Scott Massey
Founder & CEO
Scott Massey received his B.S. at Purdue University in Mechanical Engineering in Technology and Certificate of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in 2017 at Purdue University. Scott exited a career as an engineer in the oil and natural gas industry to become a research engineer at the Purdue University Horticulture College. In this role, Scott assisted in the design of a NASA-funded, automated hydroponic plant growth chamber with the goal of sustainably growing food in space colonies. This project inspired him to found Heliponix© (formerly Hydro Grow LLC) his senior year, which was backed by Purdue Ventures Ag-celerator agricultural/biological Engineering Research Fund, Elevate Ventures, and the National Science Foundation. Today, the company employs several engineers and is expanding its network of deployed GroPod© Smart Garden Appliances, which has been named “Indiana’s Best New Tech Product” by TechPoint through the Mira Award and granted the “People’s Choice Award” by the Institute of Food Technologists through the Food Disruption Challenge. Scott has participated in two Reciprocal Exchanges at the Department of State through the Mandela Washington Fellowship, one of which involved traveling to Cameroon, Africa in 2019 to facilitate workshops on sustainable agriculture in 2017 in Togo, Africa.

Ivan Ball
Co-founder and CTO
Ivan Ball began his career as an Electrical Engineering Co-op his sophomore year while working towards his B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology with a minor in OLS, Organizational Leadership and Supervision at Purdue University in 2017. His co-op allowed him to explore the sophistication of a large scale food safe manufacturer. While on campus, Ivan received a job as a Research Engineer at the Purdue Horticulture College designing and testing an automated hydroponic plant growth chamber for the NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training Cuvette where he met Scott Massey as a coworker. Ball has extensive hands on experience growing crops in a controlled environmental chamber using variable light spectra. Ivan is the co-inventor of the rotary aeroponic method of growing plants in a controlled chamber.