Emerge Memphis is a non-profit economic development initiative that provides strategic support to startup companies and entrepreneurs in the Mid-South. Emerge was started in 1998 by local Memphis entrepreneur Bryan M. Eagle III. Eagle had been working with a company based in the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), Georgia Tech?s incubator facility in Atlanta. Eagle saw the need for Memphis to have the same kind of resource to help build technology and non-technology based companies. He quickly set about building a board of local business and government leaders who could help to ensure that Emerge would have broad support and reach.