Everybody stop and reread the title. “Healthy Ice Cream” sounds like an oxymoron. Surely ice cream can’t be healthy. It’s sweet, delicious, and there’s never enough of it; the unofficial definition of unhealthy foods. There’s no way someone actually made ice cream healthy without destroying it or turning it into the still-good-but-not-as-good-as-ice-cream frozen yogurt. Well hold the phone, because someone did.

Justin Woolverton, the founder and CEO of Halo Top, likes ice cream. A lot. He faced the same dilemma as we did, but unlike us, he decided to do something about it. He reinvented the recipe of ice cream in a way that would reduce calories and unhealthy stuff like sugar, increase proteins, all while still maintaining the texture and flavor of ice cream. Since that revolutionary breakthrough, he created the company Halo Top with over 17 flavors. Some of the fan favorites are flavors like Chocolate Mocha Chip, Peanut Butter Cup, Red Velvet, Oatmeal Cookie and Vanilla Bean, with more on the way.

Woolverton maintains Halo Top’s trademark low calorie count by using fruit based sugar alcohols that have way less calories than sugar does. The most used sweetener is called Stevia, a plant native to Paraguay that’s been used to sweeten foods for 200 years. They also use Erythritol, a natural sweetener in pears and grapes. This allows the ice cream to stay sweet and delicious without resorting to cancer-giving chemicals or processed grained sugar. 

Now before you start eating only Halo Top ice cream for dinner, Halo Top isn’t nutritionally building or a good substitute for annoying things like vegetables. It’s designed for “the diet conscious consumers, giving them the option to eat ice cream again,” Woolverton says. But still, stacked up against the competition, it sure looks like a nutritious choice. With 180 less calories, 15 less grams of fat, and 14 less grams of sugar per serving than brands like Ben & Jerry’s and Haagan Dazs, Halo Top is rising to the top of go-to ice creams for those break-up binge pints. It’s beat out those two popular brands for best selling brand in America last year.

So be healthy while you’re treating yourself to this innovative new ice cream. Go ahead, eat the whole pint.

Many people go to Nashville, TN in search of an illustrious career in music. It’s many people’s dream, so they end up in the heart of the music industry playing in bars and basements in a desperate attempt to make it big in the music world. Some succeed. Many more don’t. They spend most of their lives trying to achieve a dream in a cutthroat profession where chances are few and far between.

Larry Kloess saw this and decided he could do something about it. Could he make every single person who came to Nashville seeking glory find it? No, but he could give as many people as he could a chance. In 2012, Kloess and a long list of supporters started their business called “Cause a Scene” based in his hometown of Nashville, TN. His business was set right in a liquid network for music, the heartbeat of songs.

Cause a Scene is a blogging/booking agency for up-and-coming artists who are looking for their big break. It all began with a blog giving tips and tricks to success in the music industry, as well as exploring the wonders of music. “There is an inherent joy in music, and we plan on celebrating that joy with every post,” Kloess says, describing how he approaches each blog post. However, the blog grew from there. They started selling new music and content from their readers, promoting artists. Kloess hoped that people would come to his site in order to find new music that they wouldn’t have found otherwise.

From there, this online business grew even bigger. They began hosting, curating, promoted, and sold concerts for the same musicians selling music on the site. They’ve booked large traditional venues, but when those weren’t available, they got creative. Kloess began booking concerts in people’s houses, or the basements of homes and warehouses. No place was too strange. Kloess just hoped to give these musicians a chance, the chance they’ve always wanted.

In the first four years of Cause a Scene’s existence, they’ve hosted over 200 concerts in a large variety of venues. Over 700 musicians from around the nation have performed in these concerts all over the greater Nashville area. Kloess is causing a scene in the music industry by giving people a shot. Once they get that shot, now talent shines through.

It’s ironic that a pilot would be the one to come up with an idea to put pilots out of business. Alexander Harmsen laughs at that irony, as his business is growing and doing exactly that. Harmsen always loved flying, wanting to be a pilot. He started pursuing his pilot’s license at the age of 17, even before he started college. “I got my pilot’s license before I got my driver’s license,” he says. However, his path went a different direction than he originally thought.

In college, Harmsen met James Howard, and they both became drone pilots. Right away, they noticed problems with drones. In addition, they also saw the many benefits drones could have should these problems be solved. The problems were rather large, so they set about solving them. Drones can’t pilot themselves, they rely on a human operator. This imposes many limits and regulations on what drones can do. A drone can only do so much as its handler knows how, and its range and motion is limited to a remote control. In a business or military system, this is inefficient and has a much higher cost.

So Harmsen and Howard asked, “What if drones could pilot themselves?” They thus created the business Iris Automation. It utilizes the same technology used to create driver-less cars, and they are in the process of testing just how much this innovation can accomplish. They use cameras to asses the different environments, then focused on creating a collision-avoidance program. Making an algorithm to detect foreign aircrafts and objects and thus react accordingly, Iris Automation is revolutionizing the drone industry.

This technology continues to expand as the folks at Iris Automation explore it more. They’re developing a system that allows the computer to learn and adapt to different situations. Harmsen also made certain that this technology could be utilized in non-professional drones. However, Iris Automation isn’t satisfied with what they’ve accomplished, and they continue to push the boundaries of smart transportation technology.

Three years after being founded, Iris Automation is gaining momentum. It’s still a small business, with only 19 employees and $50,000 in revenue in 2017. They’ve raised $10 million, continuing to find funds to expand their business. The world is watching Harmsen and Howard as they push a new perspective on seeing the future in drones and transportation.

When someone says the word “hacker,” we often get an image of a guy sitting in his mom’s basement typing away at a computer with an evil grin on his face. In today’s culture, hacking is extremely prevalent, whether we like it or not.  However, two young entrepreneurs are looking to change the way the world views hackers.

Jobert Abma and Michiel Prins were born in Drachten, Netherlands and have been friends since childhood. Growing up with video games and the rapidly expanding internet, these self-taught hackers turned their hobby into multi-million dollar business called HackerOne. This revolutionary industry continues to change the way businesses approach their cyber security. And to think it all started with a high school prank.

In their senior year, Abma and Prins proceeded to hack into their school’s TV station as a prank. Obviously the prank worked rather well, for they continued this unusual hobby into college. However, one day their hobby went from merely entertaining to incredibly profitable. At Hanze University in the Netherlands, Prins and Abma came across a major bug in the school’s grading system that was leaking student’s personal information. They immediately reported their find to the software company in charge of security, and though they weren’t paid for their discovery, it sparked a whole new idea. Maybe there were companies out there who would pay them to find major holes in their systems.

The two friends began a small consulting company in the Netherlands, but were inspired by a friend to move to Silicon Valley in San Francisco. They emailed big time companies, like Google and Facebook, asking if the companies would be interested in their services. Unfortunately, many weren’t. However, the head of security of Facebook said if they found any security breaches to contact him. Prins and Abma accepted the invitation to do some digging and managed to find a fairly large hole in Facebook Messenger. They contacted the head of security, Alex Rice, and HackerOne was born.

“We’re like a talent agency that matches trusted hackers with specific skills with companies,” says Abma in description of HackerOne. They connect hackers and companies, making it easy to do business with these massive money savers. It’s true, these hackers can save companies millions of dollars by finding breaches before malicious hackers. They’ve worked with over 1,000 companies, and each job can get anything from a couple hundred dollars to $10,000.

HackerOne employs free-lance hackers, and in exchange for backing and clearance, they receive a percentage of each bounty. Most hackers don’t mind this deal, as they continue to earn significant money from HackerOne’s reputation and connections. Jack Cable, an 18 year-old senior, says, “When you’re hunting for a bug on HackerOne, you know you’ll get paid. HackerOne holds companies to their word.”

That being said, hacking can be hazardous for business as many companies are against this kind of vigilante security. HackerOne has run into trouble with Uber, as they accused on of the hackers of stealing information. While HackerOne received no blame, it still raises questions about the difference between good and bad hackers. Prins and Abma, however, remain confident in their company’s goal. “One of HackerOne’s biggest missions is to change the perception of hackers as good guys,” Prins says. And it seems to be working as they continue to bring in revenue and $74 million worth of funding. Maybe it’s time for our perception of hacking to change. Prins and Abma definitely think so.