Author: LauraLorek@gmail.com (Page 17 of 351)

By Laura Kobylecky, Special Contribution to Silicon Hills News

South by Southwest announced the 2023 Innovation Award winners during an awards ceremony at the Austin Convention Center on Monday evening.

The winners are:

Immersive

Move.ai of London, an OS Application, uses AI, computer vision, and machine learning to capture high-fidelity motion without the traditional markers and suits. It helps enable motion capture with things like off-the-shelf cameras and mobile phones.

Media

For Tomorrow: an Innovation Ecosystem of Los Angeles helps connect insights, innovators, resources, and inspiration and encourages people with actionable on-the-ground solutions to reach out to them and join their network.  The company strives to “create what matters.”

Convergent Gaming

Time Investigators of Bourne End, U.K., is a mystery-solving game that uses augmented technology to further immerse players in the experience.

Audio

Nomono Sound Capsule of Trondheim, Norway, created a wireless, self-contained recording kit for easy recording in the field and on the go. The technology democratizes audio by enabling “anyone to capture good audio.” The award was significant to them as there were “40 people sitting in Norway waiting in the middle of the night with vodka” to find out the results of this competition.

Enterprise DEI Workplace

Sephora of San Francisco is a multinational retail brand with skincare, makeup, beauty, fragrance, and hair products.

Mid-Sized DEI Workplace Innovation

Bitwise Industries of Fresno, CA, uses apprenticeships to bridge the gap between working in the tech industry and learning. The company offers a living wage to apprentices working on real-world projects.

Rising DEI Workplace Innovation

Included.ai of Seattle uses DEI data science to build a people analytics platform.  Its process can help companies connect with talent from diverse pools.

Urban Infrastructure

Power From the People of Brooklyn, NY partners with property owners to help them secure permits and add public chargers to their properties.

Artificial Intelligence

Bird Buddy Smart Bird Feeder of Kalamazoo, MI, is an AI-powered bird that lets people know when a bird visits and takes pictures. The company’s mission is to reconnect people with nature; on average, users spend 10-11 minutes daily looking at birds.

Renewable Design

The Pollinator™ Kit for Renewable Design of Alameda, CA, makes a kit that lets creatives use renewable polyurethane to build and prototype.

Social Impact

The 35*2 Free Initiative of Towson, MD, creates programs that improve college-educated black women’s economic and financial mobility.  The company provides career coaching, financial guidance, and retroactive scholarships.

Sustainability

World’s Whitest Paint–Thinner Than Ever of Lafayette, IN, Purdue University researchers developed the paint that helps to “fight global warming by reducing the need for air conditioning.”

Health and Med Tech category

NeuraLight – Digitizing Neurology of Tel-Aviv, Israel, introduces “novel ways of diagnosing and monitoring” issues like Alzheimer’s.

Patient Safety Technology

Kalogon of Melbourne, Fl, makes a smart cushion. It is helping the world live an active seated life by improving posture, relieving pain, and increasing blood flow.

Best in Show

GAF Beats the Heat by Cooling Streets of Parsippany, NJ. is an initiative aimed at helping cities address urban heat at a community level by developing insights and assessing the effects of current cooling strategies.

From a pool of hundreds, over 50 finalists were considered for the 14 different categories.  The winners were announced in a ceremony hosted by Austin comedian Carlton Wilcoxson, who created enthusiasm throughout the night.

The Innovation Awards also included the induction of Dan Rather into the SXSW Hall of Fame.  He was greeted with a standing ovation. Rather said this award was significant to him because when he was young, he saw “the lights of Austin” as “a beacon of creativity and knowledge and infinite possibilities.” He lives in Austin and still believes in the strength of that beacon and told the audience, “keep dreaming, keep exploring, keep connecting.”

Before the presentation, energy was high in the line that curled around the corner of the ballroom. Various people speculated whether they would be granted access to the event or if capacity had been reached.

Michelle Vincent, who spoke at the SXSW session You Should Start Your Own Indie Agency attended. She was particularly excited about the Innovation awards, explaining that she was “running a company where we are trying to transform and innovate, so we’re really curious to see what SXSW is doing to set the standard.”  Her particular interests included the creative side of things, artificial intelligence, the metaverse, and film.

As great as Austin’s trajectory has been, the best is yet to come.

That’s the gist of the conversation between Jay Hartzell, president of the University of Texas at Austin, and Jim Breyer, founder, and CEO of Breyer Capital. They participated in a fireside chat on “Building a Hub of Academic & Business Innovation at South By Southwest Saturday at Banger’s Sausage House and Beer Garden on Rainey Street.

Breyer called Hartzell one of “the great presidents of a university, if not the best president of a university in the United States.”

“I have never seen a leader doing so many tactical and strategic things for the university, the city of Autin, and the state of Texas,” Breyer said.

In the movie, The Graduate, the advice given to Dustin Hoffman’s character, Benjamin Braddock, is the future is plastics. Breyer referenced the movie when giving his advice.

“My advice to all of you….study linear algebra,” Breyer told the crowd. Linear algebra is the base of quantum technology, he said. Breyer is bullish on quantum but thinks the technology is still five to ten years away.

Breyer also encouraged interdisciplinary thinking between mathematicians, technologists, healthcare researchers, and more. Breyer said his mother, Eva, was a brilliant mathematician from Budapest, Hungary. His mother and father migrated to the United States, and his mother turned down a fellowship at Stanford to follow his father, who received a fellowship at Yale. Breyer was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He got his undergraduate degree from Stanford and his MBA from Harvard. As a venture capitalist, he was an early investor in Facebook, now known as Meta. He has also invested in Etsy, Spotify, and Grammarly.

About 15 years ago, Breyer began focusing on med-tech startups that use computational and artificial intelligence focused on medicine. He works with the best medical institutions to spin out startups. The first one Paige.Ai spun out of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.  It uses artificial intelligence for cancer diagnosis and treatment. The next spinout was from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. So far, Breyer Capital has made ten similar investments.

Breyer said a lot is happening with artificial intelligence and proprietary data at hospitals and universities. It starts with a great medical team and a license with the hospital or cancer center. Breyer said his job is to find the brilliant 30 to 40 men and women to form the startup. He said those employees are mid-career technologists who come from other technology companies like Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon.

“I’m always working on one or two of these,” Breyer said. “That’s what brings me here today.”

Breyer and his wife, Angela Chao, moved to Austin from California three and a half years ago. He had been on the board of Dell and spent years traveling to Austin. Michael and Susan Dell are dear friends, he said.  They encouraged them to move, and they finally did.

“We’re here forever,” Breyer said. “We love Austin, and we love the Hill Country.”

Since opening Breyer Capital’s Austin office, the firm has invested in many Austin-based startups, including OJO Labs, Sana Benefits, Homeward, DISCO, data.world, ZenBusiness, and ClosedLoop.ai.

Breyer said many universities are really siloed and don’t communicate well among the various departments.

“What Jay and the University of Texas are doing is breaking down many of those siloes,” Breyer said. “It takes leadership to break down those silos.”

Breyer pointed to the recent hiring of Dr. Claudia Lucchinetti as the next Dean of the Dell Medical School at UT Austin as a positive move to encourage more collaborations. Lucchinetti previously worked at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Not having a medical school for 100 years, Hartzell said UT doesn’t have to break down silos.

“They can build it in a way that is collaborative,” Hartzel said. “A lot of the university’s strengths are around robotics, AI, and technology. How do we get companies connected with us and find ways to work with us?

That means engaging with companies that want to hire students or that have a problem they want UT students and faculty to solve, Hartzell said.

“Universities don’t’ understand how daunting and complex it is for companies to build relationships,” Breyer said.

Breyer said he’s never seen it work with just a research person in charge of licensing technology.

“Innovation, entrepreneurship, the natural partnerships don’t happen,” Breyer said. “It comes down to the leadership, faculty, and post-docs. It’s happening here in Austin the way it doesn’t happen in other places.”

Hartzell asked Breyer what UT could do to support those collaborations.

Breyer said that UT Austin could continue attracting phenomenal talent, building affordable housing, and working hard to find intersection points. He said the idea is to get collisions between brilliant people to develop new ideas. Proximity and location are essential to make that happen, Breyer said. It’s important to have centers of excellence together.

“Not everyone needs to be around Austin, Texas downtown,” Breyer said.

Breyer suggested UT create a quantum-oriented center about 30 minutes from downtown, and he mentioned Stanford Research Parc in Palo Alto as a model. Breyer advised UT to own the land, and Hartzell agreed.

Another strength is Austin’s close proximity to San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas-Fort Worth, where phenomenal hospitals and educational institutions exist, Breyer said

MD Anderson sends data to our data scientists to build a model of a person to predict how the treatment is going to go, Breyer said.

“I truly believe in this area of AI and medicine,” Breyer said. “With the use of technology, we are making humans smarter.”

 One-third of prostate and breast cancer diagnoses are incorrect, Breyer said.

“With technology, I’ve seen the cycle move from 10 days to two days, and the accuracy is 95 percent,’ Breyer said.

Tech startups at South by Southwest could breathe a little easier on Monday after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced Sunday that it would cover Silicon Valley Bank’s depositors.

It also will cover depositors affected by the closure of Signature Bank. On Friday, regulators took over SVB, based in Santa Clara, Calif., with $210 billion in assets, making it the second-largest bank failure in history.  Federal regulators also took over New York-based Signature Bank with $118 billion in assets, the third largest banking failure in U.S. history.

The largest bank failure was in 2008 when Seattle-based Washington Mutual, with $308 billion in assets, collapsed.

“Over the weekend, and at my direction, the Treasury Security and my National Economic Council Director worked diligently with the banking regulators to address problems at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “I am pleased that they reached a prompt solution that projects American workers and small businesses and keeps our financial system safe. The solution also ensures that taxpayer dollars are not put at risk.”

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. insures deposits up to $250,000 at banks. But many startups had millions in SVB and ran payroll, accounts payable and other expenses out of the bank. Covering the uninsured depositors at SVB and Signature Bank ensures that the companies can access those funds to run their businesses.

“These actions will reduce stress across the financial system, support financial stability and minimize any impact on businesses, households, taxpayers, and the broader economy,” according to a joint statement from the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, and the U.S. Treasury.

In addition, the Federal Reserve Board on Monday announced that Vice Chair for Supervision Michael S. Barr is leading a review of the supervision and regulation of Silicon Valley Bank in light of its failure. The review will be publicly released by May 1.

“The events surrounding Silicon Valley Bank demand a thorough, transparent, and swift review by the Federal Reserve,”  Chair Jerome H. Powell said in a statement.

“We need to have humility and conduct a careful and thorough review of how we supervised and regulated this firm and what we should learn from this experience,” Vice Chair Barr said in a statement.

At SXSW 2023, ICON plans to unveil a 3D-printed performance center at the Long Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday.

The event will begin with a discussion, “a Moonshot for Affordable Housing,” with ICON CEO Jason Ballard, Bjarke Ingels with BIG, Michaelle Addington with the University of Texas, and Sarah Satterlee with Mobile Loaves and Fishes, at 2:30 p.m. It will be followed by a reception and concert on the terrace with live music from Primo the Alien, The Bros Fresh, and Tameca Jones.

SunPower and Rewiring America’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) hosted a cocktail hour at ICON House Zero to showcase its technology on Saturday. The event featured a bluegrass band, an open bar, and tacos.

Austin-based ICON, a sponsor of SXSW, built the 2,000 square foot, three-bedroom 2.5 bath home featuring its 3D printed wall system, which replaces a building system. Its walls are made with the company’s proprietary cement-like material called “lavacrete.”

The house in East Austin was 3D printed by ICON’s next-gen Vulcan construction system and designed by Lake/Flato.

ICON has a history of doing big things at SXSW. In 2018, the company won the South by Southwest Accelerator pitch competition for its construction technology. ICON also generated a lot of buzz when it built a 3D printed home in East Austin in two days during SXSW using its 3D printer.

That first permitted 3D-printed house cost about $10,000 in materials. The 350-square-foot house was created as a proof-of-concept house in partnership with New Story.

The next year, ICON unveiled its “Vulcan II” 3D printer that can quickly print up to a 2,000-square-foot house at half the cost.

In 2021, ICON raised a $207 million Series B round of financing led by Norwest Venture Partners, one of the largest fundraising rounds for an Austin-based company in history.

And last year, ICON received a NASA contract worth $57.2 to develop construction technologies that could help build the moon’s habitats, landing pads, and roads. NASA is planning for long-term human exploration of the moon under Artemis.

By Laura Kobylecky, Special contribution to Silicon Hills News

The 2023 SXSW Pitch competition winners are Reality Defender, Climatiq, PentoPix, GPx, Reach Pathways, SXD Ai, Numbers Protocol, and Urban Machine.

The 15^th annual SXSW Pitch competition, presented by ZenBusiness, occurred Saturday and Sunday at the Hilton Austin Downtown. It featured 40 tech companies from eight categories pitching in front of an audience of SXSW attendees, media, venture capital investors, and a panel of judges. The winners were announced Sunday night at an awards ceremony.

Reality Defender of New York, which created a deep fake platform, won the Artificial Intelligence, Voice, & Robotics Technologies category. Enterprises can use Reality Defender’s platform to flag fraudulent users and content. Their presenter says they are “the only one doing this right now” regarding their particular methods and how they detect deep fakes. 

Climatiq of Berlin, Germany, won the Enterprise & Smart Data Technologies. They use scientific data to “build climate intelligent solutions.”

PentoPix of London, United Kingdom, which uses AI-assisted technology to transform text into 3D animations, won the Entertainment, Media & Content Technologies category.

General Prognostics GPx of Boston, a company allowing physicians to remotely and non-invasively monitor blood biomarkers vital for managing chronic disease, won the “Food, Nutrition, & Health Technologies” category. The company’s process is similar to “continuous glucose monitoring,” minus the needles. The presenter emphasized that similarity and talked about how it could improve the quality of life for those individuals. 

Reach Pathways of Chicago won the Future of Work Technologies category. The company uses a “‘metaversity’ ecosystem” to connect talent and opportunities. It “rewards students for finding jobs and completing real-life and in-game tasks” and gamifies the recruitment system. 

SXD Ai of New York won the Innovative World Technologies category. It is a “tech-powered design platform” that is trying to make “creative visions into zero fabric waste clothing” that lower cost and carbon footprint without sacrificing beauty. Their presenter emphasized that, in the next few years, they would like to see one-third of the clothing “that we’re wearing right now” be zero waste. 

Numbers Protocol of Taipei, Taiwan, won the Metaverse & Web3 Technologies category. The company claims to be “building the most comprehensive solution to make digital media traceable and verifiable.” Its website describes the company as “a decentralized asset network for creating community, value, and trust in digital media.” It aims to make “digital media traceable and verifiable” to address issues like “misinformation, copyright, and royalty distribution.”

Urban Machine of Oakland, California, won the Smart Cities, Transportation & Sustainability Technologies. Category. The company is on a mission to build a sustainable future and plans to do this by “salvaging millions of tons of wood waste from construction and demolition.” They use “AI capable robots” to reclaim “old wood for reuse into locally sourced, premium lumber products.” 

Judges evaluated the companies on Creativity, Potential, Goodness, Functionality, and Team/People. The winner for each category received $4,000 and a trophy, two comped badges for the 2024 Interactive Festival, and a gift bag.

SXSW Pitch 2023 also honored its “Best In Show” winner, PentoPix.

Special awards were also presented to AMA — Environmental Agents for Best Bootstrap company. It creates “phygital” tools that integrate physical and digital elements to “improve people’s lives and their urban environments.” 

LeadrPro won the Best Speed Pitch award. The company directly connects sellers with software buyers. This category emphasized the unique skills and abilities it takes to funnel the whole mission and energy into a mere minute of time. 

The “Best in DEI” (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) award went to CreditRich, a company that “rounds up users’ spare change to pay their bills intelligently and optimize credit scores.” Their website explains that their “mission is to reduce poverty by giving people access to easy-to-understand financial education materials.” Their presenter told the audience that diversity is important to the startup scene, but currently, “less than 1% of funding goes to black founders.” They emphasized that we must “be the change that we all want to see.” 

The Silicon Valley Bank failure can have downstream consequences depending on how the government responds to it, said Mark Cuban, billionaire tech entrepreneur.

“The rich people got wiped out already,” Cuban said at a South by Southwest panel discussion Sunday morning. “What’s at stake is the depositor. If they can’t get their money out come Monday, you ain’t getting paid. If you don’t get paid, others don’t get paid.”

SVB, which had $209 billion in total assets and $175.4 billion in total deposits at the end of 2022, failed on Friday. SVB is where a large share of VC firms and VC-backed startups all across the country held deposits, according to the National Venture Capital Association. It’s the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history behind Washington Mutual in 2008.

The investors of SVB are out of money, Cuban said. All those people who had deposits over the FDIC insured $250,000, that’s tens of thousands of companies that need access to their money for inventory, payroll, and accounts payable, Cuban said. If they don’t get access to their funds, it could have substantial ripple effects throughout the economy, he said.

“The Feds have to come in and say we’ve got you,” Cuban said. The bank got hit with a liquidity crunch, he said. “The federal government has to say all deposits will be made whole. I know that’s scary, but that’s the reality.”

Isabella Casillas Guzman, the U.S. Small Business Administrator, also participated in the SXSW panel discussion and said U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen was working closely with bank regulators on the collapse. She said that many of SVB’s depositors are small businesses and are critical to the U.S. economy.

“This weekend is critical,” Guzman said. Regulators are working to determine the right actions to ensure the U.S. economy remains strong.

On Sunday morning’s Face the Nation TV show, Secretary Yellen said SVB’s failure stemmed from a rise in interest rates. And that many of the depositors were small businesses and that the regulators were working on a solution for them, she said. But the Federal government didn’t plan to bail out the investors and owners of the bank.

“The problems of this bank, from reporting about its situation, suggest that because we’re in a higher interest rate environment, assets that it holds, many of which are Treasury assets, or mortgage-backed securities that are guaranteed by the government lose market value, and the problems of the tech sector aren’t at the heart of the problems of this bank,” Yellen said on Face the Nation, according to a show transcript.

SVB’s bank failure is the buzz around SXSW, the annual technology conference held in Austin every Spring.

 The bank backed a lot of startups locally, said Ross Buhrdorf, CEO of Austin-based ZenBusiness.

“We ran our business out of it,” Buhrdorf said. He spoke to Silicon Hills News Sunday morning after an SXSW panel his company moderated.

“We’re scrambling to figure out how to run day to day,” he said. “Like a bunch of us are.”

Buhrdorf, founding Chief Technology Officer of HomeAway, which sold to Expedia and is now known as VRBO, is also an active angel investor in Austin and has backed dozens of companies. All of them used SVB, he said.

ZenBusiness is one of Austin’s home-grown Unicorn companies. Founded in 2017, ZenBusiness runs an online platform to help small businesses incorporate and stay compliant with regulators. It raised a $200 million Series C round in late 2021, valuing the company at $1.7 billion.

ZenBusiness is not exposed financially, Buhrdorf said. He said it diversified its bank deposits in several banks before the bank failure. But ZenBusiness’ payroll is run out of there, he said.

“You don’t just change that and the next day go to another bank,” he said.

South by Southwest kicked off Friday on the same day Federal regulators took over the failed Silicon Valley Bank.

It’s the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history behind Washington Mutual in 2008.

Silicon Valley Bank is “where a large share of VC firms and VC-backed startups all across the country held deposits,” according to the National Venture Capital Association. As of Dec. 31, 2022, the bank had about $209 billion in total assets and about $175.4 billion in total deposits.

Bank customers still have access to funds up to $250,000, the amount the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. insures. But others will have to wait to recoup their uninsured monies.

In an SXSW panel discussion on the Silicon Heartland with CNBC Journalist Rebecca Fannin Saturday morning, Venture Capitalist Jim Breyer said he began hearing about problems with SVB a week ago and advised 90 percent of Breyer Capital portfolio companies to establish an alternative bank account.

It’s too early to predict what’s going to happen, Breyer said. More details will come to light on Monday, he said.

SVB collapse: VC Jim Breyer & author Rebecca Fannin at #SXSW

VC Jim Breyer in Q&A with author Rebecca Fannin about Silicon Heartland and a major impact of SVB collapse on tech and venture

Meanwhile, Roku, which has an office in Austin, filed a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission reporting approximately $487 million held at SVB, representing approximately 26 percent of the company’s cash and cash equivalents as of March 1st. Its deposits with SVB are largely uninsured, and it “does not know to what extent the company will be able to recover its cash on deposit at SVB.” But the company said it believes it has sufficient capital to meet its needs for the next 12 months and beyond.

On Friday evening, Roku had an invitation-only party at the Riley Building downtown, transforming it into a Roku City, a Willy Wonka and Alice in Wonderland-type experience. It had customed characters dressed in purple outfits handing out purple boas, berets, and sunglasses, and Roku served purple martinis and prosecco cocktails at a rooftop bar. A DJ played music. Waiters served purple hors d’oeurves to guests. The party was rocking despite the bank failure.

But not everyone is in the party mood at SXSW. Reign Ventures canceled its Reign Ventures House events at SXSW because of the SVB collapse. It sent out a Tweet with its sincerest apologies.

“We are sorry to miss you, and we are sending out our support to all the startups and VCs being impacted during this challenging time,” according to a statement.

It’s still uncertain what effect the bank failure will have on startups in Austin.

The NVCA sent out a news release saying it “has been closely monitoring the SVB situation as it unfolds to help the startup community navigate this unprecedented turbulence.”

With the FDIC takeover of SVB, the NVCA said, “there will be immediate, short, and long-term impacts on the startup ecosystem.”

“NVCA is discussing the potential consequences of a failure of this central part of the financial plumbing of the innovation ecosystem with a range of policymakers and industry leaders,” according to the news release. “The implications for company and fund operations are far-reaching.”

The biggest concerns are startups’ inability to access their deposits greater than the FDIC-insured amount of $250,000. That means some companies might not be able to cover payroll.

“Without access to additional funds, or if access is delayed, companies will be faced with difficult decisions ranging from furloughing employees to potentially shutting down,” according to the NVCA. “These decisions could have a lasting impact on the industry and the country.”

TechCrunch reported in a story posted on Friday that the SVB collapse is the talk of SXSW. Some panelists were so distracted by the bank’s failure that they kept checking their phones during panel presentations to ensure their money was secure at their own banks.  

In 2021, Empower a Billion Women topped the list of Austin’s fastest-growing companies on Inc Magazine’s list.

Ingrid Vanderveldt founded the company in 2013 and launched a healthcare business to supply personal protection equipment in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vanderveldt announced last week that she had sold EBW Cares Distributors to Shield Manufacturing, based in Alpharetta, Georgia. She discussed the deal at her SXSW presentation Friday titled “Be The One: Unlocking the $28 Trillion SHEconomy with AI” at the Hilton Downtown Hotel. And Alison Bagwell, CEO of Shield Manufacturing, attended the event. Bagwell is an engineer formerly with Kimberly Clark. She has more than 50 patents and has used the bulk of them to drive more than $500 million in sales over the last decade, according to a news release.

 “While the deal remains private, it is estimated to be valued at over $100 million,” according to a news release. The companies first focus will be building its cleanroom glove facility in Sandersville, Georgia, which is expected to produce over 2.2 billion gloves annually in its Phase I. Shield cleanroom gloves will serve pharmaceutical, medical device, biotech, chip manufacturing, and other controlled professional lab environments.

Vanderveldt created Empowering a Billion Women to reach one billion women across the globe and help them start and scale ventures through mentorship, education, and community. Vanderveldt is a former Entrepreneur in Residence of Dell and has led ventures and initiatives that combined have driven over $1 billion in impact reaching over 700 million people worldwide, according to Vanderveldt.

When she heard a statistic from the United Nations that it would take 300 years for gender parity, she thought she needed to do more.  She said she wanted to use technology to build a bridge, break down doors, and transform lives.

So she’s launching SHEconomy.com, a metaverse world built on technology, blockchain, and using artificial intelligence and machine learning, Vanderveldt said.

“The word Sheconomy was first coined in 2007,” according to Frost & Sullivan. “It refers to a new economy driven by the increase in female consumers in industries like tourism, healthcare, food, beauty and wellness, culture, media, and entertainment.”

 “Together, we can move the needle,” she said. “We can create the new future we want to see.”

Vanderveldt said it’s impossible to do big ideas without a team, so she has partnered with Cristina Diaz, founder of Minero, and Bobby Henebry, founder of HBCC LLC and Elway Capital LLC.

“As a technologist myself, it’s easy to think we can make all kinds of things happen with data, but we need relationships, and we need to bring people together, “ Vanderveldt said.

Today, 84 percent of women and diverse leaders running businesses don’t make over $100,000 in revenue annually; only 3 percent will get over $1 million, and .003 percent will get over $10 million, Vanderveldt said.

The SHEconomy World will bring people together in the virtual world to make real-life connections, Vanderveldt said. It will launch in November, she said. She said the focus would be on helping women connect to corporations and investors to move the needle of their progress as entrepreneurs.

In California in the early ‘90s, a man bought a ketchup bottle, and when he got it home, he found that it contained less ketchup than the specified weight.

That turned out to be true, said Arati Prabhakar, now Chief Advisor on Science and Technology to President Joe Biden and director of the White House Office Of Science And Technology Policy.

Heinz had new packaging material, and its sensors had miscalibrated how much to fill the bottles, Prabhakar said. At the time, she was the director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a 122-year-old agency.

An investigation and a consumer protection lawsuit against Heinz ensued, and Heinz agreed to overfill ketchup bottles in the state of California for a year to get even with consumers, Prabhakar said.

“NIST just works, and you can count on it,” Prabhakar said. “It’s the invisible work of government in our society that just works.”

At the NIST, Prabhakar “reinforced the agency’s long-time mission in measurement science and technology that underpins commerce and high-quality manufacturing,” according to the White House.

Prabhakar spoke Friday afternoon in Salon B of the Hilton Austin Downtown Hotel during a South by Southwest Panel titled “Achieving America’s Aspirations through Science, Technology, and Innovation.” Austin Carson, founder and president of SeedAI moderated the discussion.

Prabhakar was the first woman to lead the NIST. She later served as director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Prabhakar, who moved with her family to the United States from India as a child, is the first woman and immigrant to serve as the director of OSTP.

Prabhakar also has Texas roots. Her family relocated from Chicago to Lubbock when she was 10. She received her electrical engineering degree from Texas Tech University. Then she became the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in applied physics from the California Institute of Technology and earned an M.S. in electrical engineering.

Prabhakar also spent 15 years in Silicon Valley as a venture capitalist. She formed a nonprofit organization, Actuate, to open access to opportunity for everyone in the technology industry and focus on climate, health, trustworthy data, and information technology challenges.

In her new role as director of OTSP, Prabhakar said it’s one place to see the whole chessboard of research and development in science and technology in the U.S.

“Our job is to nurture and shape and strengthen that whole ecosystem,” she said. “Every major technological advance, our progress in society does not come from one technological model or place. The answer is you need all the pieces.”

And that ecosystem is getting bigger under President Biden, Prabhakar said. Prabhakar highlighted President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, $740 Billion to provide billions of dollars in new climate-related federal spending. It passed congress, and President Biden signed it into law in August of 2022. And she mentioned the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which President Biden also signed into law in August of 2022. It provides nearly $50 billion in additional investments in American semiconductor manufacturing.

The U.S. originated the semiconductor industry, then it globalized, and eventually started getting very concentrated in one part of the world, Prabhakar said. She said the pandemic showed the U.S. needs to strengthen its domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research and development industry.

“The R&D part of the semiconductor work will keep production here,” Prabhakar said.

Investment in research often takes years to come to fruition, Prabhakar said.

For example, in 2012, when Prabhakar was director of DARPA,  a geneticist and Air Force Colonel warned about a future pandemic and the fact the U.S. still didn’t know how to develop vaccines. That problem led her to kick start the development of rapid-response mRNA vaccine platform, which made the development of the COVID-19 vaccine fast, safe and effective.

“We at DARPA were investing for a purpose – a vaccine platform for the future,” she said.

At the time, the mRNA research was being focused on cancer, a “tragically forever reliable and lucrative market,” Prabhakar said.

Everyone thought it was the dumbest idea they had ever heard of to do mRNA research on vaccines, she said. But then, testing with the Chikungunya and Ebola viruses, people saw that it could be possible, which happened around 2018, Prabhakar said.

That early research made it possible for Moderna to ship its first COVID-19 vaccines within 42 days from when they got the spike protein, Prabhakar said.

She said that early pivotal investment in research later made something happen in real time.

Of course, not all investments turn out as successful as that, and that’s the point of research and development, Prabhakar said. She recalled a launch system that blew up on the pad and an airship that didn’t fly.

“We had many things that did not pan out quite as expected,” she said.

This year, the U.S. is requesting $210 billion for research and development, which is a record request, Prabhakar said. But it’s needed, she said.

“We’re a big country, and we’ve got big ambitions, both public and private,” Prabhakar said.

One goal is to boost innovations in many of the regions throughout the country. In addition, Prabhakar said every child in America should have the opportunity to find out if a science and technology career is for them. That’s something that needs to happen, she said.

In the U.S., innovators, scientists, and entrepreneurs also need to continue going after big, bold, hairy, audacious goals, she said. She said that work on artificial intelligence, brain implants, and biological technologies would continue to improve people’s lives. Prabhakar said there is no better time in history to be alive than now. And continuous improvement is the goal, she said.

“I just want the future to be better than the past,” Prabhakar said.

South by Southwest is best done with an official badge. The SXSW badge lets you into all the keynote talks, panel discussions, and some of Austin’s best parties, movies, music, and more.

But if you don’t have a badge, that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the festivities. You can attend many badge–less events–some are free, some charge a ticket, and almost all require an RSVP. On the eve of the big kickoff for SXSW, it’s time to fill your calendar with events.

Don’t worry if plans change. SXSW is known for serendipitous encounters. Magic can happen with an unscheduled meeting in a hotel lobby or bar. So be open to talking to strangers.

And remember to use ridesharing whenever possible, wear comfortable shoes, drink a lot of water (bring a refillable water bottle with you), bring a phone charger or carry an extra battery pack, and be open to chance encounters of the creative kind.

SXSW has its own list of top free events. It includes Austin Industry Day at the Creative Industries Expo on Wednesday, March 15^th. The Expo is open to all Austin industry professionals – no credential required from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Austin Convention Center.

Capital Factory House at SXSW – kicks off with the Capital Factory Startup Crawl Friday evening at 5 p.m. No badge is required, but it does require RSVP and tickets.

The Inc. Founders House at Foxy’s Proper Pub, 201 Brazos Street  – SXSW, runs from March 10-13th and is open to non-badge holder entrepreneurs and features curated conversations, cocktails, and more. Request an invitation here. March 10-13^th.

Fast Company Grill at Cedar Door Bar & Grill – 201 Brazos Street is also open to non-badge holders. It features unique content, exclusive product demos, tasting and interactive experiences, and networking. March 10-13^th.

SHE Media takes place March 11^th and 12^th at The Native at 807 East 4th in Austin. It will examine the science and storytelling around women’s whole health. Attendees will hear from experts and thought leaders, including Katie Couric, Maria Shriver, Christy Turlington Burns, Dr. Laurie Santos, Phoebe Robinson, Judy Greer, and more. Tickets required.

The Future of Food 2023 – SXSW event series is free and open at 1400 Lavaca Street and features conversations, art installations, and delicious tastings.

For more free events, check out these lists:

Marc Nathan, the author of the Texas Squared Newsletter, created the Texas Squared VIP Insider Events Guide 2023.

Texas Venture Association’s The Investors’ SXSW 2023 List

SXSW 2023 – Unofficial Events Schedule

Yoni’s OFFICIAL SXSW 2023 Curated Events + Parties List

FIESTA Calendar

Marissa Vickers with Builders + Backers SXSW 2023 List.