Our (i)Story

A Gift to West Virginia's Innovation Economy

Quality Insights has spent more than 50 years working alongside rural hospitals, clinics, patients, and community organizations to improve health across underserved communities. This is the story of how one training session with the iCenter — Marshall University's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship — grew into a $1.2 million gift supporting entrepreneurship, workforce development, and rural health innovation across West Virginia.

From a Training Room to a Statewide Platform

For decades, Quality Insights' work has been about improving health alongside rural hospitals, clinics, patients, and community organizations. But some of rural health's toughest problems, like workforce shortages and gaps in care coordination, can't be solved through health improvement work alone; they need new ideas and new builders.

That realization is what first brought Quality Insights into a training room at Marshall University's iCenter — not to fund entrepreneurs, but to learn how to support and collaborate with them. Here's how that one session grew into a $1.2 million gift.

A Few Terms Worth Knowing Before You Read On

iCenter Marshall University's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, based in Huntington, WV.

gener8tor A national startup accelerator network that partners with universities and regions — including the iCenter — to run local startup programs.

gBETA gener8tor's free, seven-week pre-accelerator for early-stage companies, pairing founders with mentors and over $1M in partner perks.

gALPHA gener8tor's free, four-week workshop that helps students and first-time founders turn an idea into a startup — often a stepping stone toward gBETA.

D4D (Design for Delight) & Innovation Explorer The iCenter's foundational innovation training, built on human-centered design, deep customer empathy, and rapid experimentation.

Thinkspace Quality Insights' own rural health innovation platform. Thinkspace doesn't fund or invest in startups — it supports and collaborates with founders solving rural health problems through idea vetting, warm introductions, and grant collaboration.

The Road to a $1.2 Million Gift

Where It Began: Design for Delight & Innovation Explorer Training

Quality Insights joined the iCenter's Design for Delight (D4D) and Innovation Explorer training. The experience strengthened Quality Insights' innovation capabilities, deepened its grasp of human-centered design, and equipped the team with practical tools to identify and solve real problems.

A New Shared Language: D4D Becomes the Backbone of Thinkspace

Rather than build a separate framework, Quality Insights adopted the iCenter's methodology outright. Deep customer empathy, rapid experimentation, and "go broad before you go narrow" thinking are now embedded in how Thinkspace evaluates startups and designs programs.

February 16, 2026: $1.2 Million Gift to the iCenter

During National Entrepreneurship Week, Quality Insights formally presented a $1.2 million gift to Marshall University's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, funding three years of gBETA and gALPHA programming and a dedicated program manager in Huntington.

What's Ahead: Three Organizations, One Rural Health Mission

Quality Insights, the iCenter, and gener8tor now form the architecture behind Thinkspace's rural health innovation vertical — Quality Insights as the funder and convener, the iCenter as academic and methodology home, and gener8tor as national accelerator operator.

$1.2M

A Gift for the People Who Will Improve Rural Health

On February 16, 2026, Quality Insights formally presented a $1.2 million gift to the iCenter — one of the largest gifts Quality Insights has ever made to a university. The gift funds three years of gBETA and gALPHA programming, operated by national accelerator gener8tor, including a full-time Huntington-based program manager and two gBETA cohorts per year.

For Quality Insights, the gift is a way of supporting rural health further upstream — backing the founders and ideas that will eventually take on rural health's hardest problems.

"This is a game changer. Half of all individuals in the U.S. work in a small business, and 80 percent of all new jobs are created by startups. In West Virginia, it's above 90 percent. This gift will not only impact lives — it will change family trees."

- Brad D. Smith, President, Marshall University

"We saw the impact that the iCenter's accelerator had on the individuals who participated and the ideas that came forward. It's all about connection, and this is just the beginning."

- Sven Berg, CEO, Quality Insights

How the Gift Is Already Being Put to Work

The gift is already showing up in entrepreneurship programming, rural health innovation, and workforce development across the state.

A Shared Innovation Language

The iCenter's Design for Delight methodology is now the backbone of how Thinkspace approaches problem discovery and solution validation — adopted, not reinvented.

Three Organizations, One Platform Quality Insights, the iCenter, and gener8tor form the strategic architecture of Thinkspace's rural health innovation vertical — funder and convener, methodology home, and accelerator operator.

A Stronger Innovation Economy

Alongside gener8tor and startup founders across West Virginia, this gift is fueling a stronger innovation economy statewide — from gBETA and gALPHA to AI workforce development and innovation fellowships.

What Our Leaders Say About the iCenter

"From my vantage point, our relationship with Marshall University's iCenter has evolved into one of the most strategic and impactful partnerships Quality Insights has developed in recent years. What began through participation in Design for Delight (D4D) and Innovation Explorer training expanded into a much broader collaboration focused on innovation, entrepreneurship, workforce development, and rural health transformation.

Personally, what has impressed me most is the iCenter team's willingness to think boldly, move quickly, and serve as a true partner rather than simply a program provider. Based on what we have accomplished together thus far, I believe the greatest impact of this partnership is still ahead of us."

Aaron SpurlockChief Operating Officer, Quality Insights

"The iCenter never treated Quality Insights like a funder to be managed — they treated us like a co-builder. Tricia Ball, the iCenter's executive director, shows up to every conversation asking what we're trying to accomplish, not what Marshall can get out of it.

As a nurse with 30 years at the bedside and behind the payer desk, I've seen a lot of "innovation" that never touches the frontline. D4D was the first methodology I encountered that starts where I start — with the actual human experiencing the problem."

Biddy Smith, RN, MSNDirector of Thinkspace, Quality Insights

Where It's Headed

Shaping Thinkspace, Quality Insights' Rural Health Innovation Platform

The iCenter relationship has directly shaped the evolution of Thinkspace — Quality Insights' own rural health innovation platform. Where gBETA and gALPHA give any West Virginia founder a general accelerator experience, Thinkspace takes that same D4D approach and points it specifically at rural health: vetting ideas against real rural constraints, opening doors to providers, and co-pursuing federal grants. Thinkspace isn't a fund and it doesn't run its own accelerator cohort — it supports and collaborates, opening doors and connecting founders to the providers, networks, and grant expertise that move rural health forward.

Idea vetting grounded in real rural-community constraints, not an urban model stretched thin
Warm introductions to rural providers, health systems, payers, patients, and community organizations across a multi-state network
Co-pursuit of federal grants — including HRSA (the Health Resources and Services Administration), AHRQ (the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality), the CMS Innovation Center, NIH (the National Institutes of Health), and USDA Rural Development — with Quality Insights as an experienced contracting partner
Exploration of AI workforce development, student engagement, and innovation fellowships alongside the iCenter

Entrepreneurship in Service of Rural Health

The gift to the iCenter isn't a departure from Quality Insights' mission — it's an extension of it.

By now, the pattern behind this gift should be clear: Quality Insights keeps running into rural health problems — chronic disease, workforce shortages, care coordination, access to specialty care — that decades of health improvement work with providers, patients, and community organizations alone can't fix. Those problems need new products, new services, and new ways of thinking, built by entrepreneurs who understand rural constraints from day one, not an urban model stretched thin.

That's what drew Quality Insights to the iCenter. Marshall's gBETA and gALPHA cohorts are producing the founders and startups who can build those solutions — and Quality Insights brings the other half of the equation: a multi-state rural provider network, decades of federal contracting experience, and firsthand knowledge of what actually works at the bedside and in the clinic. The $1.2 million investment isn't just funding an accelerator. It's building a pipeline that connects West Virginia's innovation economy directly to the rural health challenges Quality Insights was founded to solve.

Chronic Disease Management

Rural Access to Care

Behavioral Health

Care Coordination

Workforce Support

Aging & Home-Based Care