Creating a Nationally Competitive Regional Innovation Ecosystem

This past year has been defined by one central mission: building a nationally competitive regional innovation ecosystem. Through strategic grantmaking, deepening partnerships, ambitious collaborations, future-focused accelerators, and a data‑driven understanding of what makes our region thrive, we’ve taken major steps toward positioning the Mountain West as a hub of resilient, future‑focused innovation.

In March, the NSF ASCEND Engine hosted The Competitiveness Conversation in Boulder, Colorado—an event that convened leading voices in resilience, quantum computing, and advanced industries shaping the future of the Mountain West. Together, participants examined how Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico are leveraging historic federal investments to build a more sustainable, technologically advanced regional economy.

This work is reinforced by Innosphere—parent organization of the NSF ASCEND Engine—whose recent competitiveness assessment revealed that Colorado is on the brink of a new era of national leadership in innovation. The report found that the state is well‑positioned to accelerate growth if its current momentum is matched with stronger coordination among economic development groups, higher education institutions, and industry partners to broaden sector diversity and strengthen regional resilience. You can explore the assessment and a more detailed companion blog series for deeper insights into these findings.

EXPANDING OUR INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM

Corporate Partnerships

• Recruited new corporate partners that strategically align with our mission (Vaisala, JuliaHub, Urban Sky, OroraTech, and National Jewish Health). 

International

• Supported strategic international collaboration through business recruitment and joined a delegation to the UK with the Metro Denver EDC and Colorado OEDIT. 
• Hosted Ambassador Mikkola and Honorary Consul Mäkikalli of Finland along with a foreign delegation touring Front Range innovation hubs. 
• Deepened regional interconnectivity with budding (i.e. quantum) and established i.e. aerospace) technology innovation clusters through Elevate Quantum and the Colorado Space Coalition. 

Regional

• Convened monthly public events catalyzing regional entrepreneurial ecosystem integration through Innovation After Hours, Lunch & Learns, and other seminars. 
• Organized and hosted a summit for leadership from all nine of NSF’s inaugural Regional Innovation Engines in coordination with MIT’s Builder Platform. 
• Strengthened relationships with the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone Tribes through listening sessions and deeper collaboration with the Wind River Tribal Buffalo Initiative. 
• Facilitated five rural stakeholder engagement workshops with the Economic Development Council of Colorado, culminating in a presentation at the Drive, Lead, Succeed Economic Development Conference in Pueblo

ACCELERATING INNOVATION PIPELINES 

Research and Development

Launched our second R&D and Translation grants cycle, funding 7 new university, federal lab, and startup project teams.  

• Hosted a “portfolio launch” event at CSU SPUR to connect project teams with Engine partners. 
• Invested in the University of Wyoming’s Advanced Research Computing Center to provide high-performance computing to our funded project teams. 
• Recruited, hired, and placed six post-graduate fellows across our portfolio’s project teams to support with expertise in data science, social science, and market analysis. 
• Established as “Environmental Intelligence” pillar lead for the Colorado National Guard’s Whole-of-State Homeland Defense and Resilience Framework, a first-of-its-kind model to strengthen multi-sector coordination across all-hazard preparedness, response, and recovery at the state and local levels. 
• Generated robust strategic engagement through our Request For Information with responses from universities, corporations, laboratories, utilities, innovators, investors, and other regional stakeholders steering the forthcoming formation of our three flagship programs slated for investment in 2026 and beyond. 
• Facilitated several workshops to bolster teams’ translation readiness: 
• Brought producers, AgTech innovators, and other stakeholders together to discuss soil health innovation opportunities hosted in coordination with NEON, Northeastern Community College, and Logan County EDC  
• Convened leading earth systems scientists from federally funded labs, universities, and regional utilities to explore water quality and availability issues and innovation opportunities at CSU’s Foothills Campus 
• Assembled multisectoral stakeholders at the NOAA Fire Weather Testbed to identify opportunities and challenges around wildfire preparedness and prevention. 
• Organized workshop on wildfire preparation and mitigation for power utilities at the largest international power systems conference, CIGRE. 
• Hosted workshop in partnership with NVIDIA on deep learning tools and environmental digital twins at CU Boulder. 

Translation and Commercialization

• Graduated 6 startups through our inaugural Digital Twins Accelerator program, sponsored by Microsoft. 
• Launched our Earth and Space Systems Accelerator with 16 startups in 2025 class 
• Held a portfolio showcase at the Beck Venture Center at the Colorado School of Mines to connect our funded project teams with potential investors. 

IMPACT STORIES

Soil Health and Research Ecosystem

Join Dr. Mike SanClements at NEON’s North Sterling field site to learn about groundbreaking work revolutionizing soil health and ecosystem forecasting. This video explores the Experimental Digital Twin for Ecosystems project, a collaboration between NEON, NREL, NVIDIA, PAGE Technologies, and the NSF ASCEND Engine.

Water Quality and the Internet of Things

Discover how Brian Deurloo and his team at Frog Creek Partnerships are transforming stormwater management in Cheyenne, Wyoming. With support from Microsoft and a grant from the NSF ASCEND Engine, Frog Creek is installing over 100 Gutter Bins, smart stormwater filters designed to detect and catch pollutants before they reach Crow Creek.

Predicting Water Quality with Advanced Sensor Networks

Associate Professor Matthew Ross at CSU is leading an innovative effort to change how we manage water along the Front Range. With support from the NSF‑funded ASCEND Engine, the team has built a cutting‑edge water-quality sensor network that stretches from the river’s headwaters to the plains near Interstate 25.

Wildfire Prediction with Machine LEarning

In less than 24 hours, the Marshall Fire became Colorado’s most destructive wildfire, racing across grasslands and devastating over 1,000 structures. This video explores how researchers at Earth Lab at CU Boulder are using AI, big data, and NSF ASCEND support to better understand wildfire risk in the wildland-urban interface (WUI).