Helping Academics
Develop Technology
WHIN partners with researchers to advance innovation through real-world data, resources, and collaboration opportunities.
Through the WHIN Research program, we provide access to living lab environments, regional datasets, and partnerships that help academics turn theory into impactful practice. By connecting researchers with industry partners and funding opportunities, WHIN accelerates applied research, fosters grant success, and drives scientific discovery that benefits both the academic community and the Wabash Heartland region. Together, we’re transforming ideas into measurable progress and positioning our region at the forefront of research and innovation.
“Environmental monitoring networks like the weather stations WHIN has deployed in its Living Lab are a gold mine for researchers. Conventional weather observations are spaced out roughly one per county, but WHIN has 10 or more stations per county. At Purdue, I operate a research weather radar that provides digital estimates of rainfall across the region. WHIN’s precipitation data provide me with valuable, densely spaced, ground truth precipitation data to make my radar-based precipitation estimates more accurate. By partnering with WHIN, my students and I can learn more about the local weather and climate, and how it varies across small spatial scales.”
Robin Tanamachi, Ph.D.
Purdue University
HOW IT WORKS
Wabash Heartland Innovation Network is able to share much of the data we’ve gathered from real farmers and factories for research and education purposes, improving the chances of funding and leap-frogging simulated lab data.
WHIN Data Portal
The largest agricultural & manufacturing Living Laboratory in the country, now easily accessible for academic research.
300,000+
700+
Technology Deployments
Data Points Every Day
WHIN has a data sharing agreement with all of our tech companies and all of the sensors deployed throughout our region. This generates multiple terabytes of data from thousands of sensors across the region.
WHIN’s K-12 eLearning Grant Program
WHIN completed a $6M eLearning initiative with the goal of
connecting students without adequate internet access at home and
updating technology in the classroom.