The Startech Foundation, based in San Antonio, serves as the South Texas Regional Center of Innovation and Commercialization, and in that role it is accepting applications from South Texas startups seeking financing from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund.
That state fund provides early stage seed funding for technology startups, university faculty and others that have an emerging technology ready for commercialization.
“The state of Texas has about $50 million from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund to invest into Texas innovation startups in the next 15 months,” Jim Poage, president and CEO of Startech, said in a statement. “With almost $43 million already invested into South Texas, several companies and universities have already taken advantage of the available funding from the ETF, more should do the same.”
To apply, please contact Erica Amaya at Startech at 210.458.2713 or ea@startech1.org for more details. The application deadline is midnight on July 24.
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Every once in awhile I browse Kickstarter looking for cool projects by Austin inventors.
That’s how I stumbled upon Zimmer Barnes’ Apollo Armband Solar Generator project.
He came up with the idea of the solar armband generator while he had a broken arm. He rigged up a solar panel to the cast to create a generator for his mobile phone and other products.
So many of his friends and strangers liked the idea that he decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign to mass produce the devices. He’s seeking to raise $3,200 and he already has 22 backers who have pledged $2,401. He’s got seven days to go to meet his goal.
Barnes is a member of the ATX Hackerspace, which is a community of people who love to make things.
Barnes also describes himself as a activist for “what’s come to be known as the “Real Life Superhero” movement. Over the last six years I’ve gone on a wild variety of missions, from doing park clean ups to breaking up fights; delivering aid to homeless camps living underground to removing gang graffiti; time indexing violent crime and mapping the data to trying to get mugged in one of Brooklyn’s most dangerous neighborhoods.”
BuildASign won the first ever Austin Startup Olympics Summer Games.
The company, co-founded by Dan Graham, received a $10,000 prize to donate to its charity of choice.
BuildASign chose Austin Pro Bono, a nonprofit that connects lawyers and other professionals to nonprofit organizations.
“SpareFoot took home the silver this year, earning $5,000 for Kure It Cancer Research. Our charity of choice was founded by a self-storage business operator to support kidney cancer research,” according to the company’s blog post. Adlucent earned the Bronze, finishing in third place. It earned money for Austin Pets Alive.
The other startup teams participating each won $500 to donate to their designated charities. Boundless Network designated Capital Area Food Bank; uShip picked Communities in Schools of Central Texas; Spredfast selected Entrepreneurs Foundation of Central Texas; Mass Relevance selected Austin Children’s Shelter and WhaleShark designated Austin Children’s Museum.
uShip won the Startup Olympics Winter Games held last January at its headquarters.
The Summer Games kicked off shortly after noon on Saturday at the Krieg Softball Complex with the running of the torch by uShip’s Co-Founder Jay Manickam, which Sparefoot’s Co-Founder Chuck Gordon received on a podium. After the singing of the Star Spangled Banner, Gordon released about a dozen white doves to a cheering crowd and announced the official beginning of the games.
Adlucent won the first event, the 400 yard relay followed by BuildASign and uShip.
Altogether, the games consisted of seven events: kickball, tetherball, tug-of-war, basketball, the relay sprint, 400 meter sprint and the advance sprint which consisted of a relay team performing various tasks including dizzy bat, egg and spoon race, sack race and the three legged race.
Geni Glynn with Sparefoot and Summer Games organizer
In fact, Sparefoot had rules for its competitors such as no alcohol until after the competition, Glynn said. Sparefoot also had to contend with much larger teams. Sparefoot with 45 employees was the second smallest startup to compete. Mass Relevance with 35 employees was the smallest.
About 300 competitors and their supporters were expected to attend the games, Glynn said. She expected several hundred more for the after party that was held at the field around 6 p.m. at the end of the competition.
Jay Manickam, cofounder of uShip
“There’s a groundswell of support and a real interest among the startup teams in giving back to the community through charity and having fun together,” he said.
The games embody the startup culture in Austin of camaraderie, competition, collaboration, hard work and giving back by supporting local charities, Manickam said.
“The ultimate goal is to make this a national competition,” Manickam said. He envisions an annual Startup Olympics competition at South by Southwest with teams from other high-technology regions like Silicon Valley, Boston and New York. He’s already received interest from other regions.
Photo courtesy of Austin Startup Olympics
The Austin Chamber last week selected Capital Factory to create a downtown coworking space for technology entrepreneurs as part of its Austin Tech Live initiative.
Josh Baer, cofounder of Capital Factory, a technology accelerator program for entrepreneurs, discusses the new space in this video.
Also this week, Paul O’Brien with Cospace announced its partnership with Capital Factory to manage the new facility.
Cospace will manage operations and provide classes and events for Austin’s tech and entrepreneurship scene.
Cospace, known in Austin as the home to entrepreneurs focused on Lean business and product development, is a collaborative business community that has supported nearly two dozen startups, facilitated the launch of more than 50 products, and hosted over 1500 students through classes in technology and entrepreneurship.
Victor Rodriguez
Special to Silicon Hills News
About 800 Rackers (Rackspace employees) and members of the community attended the company’s 6th annual Green Day.
Rackspace held the event on Wednesday at its San Antonio headquarters.
San Antonio Backyard Chickens brought a bunch of chickens and educated Rackers on how to produce farm-fresh eggs in their own backyards.
As for refreshments, many people enjoyed trying out grass fed beef and goat burgers from Fresh Horizons.
Many Rackers scheduled demos at North Park Lexus and Cavender after seeing the green vehicles on display, including the sold out 2013 Range Rover Evoque.
This year’s Green Day kicked off the beginning of Rackspace’s mid-week Farmers Market. Rackers have always welcomed the event with great enthusiasm.
Every Wednesday, Rackspace will host a handful of vendors in the company’s parking lot from 4-7 p.m. as a convenient way to provide Rackers with fresh and local groceries. Now, Rackers and the public can conveniently grab local produce, eggs, meats, and other treats on their way home from work.
Rackspace is a sponsor of Silicon Hills News
It’s not high-speed rail, but any kind of effort to connect San Antonio and Austin and provide the free-flow of the workforce in the region is a welcome one.
Megabus.com will begin service in Texas on June 19th.
The express bus company is offering fares from $1 to travel to Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin.
Texas residents can also travel to Norman, Okla, Memphis, Tenn., Little Rock, Ark. and New Orleans for as low as $1.
In addition to affordable fares, megabus.com offers customers free Wi-Fi, power outlets and restrooms.
By YASMIN GHAHREMANI
Special Contributor to Silicon Hills News
Austin’s high-tech business and academic community is being courted by the research arm for the federal intelligence community. Officials from IARPA (Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity) were in town for a full-day session June 5 to meet with potential partners for R&D grants.
IARPA invests in high-risk, high-payoff research programs that will give the US an overwhelming intelligence advantage against future adversaries. Projects fall into three categories: incisive analysis, data collection, and safe and secure operations.
“We want to make it difficult for our adversaries to take down communications that we rely on for day-to-day life,” says Dr. Peter Highnam, acting director of IARPA.
Austin is the public launch site of the agency’s program to conduct round-table discussions with science and technology leaders outside the beltway. It piloted the idea in Raleigh-Durham, NC and is planning a trip to the West Coast. Highnam spent 10 years in Austin as manager and senior researcher at Schlumberger Computing Lab in the 1990s and knows its strengths as a growing technology hub with academic research muscle.
Secure chips
One of the more high-profile programs the agency is working on is called Trusted Integrated Chips. TIC aims to address the fact that the US lags in the production of very high-performance, high-volume chip foundries. Many of these fabrication plants are now in Taiwan, Singapore or China. “Our adversaries can exploit these capabilities,” says Dennis Polla, program manager of the TIC Program for IARPA. “We need to make sure the chips we use are free of bugs that can affect performance and also free of malicious circuits.”
To do so, TIC is researching a split-manufacturing system that would build security right into the chip. The transistor layers that make up 85 percent of the chip would be fabricated overseas, with the final metallization steps done at a trusted fab in the US. Those working on the transistor process would never have access to information about the design intentions of the chip.
IARPA will grant full research contracts for split-manufacturing by early July to foreign and US manufacturers. In the meantime, the agency has been working with SVTC as well as former UT professor Dim-Lee Kwong on some of the initial research for the program. Prof. Kwong is now the executive director for the Institute of Microelectronics in Singapore.
IARPA wants to see demonstrations of its split-manufacturing concept in six design systems, including mixed signal, MEMS-CMOS and power-CMOS.
Austin-based fisoc, Inc. has closed on a venture capital round with Greycroft Partners.
fisoc, founded in 2010, has more than 1,000 financial institutions as customers.
The company offers data analysis tools online so that banks and credit unions can offer rewards to their debit card customers enrolled in fisoc’s BuzzPoints program.
“We strongly believe that fisoc with their BuzzPoints Platform, product portfolio, management team, and a unique understanding of the intersection taking place between online financial services and social media will enable them to become a market leader,” Ellie Wheeler, Venture Capitalist at Greycroft Partners, said in a news release. “By combining financial services, social media and a rewards program for both bank customers and local merchants, fisoc is positioned to lead a transformation of the customer experience in the banking industry.”
Other investors participating in the financing round were Daylight Partners and angel investors. To date, fisoc has received more than $5 million in funding.
CSID has acquired Dataspaces Corp., based in London.
The Austin-based CSID, which specializes in identity protection, says the acquisition will increase its identity monitoring product offerings and expand its market globally.
The terms of the acquisitions were not disclosed.
Two new executives based in London will join CSID as a result of the acquisition. Andrew Clark will become the managing director of Europe, Middle East and Africa and Adam Tyler will become the company’s chief innovation officer.
“Dataspaces has built some amazing technology in the Internet surveillance space that will greatly improve the performance of our products, specifically CyberAgent,” CSID President Joe Ross said in a news statement. “Our newly combined companies will be able to offer greater levels of identity monitoring and alerting for individuals who have had their identities compromised or exposed on the dark side of the Web.
CSID has more than 120 customers globally. It has more than 100 employees in Austin, San Diego, Boston and London.
Water scarcity is a huge issue facing the world today.
And the University of Texas at San Antonio recognizes that. It has launched the Water Institute of Texas to promote water research. Nearly three dozen UTSA researchers currently are focusing on water issues.
The institute will help them collaborate and it will also provide access to data and other information to develop sustainability water strategies.
“Although water resources are immense, less than one percent of the world’s water is available for human consumption. Today, nearly 600,000 people around the world face a water shortage. In 2025, nearly three billion people will face a water shortage,” according to a news release from UTSA.
“Typically, we think of water shortages as problems that affect only third-world countries,” Mauli Agrawal, dean of the UTSA College of Engineering said in a news release. “However, water scarcity is a major issue for south Texas, where the land is arid and the population continues to grow. Locally, farmers, city residents, businesses, energy producers, the oil and gas industry and natural species all vie for water, leading to a unique spectrum of technological, social and political issues.”
The institute will focus on managing the current water supply, developing innovative water sources, enhancing water quality, community outreach and education and studying demographics and economics of water.
A.T. Papagiannakis, chair of the UTSA Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, will serve as the Institute’s interim director while UTSA conducts a national search for a permanent director.
