Meet the People Building What’s Next
Innovation begins with people willing to pursue ideas others haven’t.
Meet the scientists, founders, engineers, investors, students and collaborators behind New Mexico’s emerging technologies and companies.
Their stories reveal what happens when exceptional ideas meet the right place, people and possibilities.
Meet the Innovators
Imagine a discovery that doesn't stop at discovery.
Imagine a researcher in New Mexico develops a technology with enormous commercial potential.
The science works. The paper is published. But turning a discovery into a company requires an entirely different set of resources.
At the New Mexico Innovation Hub, the researcher meets an entrepreneur who understands the market. A prototype takes shape with access to fabrication and technical resources. An industry partner helps identify a real-world application. Students gain experience working alongside the team. An investor sees the technology early and begins a conversation about capital.
A discovery becomes a prototype.
A prototype becomes a company.
A company hires its first employees, then needs more space to grow.
The company finds what it needs here in New Mexico.
One discovery has now created opportunities for researchers, entrepreneurs, students, investors and industry—and value creation thrives with New Mexico innovation.
Connect. Discover. Advance. Prosper.
That's what an innovation ecosystem can do.
Ron Dimon
Imagine finding the place where experience, entrepreneurship and community come together.
Imagine turning experience into impact.
After more than 30 years in management, technology and corporate finance consulting, Ron Dimon moved to Santa Fe in 2018 and quickly saw an opportunity to help strengthen New Mexico’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Today, he co-leads UNM’s Center for Responsible Entrepreneurship, helping run free startup accelerators for local entrepreneurs. Wanting to continue that work year-round, he launched sparklabs.studio, focused on learning, co-creation and problem-solving, with support from the City of Santa Fe’s “Go Local. Go Different.” program.
When Ron discovered the New Mexico Innovation Hub, he immediately saw the value of connecting entrepreneurs with startups, researchers and other innovators. The CRE accelerator now operates there, and sparklabs.studio has made the Hub home as well.
For Ron, the real draw is the energy created by bringing ambitious people together.
“The brand is electric.”
That is exactly what an innovation ecosystem should feel like.
Imagine a company looking for somewhere to grow.
Imagine a promising technology company has reached the moment every founder wants—and secretly worries about.
It's working.
Customers are interested. The team is growing. The technology has moved beyond the prototype. Now the company needs specialized space, equipment, talent and capital.
The founders start looking outside New Mexico.
Then they look at NMIH.
They find flexible space for the next stage of development. They connect with workforce partners who can help build their talent pipeline. An investor already active in the ecosystem gets to know the company. A research partner opens the door to another technical capability. An industry relationship leads to a new customer conversation.
What looked like a reason to leave becomes a reason to stay.
The company grows.
More people are hired.
More capital comes into New Mexico.
More expertise accumulates here.
And the next entrepreneur who starts a company finds an ecosystem stronger than the one before it.
Start here. Scale here.
Imagine an investor arrives in New Mexico with a simple objective: find one promising company.
She attends a demo day expecting a pitch, a meeting and perhaps a reason to come back.
Instead, she discovers something larger.
She meets the founder she came to see, then a lab spinout commercializing breakthrough technology. Another introduction leads to an advanced manufacturing company drawing on many of the same technical resources, suppliers and talent.
By lunch, the map has changed.
She talks with researchers developing tomorrow’s technologies, workforce partners building the talent pipeline, universities connecting research to industry, and economic development leaders helping companies grow.
Each conversation leads naturally to the next.
What looked from the outside like a collection of individual companies begins to reveal itself as an interconnected innovation ecosystem: laboratories generating ideas, entrepreneurs turning them into businesses, manufacturers building them, and investors supporting their growth.
At the center is the New Mexico Innovation Hub—helping those pieces find one another.
She came looking for one deal. She leaves seeing a pipeline of opportunity.
Discover what’s next. Build what follows.