Special Episode - The AIM IN Summit 2026

This is a special one. Grant Chapman flies solo (a Hardtech Podcast "after dark" on a Friday) with Ben Wrightsman, founding board member of AMVIC, the Advanced Machine and Vehicle Innovation Center. Ben is a Hoosier lifer who has spent 30 years at the center of Indiana's hard-tech story, and he is exactly the kind of guest who can connect electric race cars, battery chemistry, contract manufacturing, and the coming wave of humanoids into one throughline.

The conversation traces his arc from teenage electrician to Purdue, to Delphi's electric race car program and the EnerDel battery pedigree that quietly runs through nearly every EV today, to a decade building the Battery Innovation Center from fewer than six clients into a 600-plus-client powerhouse. That story becomes the blueprint for AMVIC: a nonprofit built to accelerate the entire machine, not just one subsystem, and the organization behind the upcoming AMVIC AIM IN Summit.

What we get into:

• Ben's 30-year arc: electrician, Purdue, electric race cars, and the Delphi and EnerDel battery pedigree behind modern EVs
• How a scrappy battery lab on a landlocked naval base grew from fewer than six clients to more than 600, and pivoted from government dependence to a thriving private-market model
• Why hardware has to crawl, walk, run, always in that order, and why you should rent a manufacturing line before you ever build your own
• "Small fingerprints on very cool big things," and the quiet power of being the connective tissue in an ecosystem
• From the Battery Innovation Center to AMVIC: going from one subsystem to the whole machine, and why it is structured as a nonprofit
• Why the real AI story is a manufacturing renaissance: power, fiber, high voltage, and the data-center buildout nobody sees
• Humanoids, the dangerous jobs nobody wants, and why the robots are not coming for your job (with a Y2K and internet reality check)
• The origin of the AMVIC AIM IN Summit: how a 25-person dinner with a crazy idea became a sold-out summit built on demos, not sales pitches

A few lines that stuck with us:

"We have small fingerprints on very cool big things."

"Hardware has to crawl, walk, run, and you have to do it in that order."

"The renaissance in AI and data centers is really about manufacturing."

"Compound interest is a hell of a drug."

About the guest: Ben Wrightsman is a founding board member of AMVIC, the Advanced Machine and Vehicle Innovation Center, a nonprofit accelerating advanced machine and vehicle innovation. Over 30 years he has worked across electric racing, batteries (Delphi and EnerDel), contract manufacturing, and the Battery Innovation Center, and he is one of the driving forces behind the AMVIC AIM IN Summit.

Join us at the event: The AMVIC AIM IN Summit is September 23rd in downtown Indianapolis, starting at 8:00 AM, with a Critical Energy panel, an OEM and innovation panel, a humanoid showcase, and Ben speaking. Register here: [event registration link]

This special episode of The Hardtech Podcast was hosted solo by Grant Chapman of Glassboard.