the Commonwealth, with Wieland North America Recycling President Matt Bedingfield expressing a desire for a cluster focused on the metals industry in particular.

Concurrently, Western Kentucky University President Timothy Caboni, Logan Aluminum CEO Mike Buckentin, and Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce CEO Ron Bunch began talking about a similar vision for an innovation initiative could help further drive the substantial growth in Kentucky's metals ecosystem.

These conversations were heating up at the same time the Kentucky team completed the MIT REAP program and began working on the formation of AccelerateKY, a nonprofit focused on connecting, informing, and inspiring leaders across the various stakeholder groups in Kentucky's innovation ecosystem through applying what they had learned through dialogue with the MIT REAP program and other collaborations. Logan Aluminum Chief Innovation and Technology Leader Vijay Kamineni, who acted as AccelerateKY's inaugural board chair, and Executive Director Sam Ford began working with AccelerateKY's fellows to identify initial projects the organization could help get off the ground.

Across these three related lines of dialogue, the idea for MI2 began to take shape.

Summer-Winter 2021: Creating the Vision

By the beginning of summer 2021, KY Innovation Executive Director Anthony Ellis and Vijay Kamineni began discussing the idea of a metals industry cluster group in detail, with the support of the Central Region Ecosystem for Arts, Technology, and Entrepreneurship (CREATE), the KY Innovation hub headquartered at the Innovation Campus at WKU.

In July, Kamineni and Sam Ford with AccelerateKY put together a white paper expressing the vision for a metals industry innovation cluster organization, with dedicated interest established from Wieland and Logan Aluminum, as well as a host of additional strategic partners in the ecosystem: KY Innovation, the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, Western Kentucky University, the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Louisville Healthcare CEO Council (CEOc).

Over the rest of 2021, the growing consortium of partners listed above shared that white paper and vision with other potential formative members, with support and guidance from partners outside the state as well like MIT REAP and ONSIDE, the MIT REAP cohort from Nova Scotia who had formed “Canada’s Ocean Supercluster” around innovation in the maritime industry there.

March 2022: The Summit of Minds

By early 2022, it was clear that a strong cross-section of visionary leaders were committed to exploring the formation of what was now being called the “Metals Innovation Initiative.”

In March, a “Summit of Minds” was hosted at the offices of the Louisville Healthcare CEO Council (CEOc), which is a corporate executive-driven, innovation-focused nonprofit comprised of top Louisville area healthcare companies. Metals industry leaders from across the state gathered to hear the story of how CEOc had found a successful model and to hear the emerging vision and approach for MI2 that had evolved from that initial whitepaper.

At that gathering, in addition to metals executives and leaders from the strategic partners listed above, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear met with the group to express the state government’s commitment to supporting the launch of MI2 as an industry executive-led, innovation-focused nonprofit.

September 2022: MI2 Inaugural Strategy Session

In the aftermath of the MI2 Summit of Minds, eight metals companies made the commitment to become founding members of MI2. Western Kentucky University offered to host MI2’s launch strategy session, and the organization’s offices were founded at the WKU Innovation Campus headquarters in Bowling Green.

Industry leaders and representatives from strategic partners in the Kentucky innovation ecosystem all gathered in Bowling Green to discuss the formative strategy of the organization, joined by featured guests like Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development Secretary Jeff Noel and ONSIDE/Canada’s Ocean Supercluster leaders Alex McCann and Matt Hebb.

At that event, MI2’s initial strategic focus areas were established, and the work you’ll see in today’s updates–and the updates to come–began.

We thank many of you reading this for being part of that initial journey for MI2 to become a reality, and look forward to the partnership of all of you as we work, together, on that stated mission to make Kentucky the preeminent destination for metals innovation.