Louisiana wants to turn coastal challenges into companies

Louisiana Innovation on Wednesday announced the launch of the Water Innovation Studio of Louisiana, a new innovation lab located at The Water Institute in Baton Rouge.

The initiative, unveiled during Louisiana Innovation’s annual Innovation Day event in downtown Baton Rouge, will be developed in partnership with The Water Institute and is designed to “identify, fund and scale startups solving the world’s most pressing water-related challenges,” according to Josh Fleig, Louisiana Economic Development’s chief innovation officer.

The goal, Fleig said, is to commercialize technologies tied to coastal resilience, water management and related infrastructure.

The announcement builds on Louisiana Innovation’s broader strategy of creating “venture studios” aligned with the state’s core industries—efforts meant to translate research and local expertise into high-growth businesses.

For Louisiana, water presents both a defining risk and a potential economic advantage, according to Beaux Jones, president and CEO of The Water Institute.

“In Louisiana, our story has always been shaped by water,” Jones said at the event. “For hundreds of years, this state has been leading the world in how we live with water, how we adapt to water and how we come up with new ideas around water.”

Jones pointed to coastal land loss, flooding and saltwater intrusion as existential challenges but also as opportunities to develop solutions with global relevance.

“Where we have these incredible risk factors with water and all of these challenges, we know there’s an opportunity there,” he said.

The studio is expected to work closely with a network of partners that includes LSU, The Idea Village and Nexus Louisiana, among others, to move concepts “from the whiteboard to the real world,” Jones added.

Louisiana Innovation, or LA.IO, is a new division of LED that was launched at the Super Bowl LIX Innovation Day event in New Orleans early last year.