Austin Startup Week kicks off Monday with a focus on women in technology.

But this year, instead of gathering at Capital Factory in downtown Austin, everyone is joining remotely from home offices everywhere.

It’s the 10^th annual event and no one could have imagined that a decade later this event would need to take place in the virtual world because of the COVID-19 pandemic that has caused a lot of us to go on lockdown.

But thanks to its organizers, Jacqueline Hughes and Joshua Baer, the show does go on in a virtual venue called Hopin. And the lineup is pretty spectacular. It even features a Startup Crawl showcasing dozens of startups that will take place on Tuesday evening using the virtual platform Sococo.

On Monday, the women in tech summit features an hour-long fireside chat at 12:05 p.m. with Courtney Caldwell, co-founder and CEO of ShearShare and Nancy Fecnay, angel investor and entrepreneur in residence at Notley Ventures.

And at 2:20 p.m., an event organized by DivInc called Sistas on the Rise: The Challenges and Successes of Women of Color Founders featuring Janice Omadeke, founder of The Mentor Method, April Dominguez, founder of Handsome App,  Zawadi Bryant, CEO of Nightlight Pediatric Urgent Care and Rima Imad Fadlallah, Founder of Thawra Network.

At 3:15 p.m. Gordon Daugherty of Capital Factory will do a Fireside Chat with Nicole Glaros, Chief Investment Strategy Officer of Techstars.

And at 4 p.m., a Women in Tech Startup Showcase takes place featuring Mollie Duckworth, partner at Baker Botts, Jim Breyer, Founder and CEO of Breyer Capital, Brittany Hill, Founder and CEO of Accelerist, Ari Palmer, Founder and CEO of TaxTaker, Wei Escala, CEO of Eggschain, Monica Landers, Founder and CEO of StoryFit, Toni Portmann, Walkabout Collaborative and Kerry Rupp, general partner of True Wealth Ventures.

The day concludes with more than a dozen speakers from throughout Austin’s technology ecosystem talking about The 2020 State of Entrepreneurship.

NASA wants to go to the Moon and Mars and stay there awhile.

And it’s contracted with Austin-based ICON to begin research and development of a space-based construction system.

ICON is known for its massive 3-D printers that can build a home in less than a day using a concrete substrate.

“Building humanity’s first home on another world will be the most ambitious construction project in human history and will push science, engineering, technology and architecture to literal new heights,” Jason Ballard, Co-founder and CEO of ICON, said in a news release.  “NASA’s investment in space-age technologies like this can not only help to advance humanity’s future in space, but also to solve very real, vexing problems we face on Earth. We are honored to begin our research and development on ICON’s “Project Olympus” and the “Olympus Construction System.”

ICON received a government Small Business Innovation Research contract through the U.S. Air Force and funding from NASA to build the Moon settlement.

“To be successful in our future missions, we have to invest in new, cutting-edge technologies today,” Niki Werkheiser, NASA’s Game Changing Development program executive, said in a statement. The program is part of the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. “Near-term research and development will help ensure we can expand building capabilities on other worlds when the time comes.

Through its Artemis program, NASA wants to establish a habitat on the Moon by the end of the decade.

“For a permanent lunar presence to exist, robust structures will need to be built on the Moon that provides better thermal, radiation, and micrometeorite protection than metal or inflatable habitats can provide,” according to ICON.

ICON is working on the project with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “The new partnership builds upon technology ICON demonstrated during NASA’s 3D Printed Habitat Challenge in 2018,” according to ICON.

“We want to increase the technology readiness level and test systems to prove it would be feasible to develop a large-scale 3D printer that could build infrastructure on the Moon or Mars,” Corky Clinton, associate director of Marshall’s Science and Technology Office, said in a news statement. “The team will use what we learn from the tests with the lunar simulant to design, develop, and demonstrate prototype elements for a full-scale additive construction system.”

ICON is also working with BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, renowned for its iconic international architecture and SEArch+ (Space Exploration Architecture), a company recognized on a global scale for their innovative ‘human-centered’ designs for space exploration.

ICON’s Project Olympus – Off-world Construction System for the Moon

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MassChallenge’s Austin accelerator has announced its top 12 startup finalists for 2020.

The startups will compete for $500,000 in cash prizes with winners announced on Thursday, Oct. 22 during a virtual awards ceremony.

“While the world continues to settle into the digital environment, business owners, executives, and governments are seeking innovative ways to operate fully, get people back to work, and meet the needs of their customers,” Mike Millard, managing director of MassChallenge Texas in Austin, said in a news statement. “The startups in this year’s MassChallenge Texas in Austin program have solutions that can address these issues head-on.”

MassChallenge Texas held its four-month accelerator for 58 startups online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2020 MassChallenge Austin Finalists:

At Ease Rentals Corp. of Round Rock: temporary housing for military and federal employees.

Civic Champs of Bloomington, Indiana: creates a mobile platform for nonprofit organizations to organize and engage with volunteers.

Class2Class of Bryan: A collaborative learning platform that brings together universities, businesses, and other organizations to work on projects.

Code 1 Medical Devices of St. Petersburg, Florida: A medical device that prevents aspiration of stomach contents into the lungs.

CUE Audio of Franklin, Tennessee: CUE transmits data between any microphone and speaker using sound waves.

DanceFight of Austin: DanceFight is a mobile dance competition platform.

Locker Lifestyle of Orland Park, Illinois: created a wearable wrist wallet to stash cash, keys, phone, ID, and other objects.

Muxy of Austin: created software that allows broadcasters to interact with viewers.

RealKey of San Francisco: a mortgage processing platform.

Weeve of Austin: a platform for employee surveys and feedback so employers can retain their top talent.

WriterDuet of Austin: A real-time collaboration platform for writers, filmmakers, game developers, and other creative teams.

Xpan of Toronto, Canada: It has developed a less invasive universal port that aims to maximize the safety and efficiency of minimally invasive surgery.

For 2021, South by Southwest is launching SXSW Online.

“The challenge of building a new future is one that we’re excited to tackle,” Roland Swenson, CEO, and Co-Founder of SXSW said in a statement. “This has been such a year of change and we, like the entire world, are reshaping our perspective on how we connect.”

The dates for SXSW Online take place from March 16 through March 20^th. And SXSW EDU will precede it from March 9 through March 11. The digital event will feature conference keynotes and sessions, screenings, showcases, networking, and exhibitions.

SXSW is accepting PanelPicker entries for its SXSW, SXSW EDU, and the film festival beginning Tuesday, Oct. 6^th.

SXSW also plans to curate programming for its music festival by its staff with a priority on those selected for the 2020 event.

In addition to the online event, SXSW is working with the City of Austin and public health authorities for an in-person event. It will provide more details in the future. Large in-person gatherings are still prohibited in Texas due to the threat of spreading Coronavirus.

For 2020, Austin City officials canceled SXSW a week before the event was set to take place. At the time, there were no COVID-19 cases in Austin yet and only a handful of cases in Texas overall. But the virus had already taken hold in Asia and Europe and was beginning to spread in the U.S.

The cancellation of SXSW was a huge blow to the Austin economy. In 2019, SXSW attracted 417,400 people to Austin including participation from more than 100 countries. It also had an impact on the Austin economy of $355.9 million, according to SXSW.

Babson Diagnostics has closed on $13.7 million in funding.

Siemens Healthineers, Prism Ventures, Genesis Merchant Capital, and Lago Consulting Group led the Series A funding.

In addition to the funding news, Babson has also appointed David Stein, Ph.D., former head of global strategy and innovation at Siemens Healthineers to CEO. Eric Olson, Babson’s founder, and former CEO will assume the roles of chairman of the board and chief operating officer.

Babson Diagnostics, incubated at Siemens Healthineers, has created technology that analyzes blood samples using a small sample from a finger prick.

“With our strategic partnerships, clinical studies, and research and development programs in place with key retail partners, this financing moves our company into a crucial commercialization phase,” Olson, Babson’s founder, said in a news release. “Together with our growing team and a strong network of strategic partners, we will realize our mission to improve our customers’ health by making diagnostic blood testing more convenient, accessible, and human.”

The company plans to roll out its technology at retail locations throughout the country.

Babson’s first-generation SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody test received FDA emergency use authorization in June. The company’s antibody test is offered free of charge to essential front-line pharmacy and grocery workforces and is currently in use in clinical studies with leading research centers such as Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin.

Austin Startup, SigmaSense just closed on $22 million in funding to make touch screen devices perform better.

The company, founded in 2015, received the Series A funding led by Foxconn Technology Group, which is the world’s largest contract manufacturer of electronics with customers like Apple, Dell, and Sony.

Other investors participating included Corning, E Ink, GIS, and MRI and former Dell CFO Tom Meredith also participated in the round.

SigmaSense recently opened its new headquarters in north Austin and has a strong development team in Boise, Idaho. The company also maintains a customer and engineering support operation in Taiwan and is an active member of the Silicon Catalyst network.

SigmaSense plans to use the funds raised to make its touch solutions the stand in the $4.7 billion interactive display market, which spans from mobile phones and laptops to large interactive digital signage and whiteboards. SigmaSense will spend the funds developing its semiconductor and software solutions.

It plans to put its technology in in-person touchless order kiosks for the hospitality industry and home entertainment applications.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a strong demand for “touchless” technology and that’s what SigmaSense is going to focus on. It sees opportunities in automobiles, consumer devices, medical products and industrial applications.

“This financing and powerful syndicate provide a strong endorsement of SigmaSense’s technology breakthrough and the impact across market opportunities,” Rick Seger, SigmaSense’s CEO, said in a news release. “Our team has spent years developing new touch experiences that outpace the market and will shift expectations across multiple multi-billion-dollar markets. From foldable phones to large-screen game tables, this new technology provides far better experiences.”

SigmaSense’s technology also reduces costs while boosting performance, according to the company.

“SigmaSense is delivering an exciting new sensing technology and we look forward to bringing some of their amazing touch capabilities to our interactive ePaper displays,” Johnson Lee, CEO at E Ink Holdings said in a news release. “E Ink is devoted to strengthening its ePaper ecosystem. With the collaboration with SigmaSense, E Ink will be able to offer new technology to our customers to enhance their products.”

SigmaSense’s reduced voltage and noise immunity properties create better large screen touch technology, according to MRI, which has an outdoor sign subsidiary.

“We’ve been the leader in building ruggedized outdoor displays for years, but with the shift to interactive digital signage, all new opportunities are emerging,” said Bill Dunn, CEO of MRI. “SigmaSense performs reliably in rain, heat or cold, which is an extreme engineering challenge. Simply put, they have nailed it, by providing reliable sensing through thick, vandal-proof glass while wearing gloves.”

To spur innovations in geographic exploration for oil, Shell has launched a new innovation studio in Austin.

It’s called Studio X and it launched this month with three initial products focused on the future of exploration and discovery. This is Shell’s first innovation studio in the United States. The company, founded in 1907 as Royal Dutch Shell, is better known as just Shell. It is a global energy company with more than 80,000 employees and 2019 revenues of more than $344 billion.

In 2016, Shell made Fast Company’s most innovative companies list for its use of big data, and analytics. Shell used fiber optic cables to collect readings from oil well sites then crunched that data and analyzed it to determine lifetime productivity. That technology helped the oil giant to more effectively invest in productive oil sites.

Studio X is a place for entrepreneurs, data scientists, geoscientists, software engineers to crowdsource ideas to solve major challenges in energy exploration, according to a news release.

For example, Xeek, offers challenges for innovators to solve. Many of them come with a cash prize. One of the challenges that is launching soon is called “The Rock, the Strike, and the Dip.” “To figure out how the Earth has changed through time geologists collect “strikes and dips” (orientation and angle) from rock outcrops.” The challenge asks someone to come up with a solution to take the measurements using satellite images and radar digital elevation models. The challenge which launches soon has a $10,000 prize.

Studio X also is launching XCover, which is a global talent network for virtual exploration projects. It matches geoscientists to exploration projects. And its incubator, SixLab, provides exploration entrepreneurs with mentors, resources, and facilities.

“Studio X brings tech advances at a challenging time for exploration and the global economy,” Mauhan Zonoozy, Acting GM of Studio X, said in a news release. “The technology within will lead to better ways of working in the exploration field — increasing collaboration and ultimately improving outcomes. Studio X will fuel big ideas, connect a network of global talent with remote work opportunities, empower and guide entrepreneurs and startups, and crowdsource bold solutions to make the ideas of today into the industry-leading tools of tomorrow.”

Studio X is focused on collaboration and breaking down industry silos.

“Studio X was developed by Shell to reimagine the future of work in exploration,” said Marc Gerrits, Shell’s Executive Vice President of Global Exploration. “To meet increasing global energy demand, oil and gas will remain an element of the energy mix for decades to come. By harnessing efficiencies, embracing new technologies, and deploying digital capabilities, Studio X will be at the forefront as the exploration profession evolves.”

Austin-based Hypergiant Industries, which is focused on creating new products using artificial intelligence for businesses, has hired a heavy-hitter in the software industry, Mohammed Farooq, as its new Chief Technology Officer and GM Products.

Farooq also joining Hypergiant Industries’ board of directors. He previously worked as general manager with IBM Global Technology Services where he helped to build IBM’s hybrid and multi-cloud managed services business into a $35 billion business.

He joined IBM upon IBM’s acquisition of Farooq’s cloud software company, Gravitant, a pioneer in the hybrid multi-cloud market space. Before that, Farooq worked as Chief Technology Officer for the State of Texas for six years.

“Mohammed is a leader with decades of experience in the software industry particularly focused on scaling large software businesses. He helped transform IBM’s clients to digital and AI enterprises driven by hybrid and multi-cloud architectures that Mohammed developed,” Ben Lamm, CEO of Hypergiant Industries, said in a news release. “It has been a pleasure working with Mohammed on Hypergiant’s core offerings, Go To Market strategies and technology portfolio, and now officially bringing him on full time to the company.”

At Hypergiant Industries, Farooq will have a technical and operations role in developing Hypergiant’s core AI platform and distributed cloud services.

“I’m excited to further lead the development of the core distributed AI technology platform and SaaS applications portfolio for Hypergiant,” Farooq said in a statement. “Hypergiant is successfully enabling AI solutions with clients in the Space, Defense, and Industry Supply Chain verticals. It’s exciting to work with these client use cases to deliver the next generation distributed cloud and AI offerings spanning clouds, edge, IoT, and 5G technologies. Hypergiant hits the market at the perfect time and has the right talent, culture, and leadership to accelerate that timing. I’m thrilled to be taking on a leadership role in guiding the organization forward.”

Hypergiant serves clients in space, defense, and critical infrastructure. It has recent partnerships with the United States Air Force and Sumitomo in Japan.

Hypergiant has been making several key new hires in the last year bringing on Mark Arnold, as its vice president of corporate development, Mark Katz as Deputy General Counsel, and Will Griffin as its vice president of ethics and diversity.

Hypergiant Industries, founded in 2018, has 200 employees with offices in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.

Austin Jewelry Mogul Kendra Scott has joined the cast of Shark Tank as a guest shark.

The 12^th season of the Emmy-award winning entrepreneurial pitch show kicks off Friday, Oct. 16^th at 7 p.m. central time on ABC News. The show features scrappy entrepreneurs looking for funding for their bright ideas.

Scott is an accomplished entrepreneur who founded her own jewelry business 19-years-ago in a spare bedroom of her house with just $500. At the time, she also had a three-month-old son. She overcame so many obstacles while building her namesake jewelry company into the global powerhouse brand it is today.

Today, Kendra Scott has over more than 2,000 employees, 100 standalone stores across the US and is sold in premiere retailers including Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, and 600 specialty boutiques worldwide and boasts a thriving web business. It has also expanded into fine jewelry, home décor, and beauty products.

In a promo for the show, Scott tells a person pitching the sharks “I’m one of only 20 women who have built a billion-dollar brand and I can help you become a unicorn too.”

In 2019, Scott made Forbes’ list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women with an estimated net worth of $550 million, according to Forbes.

Last year, Scott launched the Kendra Scott Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute, known as the WEL Institute, at the University of Texas at Austin. And this year, she joined the faculty at the university to co-teach Women in Entrepreneurship. Scott is a professor of practice in the College of Fine Arts. She teaches the class along with Jan Ryan, professor of practice and executive director of the Center for Creative Entrepreneurship. The course is being taught online.

The other guest sharks to join for Season 12 of Shark Tank include Daniel Lubetzky, founder and executive chairman of Kind Snacks, Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS, and Alex Rodriguez, three-time MVP and 14-time All-Star, World Series Champ baseball shortstop and third baseman and CEO of ARodCorp. The guests join the regular cast of Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran, Robert Herjavec, Daymond James, Kevin O’Leary, and Lori Greiner.

Several Austin-based startups have appeared on Shark Tank throughout the years including Eterneva, a diamond memorial company, EverlyWell, an at-home testing company, PopUp Play, an app for customized playhouses, Chi’Lantro BBQ, Mexican-Korean BBQ chain, and BeatBox Beverage, the seller of wine-based punch in a box.

The old saying is out of hardship and adversity comes innovation.

Just take a look at the University of Texas’ McCombs School of Business and its use of a hologram application called Recourse to beam a professor into the classroom during the Coronavirus pandemic.

The application is the brainchild of Contextual Content Group, a new startup headed up by serial entrepreneur Jim Spencer. He sold his last venture, Newsy, an early mobile and streaming video online news service, for $35 million to E.W. Scripps Company in 2013. Before that, Spencer served as vice president at Ask Jeeves, general manager of news and information programming at AOL, and executive director of strategic partnerships at NBC.

Spencer moved to Austin a few years ago and he has been teaching a class on business journalism at UT and working on his next startup.

“COVID greatly accelerated remote working and distance learning and it pushed everything forward,” Spencer said.

Earlier this year, Spencer formed Contextual Content Group, which now has four employees. Its first project is Recourse, the holographic educational application. They pivoted the company and got the project up and running in 90 days, Spencer said. The 3-D immersive video combines in-person and online teaching.

“Probably the most rewarding thing about this is that it is an inspiration to be solving a real problem with a real customer,” Spencer said.

UT McCombs School of Business hired Contextual Content Group to make its classrooms safe for both professors and students during the COVID-19 pandemic. UT wanted to go beyond video and bring something really engaging and innovative to students, Spencer said.

At the end of August, UT kicked off the fall semester with fewer students on campus because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic More than 75 percent of the seats in classes are offered online with only five percent offered fully in person, according to UT. The rest of the classes are offered through hybrid courses that mix online and in-person elements.

The benefits of using Recourse in the classroom are that it keeps the professor safe in an enhanced teaching setting, according to UT. It also greatly enhances the student learning experience.

“We knew we could make the digital experience better,” Joe Stephens, senior assistant dean, and director of working professional and executive MBA programs said in a news release.

Recourse is being produced at IC2 Institute at UT. The professor is in a studio with a green screen and his full-body image is captured by multiple cameras. Then the 3-D holographic image is beamed into a UT classroom for socially distanced students to watch in person and to students off-campus via Zoom.

A producer is in the studio to handle all aspects of the broadcast, Spencer said. The professor doesn’t have to learn anything about technology. He needs to only focus on his lessons and the students, Spencer said.

“What you want the professors to focus on their passion and what they’re paid to do is to teach,” Spencer said.  “It’s what they love to do and want they want to do.”

The professor also has three 65-inch high-resolution monitors facing him projecting images of the students in the classroom and at home. He can interact with them in real-time and answer questions live – just like a classroom.

Recourse is currently being used in accounting professor Steve Limberg’s Executive MBA class.

“This is an authentic experience because I can see all the gestures and the nuances that students are expressing, whether it be raising a hand or nodding, and as a result, it really is very much like being right here in the classroom,” Limberg said in a news statement.

Recourse delivers high-bandwidth video with high-quality audio with little or no latency in the experience, Spencer said. It really enables the students to engage with the professor as if they were present in the same classroom, he said.

UT’s McCombs School of Business is using the technology to teach a fall 2020 executive MBA accounting class but plans to roll it out to other classrooms in the future. The response from students has been positive, according to UT.

In addition to Recourse, Contextual Content Group plans to roll out other applications, Spencer said. Its next step will be to build its next product using natural language processing and artificial intelligence to create an on-demand immersive video experience, Spencer said.

Hologram Technology Launches Classroom of the Future | McCombs School of Business

The McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin has contracted with Austin-based Contextual Content Group to create a new 3D immersive video solution known as Recourse that combines in-person, hybrid and online teaching to deliver an engaging and interactive distanced learning experience.