Written by Alex Moreira
I have spent the last 27 years working across a variety of industries, from consumer products and petrochemicals to performance nutrition. I am a material scientist and engineer with an MBA from MIT Sloan, and throughout my career, I have also had the opportunity to build three startups. Two of those companies were ultimately acquired, giving me the experience of both building a company from the ground up and learning from the challenges along the way.
After MIT, I founded Geocarbonite Technologies with the belief that technology should enhance what people can do rather than replace them. At the time, artificial intelligence was still evolving quickly, and I saw an opportunity to use it as a tool to help people solve complex problems.
That vision eventually became GEO IntelliPro AI, our platform designed to help maintenance technicians diagnose equipment problems faster, make better decisions and learn on the job.
The idea came from a problem we encountered while working with industrial companies. These companies were facing significant turnover among their technicians and struggling to train new employees quickly enough. At the same time, experienced technicians were retiring, taking years of knowledge with them.
We realized there was an opportunity to use AI to capture that tribal knowledge and make it available to the next generation of technicians. That’s where IntelliPro AI came from.
IntelliPro is designed to act as a tool for technicians on the manufacturing floor. When equipment isn’t working properly, technicians need to quickly understand what is happening, identify potential causes and determine what to do next. Our technology helps them work through those problems faster while also reducing the mental pressure that can come with making decisions in a complex environment.
The goal isn’t to replace the technician. It is to enhance their expertise.
As we continued developing the platform, we found that this was not a problem limited to one company or one country. We have spoken with companies and industry leaders across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia and Brazil, and we continue to hear the same challenges around finding, training and retaining skilled technicians. That has reinforced our belief that there is a significant opportunity to bring practical AI tools into industrial environments.
Wisconsin quickly stood out as a place where we could grow that opportunity. One of the biggest advantages of Wisconsin is its people. From our first conversations in the state, we have been impressed by the way people welcome innovation and look for ways to help companies succeed. That support has come from investors, industry leaders, economic development organizations and people throughout the community.
For us, it also helps that Wisconsin has such a strong manufacturing base. Our product is designed specifically for manufacturing environments, so being in a state where we can connect directly with manufacturers gives us an opportunity to work closely with potential customers and continue improving the technology based on their needs.
Through the Accelerate program, we have been able to build relationships across the Milwaukee and Madison areas and better understand the manufacturing ecosystem. We have connected with industry organizations and groups including the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership and others that have helped us understand the companies and opportunities throughout the state.
In just eight weeks, we were also able to speak with approximately 25 potential customers in Wisconsin. Those conversations have shown us that we are only beginning to understand the opportunity here.
Looking ahead, we see a significant opportunity to make Milwaukee our U.S. base as we continue to grow Geocarbonite. Over the next 12 to 24 months, our goals are ambitious. We are working toward closing a $2.25 million investment round, building our U.S. leadership team and establishing local capabilities in areas such as sales, product development and customer experience.
We also plan to continue improving IntelliPro, including developing preventative and predictive capabilities that can help manufacturers address equipment problems before they lead to significant downtime. Ultimately, our goal is to work with approximately 70 customers over the next 12 to 24 months and demonstrate what practical AI can do for manufacturers.
We believe the future of AI is not simply about creating more powerful technology. It is about finding meaningful ways to put that technology into people’s hands and help them do their jobs better. Wisconsin provides an opportunity to do exactly that because of it’s strong manufacturing foundation, a growing technology ecosystem and, most importantly, people who are willing to help turn an idea into something real.
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