Gov. Bill Lee has unveiled new legislation designed to protect songwriters, performers and other music industry professionals against the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.

Lee made the announcement Jan. 10 while standing in the middle of Nashville’s famed RCA Studio A, a location where legends such as Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Charley Pride have all recorded. Packed inside were top music industry leaders, songwriters and lawmakers, all eager to praise the state’s rich musical history while also sounding the alarm about the threats AI poses.

“Tennessee will be the first state in the country to protect artists’ voices with this legislation,” Lee says. “And we hope it will be a blueprint for the country.”

The legislation comes as states across the country and federal lawmakers wrestle with the challenge of curbing AI.

But no state currently has enacted protections against vocal likeness. And with AI posing a threat to almost every industry, artists and other creatives are increasingly calling for stronger protections against new AI tools that produce imagery, music, video and text.

Ultimately, the goal is to ensure that AI tools are not scraping and using an artist’s song or voice in order to learn how to spit out a song itself without the artist’s permission, says Bart Herbison, executive director of the Nashville Songwriters Association International. Another key aspect is fighting for proper payment.

Metro PD’s driver class open for registration

Registration is now open for the Metro Nashville Police Department’s free driver Awareness Class for high school-aged teens, scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 10 from 8 a.m.-noon.

This popular course will be held in the community room of the MNPD’s Midtown Hills Precinct, 1441 12th Avenue South. The class is open to all high school aged teens, regardless of county of residence.

The class, taught by Nashville police officers, will not offer behind the wheel training, but rather will focus on impaired driving, distracted driving and overall traffic safety.

Persons interested in signing up for this program may do so online

Family Care Center opens Murfreesboro clinic

Family Care Center, one of the nation’s premier mental health providers, is expanding with a new outpatient clinic in Murfreesboro, making integrated mental health care more accessible to Tennessee communities.

Family Care Center’s rapid expansion in Tennessee reinforces its dedication to advancing mental well-being and delivering comprehensive mental health services to those in need. The company opened four Nashville-area clinics in 2023 and has several more Tennessee clinics opening in 2024.

According to Mental Health America’s 2023 State of Mental Health Report, Tennessee ranks 40th in access to mental health care, an issue that affects all ages from children to older adults. In fact, one in five Tennessee children have a mental health disorder, and a large percentage of children and adolescents with behavioral health challenges do not receive care.

The new clinic in Murfreesboro will be staffed with 15 experienced therapists and prescribers for medication management needs. The clinic is also fully equipped with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) technology – an FDA-approved, noninvasive, non-medication-based approach to treating conditions such as depression and OCD. This groundbreaking treatment holds promise for those who may not have found relief through therapy and medication.

Captain D’s signs first franchisees in Canada

Captain D’s, the nation’s leading fast casual seafood restaurant, announced the signing of its first-ever franchise development agreement in Canada.

Ontario-based entrepreneurs Ali Saeed and Mudassir Choudri will bring five Captain D’s restaurants to the Greater Toronto Metropolitan Area over the next several years.

The brand has been expanding rapidly with multiple franchise development agreements throughout 2023 as far West as Utah and into the Northern states of New York and New Jersey. Captain D’s also has aggressive plans for growth throughout Canada.

Saeed and Choudri are both experienced business persons who own and operate groups of Shell gas stations in Ontario, earning multiple top retailing awards from the company. They experienced Captain D’s during their many travels and have thought for a long time that the brand would do very well in Canada.

Captain D’s real estate prototypes are attracting both new and existing multiunit and multi-concept franchisees with features such as highly efficient double drive-thrus, smaller footprints and cost-effective conversion opportunities. In addition to the Canada agreement, recent development deals with new franchisees include a single-unit agreement in New Jersey and multiunit agreements in New York and Georgia.

D1 Training opens 100th franchise location

D1 Training, a leading fitness concept utilizing the five core tenets of athletic-based training to help people of all ages achieve their sport and fitness goals, kicks off 2024 with the opening of its milestone 100th location in Merrillville, Indiana.

This comes on the heels of an impressive 2023, achieving substantial revenue growth across current facilities and the opening of 26 new locations. Heading into 2024, D1 has set its plans to open more than 50 units with double that in development, bringing its future total to 250 units.

Keys to the brand’s success have been enhancements to franchisee support starting with presales, growing a network of world-class coaches, leaning into professional athlete brand ambassadors such as Tim Tebow, improvements to operator training and streamlined communication.

Wellpoint Earns NCQA health equity accreditation

Wellpoint Tennessee, formerly Amerigroup, recently earned the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) Health Equity Accreditation Plus, a recognition of Wellpoint’s leadership in developing solutions to enhance access to equitable, high-quality health care.

It further underscores Wellpoint’s commitment to eliminating health disparities in underserved communities to improve health outcomes and reduce overall treatment costs.

NCQA Health Equity Accreditation Plus builds upon the Health Equity Accreditation designation Wellpoint received last year, when they were recognized among the first Medicaid plans in the nation to create a strategic framework that prioritizes health equity.

NEC announces Project Healthcare cohort

Nashville Entrepreneur Center has announced its 2024 Project Healthcare cohort. This cohort’s total lifetime equity raised amounts to $38.5M in the aggregate and marks a significant leap forward for the Project Healthcare program. In total, this cohort employs over 160 full-time employees.

• Whitecoat (Franklin; Liam Woodard and Craig Myers, co-founders): Whitecoat Technologies streamlines health care education and management with a single, simple, digital platform.

• CareCrown (Hendersonville; Elizabeth Moss, founder): CareCrown is a staff performance, employee recognition and rewards management app for personal support home care that uses game mechanics to reward employees.

• Geeq (Nashville; Stephanie So, founder): Geeq’s secure blockchain technology introduces resilience to health care and supply chain systems. Apps can access continuously updated, synchronized and auditable data.

• Med Teams (Knoxville; Kurt Davis, founder): Med Teams help health care operational managers efficiently schedule their employees across multiple sites.

• MindWise Health (Brentwood; Kishore Tummala, founder): MindWise Health is a comprehensive and customizable mental and behavioral health platform that enhances provider and patient experience with features like Telehealth capabilities, patient tracking and minimized administrative tasks.

• Thanzius (Memphis; Tendie Muzorewa, founder): Thanzius is advancing maternal health equity with machine learning by developing software that helps clinicians identify who will develop hypertensive disorders during pregnancy, even before symptoms appear.

• Amenities (Dallas, Texas; Aasim Saeed, founder/CEO): Amenities is a Digital Front Door platform focused on patient acquisition and loyalty for large health care providers.

• Aqueduct (New York, New York; Bill Tan, founder/CEO): Aqueduct drastically reduces appointment no-shows through a SaaS platform that delivers personalized patient communication.

• BatteryXchange (Charlotte, North Carolina; Desmond Wiggan, founder): BatteryXchange is revolutionizing engagement by enabling organizations to share information and resources with captive audiences through innovative sharing economy amenities.

• Elucid Health (Allen, Texas;| Shahbaz Sohail, founder): Physician-driven health care bridging gaps between payer and provider while integrating advanced technology and expert coordination service team for optimized outcomes.

• FlexTogether (Dana Point, California; Emily Mischel and Benji Rostoker, co-founders): FlexTogether is a telehealth practice that is accelerating the expansion of expanding access to pulmonary rehabilitation for the 53 million chronic lung disease patients.

• Jordan River Living (Dexter, Michigan; Stephen Hopkins, founder): Jordan River Living empowers those aged 50+ to age in their own homes with holistic care, financial security and personalized support.

• LUMINARE (Houston, Texas; Sarma Velamuri M.D., founder): LUMINARE’s mission is to harness the power of artificial intelligence in clinical workflow to produce the best clinical and financial outcomes for health care organizations.

• MultiplAI Health (Annapolis, Maryland; Santiago Miriuka and Meg Samek-Smith, co-founders): MultiplAI Health is a preventive medicine company pioneering blood screening for cardiovascular and other complex diseases. Powered by genomic RNAseq, proprietary data transformation and comprehensive AI analysis.

• Sonic Blocks (Alexandria, Virginia; Scott Wilker and Jordan Wilker, co-founders): Sonic Blocks is a modular health risk detection smart speaker. Combining modular sensors, computer vision, and AI to collect and analyze vocal biomarkers to monitor physical, mental, behavioral and neurodegenerative health.

• Subflow (Alexandria, Virginia; Mitch Lawson, founder): Subflow empowers organizations to engage and monetize any audience.

• Ursamin (Fayetteville, New York; Shannon Aylesworth, founder): Ursamin’s digital Care Coordination Platform helps patients living with multiple chronic illnesses get better outcomes by bringing care teams and patients together into one platform.