April 13 was a big day for 22-year-old startup founder Jack Keating.
The Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln College of Business had wrapped up its New Venture Competition, and Keating took home first prize: a $25,000 grant from the Nebraska Department of Economic Development to assist his new company, Corral Technologies, in developing models to accurately test their products.
Keating, a mechanical engineering major from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in his senior year, is bringing to life an agtech business he originally dreamed of while growing up in the small town of Atkinson, Neb.
Corral Technologies uses virtual fencing technology to allow ranchers to rotate their cattle’s grazing patterns from their cell phone, computer or tablet. Keating’s goal is to utilize GPS to connect satellites with collars worn by the cattle, which will then show up on a map inside an app for the rancher and help them move their cattle remotely.