Colorado and Wyoming are famed for their wide open spaces and incredible landscapes. 

They’re also very, very dry.

Changes in rainfall and snowpack are already impacting agriculture, tourism, and the frequency and intensity of wildfires in the western United States. The wicked problem of helping communities adapt to extreme weather events and a changing environment isn’t one for the future, it’s making itself known in real-time.

Today, we’re headed west to meet our next NSF Engine, the ASCEND Engine in Colorado and Wyoming, in short, the CO-WY Engine, where I’ll be talking to CEO Mike Freeman about the region’s unique resources and how they’re building a community-based commitment to environmental sensing. ASCEND stands for Advanced Sensing and Computation for ENvironmental Decision-making.

Mike Freeman has dedicated the past 15 years to building up the science and technology innovation ecosystems in Colorado and surrounding areas. He brings several decades in public sector leadership, management consulting, non-profit management, and venture capital to his role at the CO-WY Engine.

Click here to listen to this episode on your favorite podcast player!

Listen to the full episode to hear:

  • How developing environmental technologies underpins community resilience and economic opportunity
  • Why environmental sensing is about more than just the weather
  • How the CO-WY Engine is building collaborative partnerships with a particularly diverse set of regional stakeholders
  • Why Mike sees differences among partners as ultimately beneficial to the project
  • Measuring the success of the program, from more traditional economic terms to devising a framework to capture a community’s resilience to changing weather patterns

Learn more about Mike Freeman:

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