Columbus-Based Hodge Luke Helps Business Tap Into the Power of Artificial Intelligence
The company has worked with the likes of Disney, NASA and the military, but its founders now want to focus on small and midsize organizations.
It’s hard to read, listen to or watch the news these days without a story about artificial intelligence and the disruption it’s going to cause.
But how many business owners have a plan to cope with the possibilities it’s going to bring?
Hodge Luke is a small Columbus startup already helping some big hitters apply AI and other cutting-edge technologies to transform what they do. The firm has worked with Disney, NASA and the military, but CEO Derrick Hodge says agile small and medium-sized businesses are where the co-founders want to focus their attention because of the impact applied technology can bring.
But to focus on the flashy “AI” buzzword, Hodge says, is to miss the big picture. “We’re a deep tech startup that works with research and development and commercialization, more so than an AI automation company,” he says.
Hodge Luke was co-founded by Hodge and Narahari Dasa Luke, who connected when both were working with the National Center for Urban Solutions in recruiting, workforce education and development.
NCUS is now one of Hodge Luke’s clients. The company is focusing on applying AI to NCUS’ grant-writing process to multiply the social service agency’s fundraising capacity. “What we do is ‘10x’ the employee, giving them superpowers in a sense to create more output. Most companies need that,” Hodge says.
Hodge Luke’s projects now run the gamut. They’re working with the Ohio National Guard and the U.S. Army building and testing a “military metaverse” augmented-reality training program to help guardsmen who only train in-person periodically to stay sharp and ready. Through machine learning, the system acts as an adversary, learns from the training sessions, provides custom feedback for each team and adjusts difficulty levels on the fly.
Hodge Luke and NASA have teamed to further develop and commercialize HeartbeatID, a zero-trust authentication system that identifies users by the unique electrical patterns of their heartbeat. The company holds licenses on NASA’s patent and is evolving it from a system that uses electrocardiogram sensors to one that could gather data from a user’s smartphone, watch and other devices and encrypt it for use on upcoming Artemis lunar missions.
“We’re in a world where your phone is now an extension of yourself. AI will be, too. It’s a new era for us as humans. And now the conversation is shifting toward artificial generative intelligence and where your businesses will need to look in the next three to five years,” Hodge says.
Looking forward, the co-founders see workforce training and consulting in AI, AGI and other technology applications as critical services for Ohio businesses.
Luke says they’re excited to help NCUS and other entities with workforce transformation initiatives to help vault underserved populations into the new tech economy that Intel, Honda and others are creating in Central Ohio.
“We see that we need to get people involved and trained in manufacturing, AI, robotics and the space industry, and Ohio is going to be the home of it all,” Hodge says.
About Hodge Luke
315 E. Long St., Suite 104, Columbus
Co-founders: Derrick Hodge, CEO, and Narahari Dasa Luke, COO
Business: IT services
Launch: Nov. 1, 2021
Employees: 5
Investment to date: $1.2 million (self-funded)
Cynthia Bent Findlay is a freelance writer.
This story is from the Fall 2023 issue of Columbus CEO.