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Aggie I-Corps Spotlight: Anika Stein and the Future of Engineering Innovation
August 2025
For Anika Stein, CEO of CAMINNO, entrepreneurship began with the founding of Focused Energy Inc. in 2021, a nuclear fusion company that remains active today.
Building on that experience, Stein launched CAMINNO with a bold vision: to revolutionize the way engineering design and manufacturing challenges are solved in some of the world’s most demanding industries. The company’s hybrid AI platform combines the computational strength of artificial intelligence with traditional simulations, creating a tool capable of dramatically accelerating development timelines, reducing costs, and ensuring real-time quality control throughout the design and manufacturing process.
CAMINNO’s software is designed to address industries where mistakes are costly and reliability is paramount, such as nuclear fusion, aerospace, and geothermal energy. As Stein explains, “We are speeding up the development process by 50%, saving costs by 30%, and providing real-time quality control at every step. In industries where a single failure could lead to catastrophic outcomes, that assurance is critical.”
Yet even with such transformative potential, Stein knew that technology alone wasn’t enough. She needed to validate her company’s assumptions, identify the right markets, and learn how to communicate CAMINNO’s value in ways that resonated with decision-makers. That’s when she turned to the Aggie I-Corps program.
Refining the Hypothesis
When Stein entered Aggie I-Corps, CAMINNO’s primary focus was on applications in nuclear fusion. But she suspected the challenges her software solved, such as long development cycles and the need to connect design with manufacturing from the outset, extended to other industries as well.
“I thought, I could have used this tool so much back when I was in the defense industry,” Stein recalled. “Through I-Corps, we were able to narrow our hypotheses, test them directly with people in the field, and identify where our solution had the greatest impact.”
The program’s structured customer discovery process was eye-opening. It pushed Stein and her team not only to validate their assumptions but also to dig deeper into the dynamics of who, within an organization, actually drives adoption of new technologies. “We learned to ask: Who is the person in the company we need to talk to?” she said. “That was a game changer. In smaller companies, a CEO or CTO might make the decision immediately, but in larger organizations, IT departments or other stakeholders often play a critical role.”