When we gathered as a team last January, we couldn’t have predicted how much change 2025 would bring.
As I reflect on everything we accomplished together, I’m struck by how our work has rippled outward, touching not just the startups we support, but the broader innovation ecosystem across Nebraska and beyond. 2025 wasn’t a year of isolated victories. It was a year of connection—between founders and investors, between students and industry leaders, between cutting-edge research and real-world application. Every relationship we nurtured, every event we hosted, and every hour our team invested has contributed to something larger than any single success story. Let me take you through some of the highlights.
At UNeTech, in 2025 we:
Nurtured Innovation
- CQuence Health – Formed a new strategic relationship that contributed direct investor support to UNMC founders.
- BrightMinds – Provided investment and strategic guidance to RespirAI and UMD.
- Boomerang Ventures – Invested in Impower Health following relationship building initiated by Dr. Michael Dixon.
- Nebraska Angels – Invested in RespirAI after multiple UNMC founders presented.
- Invest Nebraska – Continued strong support with investments in Precision Syringe and RespirAI.
- Right at Home – Continued as a strategic partner and investor in RespirAI.
- VisionSync – Launched across NU campuses and secured new customers.
- Impower Health – Earned investment from Boomerang Ventures and a commitment from Invest Nebraska.
- Carecubes – Received investment from CQuence Health.
- Radux Devices – Connected to new investor prospects through UNeTech facilitation.
Anna Johnston, left, and Joe Runge, right, at the UNeTech table at the Midway of Innovation Catalyst Building SPN Startup Week, October 2025.
From left to right: Isaac Fox, Oscar Chinchilla, Brent Clark, Joseline Finken, Lamonte Russell model the new MTVA polo shirts outside the UNO College of Business Administration’s Mammel Hall, September 2025.
2025 was a year of community, connection, and innovation. We dove deeper than ever into the NSF I-Corps program—teaching three cohorts, mentoring teams from across the country, and discovering dozens of exciting new ideas. UNeTech was at the Nonprofit Association of the Midlands Summit and the Heartland Developers Conference, I led workshops on customer discovery and helped generate buzz for UNO’s I-Corps courses in 2026. I love that we continue to be more involved in community conversations and our Nebraska entrepreneurial ecosystem!
The Omaha VR Pipeline celebrated a breakthrough year with the completion of our Adeptus Interactive Medical Training Hub v1 prototype. With the addition of ten new student fellows, our team logged well over 10,000 development hours and delivered more than 30 tech demos to stakeholders, local entrepreneurs, and medical professionals. We were especially proud to showcase our progress at the Economic Development Administration’s Regional Conference in Denver, last April.
Anna Johnston guides Angela Belden Martinez, Regional Director for EDA’s Denver Regional Office, at the Economic Development conference in Denver, April 2025.
Championed Collaboration
- Partnered with Silicon Prairie News, Catalyst and UNeMed to host the Midway of Innovation as part of SPN startup week.
- Playtested the OVRP’s VR intubation software at the economic development conference for the EDA Denver Region in Denver, Colorado.
- Continued community outreach with partners across Nebraska’s educational ecosystem—including NeVRNER, Metropolitan Community College, and the Peter Kiewit Foundation’s summer camp programming series.
This year at UNeTech was packed with momentum and creativity, from planning and bringing to life the Piece by Piece Summit to building an engaging, hands-on experience with the Midway of Innovation. Along the way, I also earned a digital marketing certification, sharpening my skills to help tell UNeTech’s story in more strategic and compelling ways.
2025 was a landmark year for strengthening investor relationships and expanding strategic partnerships that supported UNMC innovators. Throughout 2025, UNeTech team members provided strategic, advisory, and mentoring support to innovators and entrepreneurs outside of UNMC. This work strengthened regional innovation and expanded UNeTech’s network of founders.
Cultivated Community
- Hosted our inaugural event, Piece by Piece an Investor’s Summit attended by 90+ attendees to discuss the future of startup investment in Omaha.
- Attended and hosted a table at Nebraska Infectious Disease Summit
- Attended Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce & Berkshire Hathaway International Investors Day Reception.
- Supported our colleagues at UNO’s biomechanics by hosting a table at the MOVE Conference in May.
- Connected with the wider campus at the We Are UNMC BBQ in August.
Left to right, Stephen Hug, Thanh Nguyen, Tyler Scherr, and Vice President of Science and Animal Health at Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo Taylor Law, on a break from the Nebraska Infectious Diseases Society Annual Meeting, August 2025.
The most rewarding part of 2025 was seeing the MTVA grow into a true engine of student leadership and innovation. Watching our analysts mature into strategic thinkers while helping shape university technologies into real commercialization pathways has been the highlight of my year.
Joe Runge and Stephanie Kidd at her graduation from the Nonprofit Association of the Midlands Rising Leaders Institute, December 2025.
Strove for Excellence
- Met 100 students at UNO and MCC job fairs as part of promoting MTVA and OVRP.
- Showcased UNeTech expertise through team member presentations and panel participation at regional conferences and community events.
- Advanced OVRP program capacity by earning eight new Scrum Master certifications and adding ten Oculus Quest 3 headsets to the fleet-management program.
“It has been an awesome year serving as UNeTech’s Administrative Projects Associate, where I’ve loved streamlining our procedures, assisting with grants, and supporting team events. Supporting the OVRP team’s trip to the EDA conference stands out as my favorite project, especially seeing the students shine while showing off their VR work to a wider audience.
Had Fun:
- Handed out 100+ “My Patient Survived” stickers to people who play-tested the Adeptus VR program.
- Hosted seven internal Lunch & Learns to grow as a team.
- Learned agile ideation and product development through a team-based paper airplane exercise that simulated client requirements and reflected real prototype workflows.
- Hosted the post-summit reception to celebrate all our hard work.
Jennifer Pool (right) and UNeMed’s Nate Hatch (left) at the UNMC Student Involvement Fair, August 2025.
We went to Denver to show off our amazing VR simulation to the EDA – the agency that funded it. I was shocked that instead the staff present for the conference had this outflowing of gratitude: for our recognition of their support. Though I was proud of our accomplishment, I came away from that conference more surprised by the depth of our friendship.
As I look ahead to 2026, I’m drawing confidence from everything we accomplished in 2025—not in spite of the uncertainty we face, but because of it. The combining of campuses, the questions around federal funding, the shifting landscape of higher education —these are not only challenges to weather. They’re opportunities for the kind of entrepreneurial thinking that UNeTech is supposed to champion.
We’ve spent 2025 proving that connection is our greatest asset. We’ve built bridges between investors and founders, between students and industry, between institutions that might otherwise work in silos. That foundation—those relationships, that trust, that collaborative muscle memory—is exactly what will carry us through whatever 2026 brings.
Uncertainty has always been the entrepreneur’s terrain. Now it’s ours, too: it probably always has been. 2025 may have given us more than 12 months’ worth of change, but it also showed hints of new possibilities in this changed world. So, here’s to a year of turning constraints into catalysts, adapting with agility, and continuing to nurture bold ideas that change lives. Let’s make 2026 count.
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