Following along trends that encourage innovation in education, here’s some great news: the Youngstown Business Incubator (YBI), Turning Technologies and Turning Foundation, have chosen two winners for the first-annual Ed Tech Idea Challenge. Four applicants were selected to make presentations to a selection committee. The presentations yielded two winners whose ideas were selected to receive awards. Branching Minds (New York City) will receive the $20,000 grant award along with guidance and support from the selection committee. They plan to create an online tool and mobile application that will help parents and educators to assess and identify a child’s individual learning needs, and then connect users to strategies and high-quality services that will address these learning difficulties. Adaptive Learning System for Students with Autism (Youngstown, Ohio) has been invited to apply as a portfolio company with the YBI and potentially can receive support and resources directly from YBI to develop their business. ALSS-A was collaboratively developed by The Rich Center for Autism and faculty from Youngstown State University and DePaul University. The software application is designed to facilitate the collection, analysis and representation of data for improving student learning, and end user selection of appropriate practices and interventions to address student specific learning needs and preferences.