How Raleigh-based nonprofit RIoT is boosting entrepreneurship and job growth in the city

RIoT, a North Carolina based company conducting the program “RIoT Your Reality,”  is working to bring their ideas of augmented reality to life and show how they can help solve problems facing Raleigh and surrounding areas. Some of the issues the teams are currently working to improve focus around improving diversity and accessibility to city programs, promoting workforce development, and to reinvent the Raleigh Convention Center in efforts to drive economic development. Tom Snyder, executive director at RIoT, said the goal of this is to create a municipal pilot project and to learn how to scale a startup to assist cities beyond North Carolina. Six teams have been selected to build prototypes and will be presenting them on an event July 27^th. RIoT additionally has another program, RIoT Accelerator Program, which connects entrepreneurs with partners in their field to give them access to prototyping tools and additional resources. Since the start in 2014, the accelerator has created more then 200 jobs and generated over $100 million in revenue, with its goal to grow the startup to help more companies. “We want Raleigh to be the place that anyone in the world who wants to participate knows if I come here, I can find the partners that I need to be successful,” Snyder said. 

Read more about the impact RIoT is having on our region on Business Insider.