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Colin Ake

Kennesaw State University

Director of Incubation & Commercialization

Colin Ake is the Director of Incubation and Commercialization at the Office of Research at Kennesaw State University. He is charged with building HatchBridge, a community-focused business incubator. HatchBridge is an open collaboration studio helping local entrepreneurs to experiment, launch, and grow.

Colin’s background includes significant time working with early-stage and scaling deep-tech startups. At Georgia Tech’s VentureLab, Colin worked with faculty members, PhD students, and graduate students to understand their customers better with customer discovery techniques. He also managed many of Georgia Tech’s National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (I-Corps) programs, which focus on customer development. Colin also has experience working at early-stage startups from software to aerospace. Colin developed new business models around rockets as a service for Masten Space Systems from 2009-2013 and rejoined the company from 2020-2022 as the company scaled from 12 to 120 employees.

Colin holds a Bachelor’s in Science in Management and an MBA from Georgia Tech. He lives in Woodstock with his wife Nikki and three children. Colin serves on Woodstock’s City Council representing Ward 3.

Favorite Hobby: Spending time with his family & Serving the City of Woodstock on City Council
Favorite Sports Team: Atlanta Braves Favorite Music Artist: Muse
Skill Set: Business model development, early-stage technology startups, customer development, deep technology ventures