Inside Nexus Louisiana’s push to grow Baton Rouge tech

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    When 10 teams of Louisiana college students gathered in March to pitch artificial intelligence solutions for monitoring the state’s bird populations, the judges weren’t just impressed — they were floored. “All of our jaws were on the floor the entire time,” says Beaux Jones, president and CEO of The Water Institute, one of the event’s partners. “Everything those students built was better than things we see in the market every day.”

    That event, called DevDays, is one of several new initiatives rolling out under Tony Zanders, who was appointed president and CEO of Nexus Louisiana—the state’s technology incubator—in February 2025. Since taking the helm, Zanders has moved quickly to sharpen Nexus’ focus, replacing the long-running Baton Rouge Entrepreneurship Week pitch competition with programs tied squarely to high-tech innovation and Louisiana-specific problems. Future DevDays events will take on challenges including high insurance rates, obesity, cancer detection and childhood literacy.

    Nexus Louisiana President and CEO Tony Zanders. Photography by Don Kadair

    The message Zanders is sending is deliberate: Nexus isn’t in the business of incubating just any startup idea. “We’re not looking for the entrepreneur who is starting a new website and a laundromat,” he says. “We want the one who is reinventing the washing machine.”

    That vision will soon gets a new home. Nexus and roughly 20 of its startups are relocating to a 28,000-square-foot headquarters at 440 on Third in downtown Baton Rouge, anchoring what the Downtown Development District has branded the Innovation District. The space—designed with private offices, hot desks, event space and even two apartments for a pilot founder-housing program—is built for creative collisions and community-building as much as desk work.

    Backed by a fresh $200,000 JPMorgan Chase grant and a 10-year strategic plan in the works, Nexus is playing a long game. Zanders points to Austin, Raleigh-Durham and Columbus as proof that tech ecosystems aren’t built overnight — but they are built.

    “We want to create an environment where we can find the next Meta,” he says.

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