An Interview with Paul MacDonald, the Cofounder & Managing Director of Bio Innovations Midwest
Release Date: 09/09/2025
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Jayson Ryner, founder and CEO of ReEnvision Ag and entrepreneurship professor at NIACC, explains the Seed Spike planter—the first ultra–low soil disturbance planter built for the soil-health era. 🗞️ Be first to get new interviews: 🐖 Get a free $30 gift card from Jethro's BBQ: 💡 Find this show on your favorite player: Chapters: 01:42 - Reenvision Ag: Revolutionizing Planting 08:50 - Challenges and Innovations in Agriculture 20:26 - Challenges and Opportunities in Market Gardening 23:46 - Innovations in Agricultural Technology 28:55 - Future Vision and Business Strategy...
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Angels in the Krause (House) with Diana Wright
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Tara Seible, founder of In the Green Marketing, joins the Iowa Tech Podcast to share how she transitioned from the traditional media world to launching a fast-growing digital agency serving community banks. She reveals how burnout from corporate life became the catalyst for entrepreneurship, and why community banking—despite its conservative roots—is ripe for digital transformation. In this episode, Tara outlines the power of combining sales expertise with strategic problem-solving, offers insight into her agency's hybrid team model, and teases her next big move: a software platform...
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The Midwest Startup Taking on Billion-Dollar FMCs with Donuts and AI
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On this episode of the Iowa Tech podcast, host Kaylee Williams welcomes Proaction CEO and co-founder Drake Bauer to unpack the startup’s rebrand (formerly Flete) and its mission to modernize fleet management. Drake shares how Proaction streamlines asset operations - inspections, maintenance, compliance, and reporting - into a single pane of glass, replacing a tangle of spreadsheets, sticky notes, and legacy tools. He credits early traction to obsessive customer service and “doing things that don’t scale,” from overnight fixes to mapping clients’ workflows on-site. The team’s...
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Taking a Beat - Re-Envisioning the Iowa Tech Podcast
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The Iowa Tech Podcast is hitting pause as host Kaylee Williams takes a step back to reflect on the journey so far and reimagine the future of the show. After many conversations with founders, innovators, and community builders across Iowa, it’s clear there’s no shortage of compelling stories to tell. This moment of reassessment is a chance to ensure those stories continue to be told with the depth, creativity, and clarity they deserve. As the landscape of Iowa’s startup ecosystem evolves, so too will the way we share it. During this hiatus, Kaylee will be exploring new formats,...
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An Interview with Paul MacDonald, the Cofounder & Managing Director of Bio Innovations Midwest
Iowa Tech Podcast
In this episode of the Iowa Tech podcast, host Kaylee Williams dives into an insightful conversation with Paul MacDonald, co-founder and managing director of the Bio Innovations Midwest conference. Paul shares the origin story of the conference, which initially began in Europe as World Bio Markets before transitioning to Bio Innovations Europe. He discusses how the Nebraska Department of Economic Development played a crucial role in bringing the event to the Midwest. The podcast explores the unique format of Bio Innovations Midwest, emphasizing pre-arranged one-to-one meetings that facilitate...
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Triumph Over Tragedy: How a Cedar Rapids Startup is Revolutionizing Mental Wellness
Iowa Tech Podcast
The latest episode of the Iowa Tech podcast, hosted by Micah Walker, features a heartfelt and inspirational conversation with Jeffrey Johnson, the founder of Brightn—a mental wellness startup. The episode delves into Jeffrey's personal journey, which led to the creation of Brightn. It all began with a tragic turn of events when Jeffrey lost his son to an overdose and subsequently, his wife to grief and substance abuse. These painful experiences propelled him to start a nonprofit, Living Undeterred Project, and eventually Brightn, an app aimed at shifting the focus from crisis intervention to...
info_outlineIn this episode of the Iowa Tech podcast, host Kaylee Williams dives into an insightful conversation with Paul MacDonald, co-founder and managing director of the Bio Innovations Midwest conference. Paul shares the origin story of the conference, which initially began in Europe as World Bio Markets before transitioning to Bio Innovations Europe. He discusses how the Nebraska Department of Economic Development played a crucial role in bringing the event to the Midwest. The podcast explores the unique format of Bio Innovations Midwest, emphasizing pre-arranged one-to-one meetings that facilitate meaningful connections between scientists, potential customers, partners, and investors, rather than the traditional lecture-heavy conference setup. Paul and Kaylee further discuss the importance of commercializing bio-based innovations to achieve price parity with fossil-derived products and the potential for these innovations to solve global sustainability challenges.
As the conversation unfolds, Paul outlines the strategic expansion of Bio Innovations conferences to different parts of the world, including plans to rebrand Bio Innovations Midwest to Bio Innovations North America in 2026, and launch Bio Innovations APAC in Singapore. He highlights Singapore's role as a business hub in Asia and the partnership with Synergy, Singapore's synthetic biology department, as key reasons for this new endeavor. Throughout the episode, Paul emphasizes the importance of simplifying the bioeconomy for broader understanding and investment, categorizing the market into five groups: biodevelopers, community enablers, investors, brands and buyers, and suppliers. The podcast encourages listeners to attend the upcoming Bio Innovations Midwest conference, offering a platform for innovators to connect and advance their bio-based solutions from the lab to the marketplace. Kaylee and Paul share their shared belief in technology's potential to address pressing global issues and inspire listeners to engage with the bioeconomy to drive change.
Find this show on your favorite app: https://iowapodcast.com/paul-macdonald