Meet our 2025 Vogt Awards Recipients
Last Updated: November 3, 2025
Written by Kym Vorhees-Raque
The Community Foundation of Louisville is proud to share this year’s 25th Vogt Invention and Innovation Awards. Six early-stage businesses were chosen from a highly dynamic and competitive applicant pool. These six individuals received non-dilutive grant funding of $25,000 and are participating in a 10-week accelerator program, where they will receive coaching, mentorship, strategic introductions, and other valuable resources to help grow their new businesses. Some recipients also qualified for an additional $25,000 in capital from a participating program partner.
This blog will be updated weekly until November 13, 2025, with profiles on each recipient of this year’s cohort.
Revitalized Solutions: Where Care Meets Convenience
Pictured left to right: Founder Janelle Jones, RN.
As a practicing nurse, Revitalized Solutions founder Janelle Jones, BSN, RN, has seen firsthand how the nursing shortage is affecting patient care.
“We’re short almost 1.3 million nurses nationwide. Not because we don’t have them, but because the healthcare system burns them out. We lose 34% of new grads in their first year and 50% by year two, leading to worsening patient outcomes,” said Jones. By delivering scalable virtual nursing and hospital-at-home solutions, Revitalized Solutions helps hospitals improve patient care, reduce staff burnout, and address critical staffing shortages.
Jones says Revitalized Solutions is offering nurses flexible, innovative roles that keep them engaged, while also turning nursing into a revenue generator through a pay-for-performance model that rewards nurses for collecting billable revenue.
As a nurse, Jones knew what nurses, patients, and healthcare organizations needed but she lacked business experience and insight.
“The Vogt Awards offered me access to experienced mentors and a community that could help me translate my clinical expertise into a scalable business model that truly disrupts the industry,” she said. By Demo Day, Jones hopes to have a pilot in pain management started and a pilot in women’s health ready to launch. The company is currently running pilots in cardiology and behavioral health. She says this progression will demonstrate the model’s versatility across specialties and prove that they can scale rapidly while maintaining quality and results.
Jones says she plans to use the $25,000 Vogt Awards grant to expand her team and build out the company’s automated job marketplace, which delivers same-day staffing, deploying nurses exactly when and where they’re needed now, not months later. Jones says participating in the 25th cohort will allow her to accelerate her mission to help those who are saving lives each and every day. “It’s so humbling, and I’m incredibly grateful. As a nurse, it’s incredible to have the opportunity to help shape how our profession evolves as technology advances,” said Jones.
Say Hello to Due Gooder
Pictured left to right: Co-founders Finn McCormack, Nate Royal, and Ethan Havertape.
Life as a college student can be stressful. Balancing classes, exams, assignments, extracurricular activities, and work can be a daunting task. Co-founders Ethan Havertape, Finn McCormack, and Nate Royal at Due Gooder saw an opportunity to help fellow college students by creating an AI-powered calendar app to keep them organized and on track.
“Rushing assignments, missing deadlines, and feeling stressed and overwhelmed is all too common in college, and we wanted a tool that could help students stay organized and on top of their workload. By automatically tracking deadlines to Google Calendar, we aim to reduce stress and help students succeed,” said Havertape.
The Due Gooder app automatically extracts deadlines and important dates from course syllabi and learning management systems (LMS). The app not only tracks assignments, quizzes, and exams but also generates recommended start dates and sends daily text message to-do lists, helping students prioritize their workload and stay organized, he said.
Havertape says the team was drawn to the Vogt Invention and Innovation Awards program because of its reputation for assisting founders in turning early-stage ideas into scalable ventures. He said the program offers an incredible opportunity to gain mentorship and funding while making valuable connections with innovative entrepreneurs.
According to Havertape, the Due Gooder team will utilize the majority of the $25,000 Vogt Awards program grant for campus outreach, including recruiting student ambassadors, distributing flyers, and organizing other on-campus initiatives to expand their user base. They also plan to invest in digital marketing, including ads and short-form content, to reach more students online. A portion of the funds will be allocated to support product development and coworking spaces, allowing them to improve the app and collaborate more effectively as a team.
By November’s Demo Day, the Due Gooder team hopes to have reached their goal of approximately 4,000 paying users. Havertape says, this will show that their AI-driven approach to managing deadlines, recommending start dates, and sending daily to-do lists genuinely helps students stay organized, prioritize their work, and reduce stress.
When asked about the legacy of the Vogt Invention and Innovation Awards program, now celebrating its 25th year, Havertape said, “Being part of the Vogt Awards’ legacy is an honor. It means joining a network of entrepreneurs who have built impactful businesses, and it inspires us to push the boundaries of what Due Gooder can achieve for students and universities everywhere.”
Get Streamlined with Essential Innovations
Essential Innovations, 2025 Vogt Invention & Innovation Awards Recipient. Pictured: Ben Reno-Weber. Not pictured: Beth Malcolm.
Essential Innovations founders Ben Reno-Weber are using technology to help streamline the employment process and provide tools to help employers and nonprofits unlock and maximize tax and training credits to meet their workforce needs.
“Our technology helps reduce unnecessary barriers and provides access to additional resources that help essential workers get and stay employed,” said Reno-Weber.
Essential Innovations makes it easy for small HR teams in high-turnover industries to capture the same tax and training credits the larger corporations do when they hire from traditionally under-tapped talent pools.
“We believe the foundation of a good society are jobs that enable people to live a dignified life. We saw that there were billions of dollars in resources available that could help, but they were hidden behind these fiery moats of paperwork, a maze of unnecessary siloes, and compliance issues, which were particularly hard to navigate for folks from traditionally under-tapped talent pools,” said Reno-Weber.
According to Reno-Weber, the team applied to the Vogt Invention and Innovation Awards program to join other early-stage businesses that are learning and supporting one another, and to connect with mentors who can offer unique insight.
By Demo Day, they hope to have prioritized their outreach and identified industry sectors and employment groups where they can best focus their efforts.
Reno-Weber says they plan to use the $25,000 Vogt Award grant to solidify their technology and add some additional products to bring to market.
He said being part of this year’s 25th anniversary cohort is an amazing opportunity.
“There have been some great companies to have been through this program over the years – and it fills such an important part in our entrepreneurial ecosystem. I hope that we get to be one that people point to and say, ‘Oh yeah, they were part of the Vogt Program and then they got huge,’” Reno-Weber said.
Start Small, Think Big: Meet KidVestors
Pictured left to right: Co-Founders Darius and Courtney Pettway.
Learning how to manage your finances and build wealth is a skill. Unfortunately, most students graduate high school without understanding how money works, leading to poor financial decisions and widening wealth gaps. Courtney and Darius Pettway are changing that with their innovative new platform.
KidVestors (KV) is one of the six recipients of the 2025 Vogt Awards cohort and is an interactive, gamified financial literacy and investing platform geared toward students ages 8 to 18. Students can build real-world money skills while earning KV Bucks that can convert into real cash or stock. KidVestors partners with parents, schools, and financial institutions to make financial education fun, engaging, accessible, and impactful for students.
“KidVestors fills the gap by providing financial education that empowers kids and teens to build wealth early and confidently,” said Courtney Pettway.
The Vogt Invention and Innovation Awards program represents innovation, community, and impact — three values that drive everything they do at KidVestors.
“As founders building a scalable solution for a global challenge, we saw this as an opportunity to gain mentorship, connect with regional leaders who believe in education equity, and secure resources that can help us accelerate our mission to impact 5 million students by 2030,” said Pettway.
The team hopes to have deepened school and financial institution partnerships and see growth with parents and homeschool families by Demo Day. They also aim to showcase why KidVestors is the leading platform teaching kids how to build wealth, not just manage money.
They plan to use the $25,000 Vogt Awards grant to expand the curriculum and strengthen the platform’s tech infrastructure, develop targeted marketing and secure international IP protection as the company expands globally.
For the KidVestors team, being a part of the 25th Vogt Invention and Innovation Awards program cohort means joining a network of bold thinkers who are shaping the future.
“It’s about mentorship, community, and amplifying our mission to make financial literacy equitable, engaging, and transformative,” shared Pettway. “We want to represent what’s possible when innovation meets impact and ensure more students graduate to prosper financially and thrive.”\
Troubleshoot No More with Nongo AI
Pictured left to right: Co-founders Ahmadou Diop and Sada Wane. Not pictured: Mamadou Soko
After years working in manufacturing, Nongo co-founder Ahmadou Diop saw how difficult it was for technical teams to access the information they needed to make necessary repairs and fix time-sensitive issues.
“Too often, critical documents like manuals, SOPs, or calibration instructions were scattered across multiple systems or missing altogether. In some cases, we had to call manufacturers to get the right documents or were forced to replace entire pieces of equipment simply because the manufacturer had gone out of business and no technical records were available. These situations caused costly downtime, sometimes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said Diop.
Diop, and co-founders Mamadou Soko and Sada Wane, developed Nongo to centralize technical knowledge into one platform, giving technicians instant access to the data they need.
“Nongo unifies data and real-time equipment information by integrating with tools such as CMMS, work order management, and inventory systems. Our speech-to-text feature enables technicians to document troubleshooting steps hands-free, automatically updating work orders, adjusting inventory, and capturing detailed repair logs for future use. Nongo significantly reduces repair time, and preserves critical operational knowledge,” said Diop.
The team hopes to have completed their current pilot projects and publish detailed case studies showcasing the real-world impact of Nongo by Demo Day. They’re also working to establish new partnerships with Louisville manufacturing companies, helping them to improve their overall performance and stay competitive.
Diop says they were drawn to the Vogt Invention and Innovation Awards program because of its incredible track record helping Louisville-based companies grow into renowned industry leaders.
“Being part of the Vogt community represents a valuable opportunity for growth and connection. We’re part of this program’s legacy which will motivate us to continue innovating and contributing to Louisville’s entrepreneurial ecosystem,” said Diop.
The team plans to use the $25,000 Vogt Awards grant to finalize their pilot programs, refine product features based on user feedback, and complete detailed case studies. The remaining monies will be invested in sales and marketing efforts.
Clear Skies Ahead: Meet Proper Pilots
Pictured left to right: Co-founders Timothy Tweet and Derrick Simpson.
A pilot and flight instructor, Tim Tweet saw firsthand how the outdated and cumbersome systems used by flight schools to schedule and track flight training sessions wasted time and frustrated both students and instructors. He and co-founder Derrick Simpson developed Proper Pilots, a mobile-first platform that streamlines the entire flight training experience from scheduling to payment.
“We started Proper Pilots to give schools and instructors a tool that saves hours of admin work, improves training outcomes, and makes flight instruction a real career path — not just a stepping stone,” said Tweet.
Proper Pilots manages scheduling, training progress tracking, and feedback into one seamless app, replacing outdated desktop systems with a modern solution designed for students, instructors, and flight schools
Tweet says the focus on innovation and the regional impact of the Vogt Invention and Innovation Awards program aligns with his company’s vision and was a catalyst for them to apply. He and Simpson see the program as an opportunity to accelerate growth, sharpen their business model, and scale Proper Pilots into a national leader.
The team plans to use the $25,000 Vogt Awards grant to invest directly in product development and customer growth, accelerate feature releases, and fund a road trip to onboard flight schools across the country.
By Demo Day, they hope to show exponential user growth, to have onboarded additional schools across the U.S. and abroad, and to prove a path to profitability.
“Personally, I want to demonstrate that a garage-built aviation startup from Southern Indiana can scale globally,” said Tweet.
He says it’s an honor to be among this year’s group – the 25th cohort of the Vogt Invention and Innovation Awards program.
“It’s an honor to join a community of innovators who are building lasting companies here in our region. For us, it means showing that world-class startups don’t have to leave Southern Indiana to succeed—they can be born here and stay here,” said Tweet.
Interested in meeting this year’s cohort? Attend Demo Day on Thursday, November 13 at the Kentucky Derby Museum.