NBC5 In Depth: Vermont’s Hula campus supports startups and aviation innovation
Burlington’s Hula campus is fostering innovation and entrepreneurship, with events like the Vermont Tech Jam connecting local talent and businesses.
Burlington’s Hula campus is creating an ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship, providing resources for startups and hosting events like the Vermont Tech Jam to connect talent with growing companies.
“We created this space essentially to create an innovation ecosystem in Vermont, to allow companies to grow here, find access to capital, and ultimately find all the talent and people they would need to grow their businesses,” Russ Scully, CEO at Hula, said.
Scully emphasized Burlington’s appeal for founders, saying, “Burlington does a great job on delivering on lifestyle for a lot of founders who want to live here. It’s necessary to have these kinds of ecosystems in places like Hula, so that they have all the support they need to thrive in the early days of Beta Technologies.”
Alex List, one of the first individuals to move into the Hula campus, shared his initial interest in the space. “I used to take walks along the waterfront. I was living in the Old North End, and so I would walk along and be like, ‘What’s that really cool place? I want to be able to hang out here,'” List said.
List, who spent over two years working on Beta Technologies’ flight simulation, explained his decision to start his own company, FlyShirley.
“We built it with a sort of idea [of] can we actually make aviation safer?” he said.
He described the company’s vision, saying, “We started with this. It’s sort of a copilot for pilots. We wanted to see if there was a way to help people learn how to fly. And we have this sort of vision where we can start in the flight simulator.”
List also highlighted the challenges pilots face and how his company aims to address them. “When you’re flying an airplane, there’s so much information that you have to deal with. If you’re going a long distance through weather, there’s even more. And so sometimes you just need a little bit of extra help,” he said.
The Vermont Tech Jam, hosted annually at Hula, is a key event for connecting talent with entrepreneurs and companies.
“Tech Jam is a big annual event that we host at Hula. The premise of it is to really connect talent with entrepreneurs, with companies that are growing. It’s an amazing meetup opportunity for anybody who’s looking for a particular job in a particular field in Burlington,” Scully said. “It’s an essential part of building this ecosystem ultimately because we need to have, like, our job fair, right. And that’s our one-day job fair that brings everybody together.”
The Vermont Tech Jam is Saturday, Oct. 24, at Hula in Burlington, starting at 10 a.m.
