If you were a fly on the wall observing today's Beta Summit Finalist Selection, you have to feel that San Antonio is truly producing some great technology.
Advitech, a San Antonio company, kicked off the competition today with a demo on a tool designed to combat spatial disorientation and motion sickness. Next up, the Denim Group showed a new app to help security companies deal with security attacks at Level 7 breaches.
Pear Analytics, the winner of last year's competition, has designed a new app that embraces ways to enhance the work they presented at the first Beta Summit. Gizaplex followed that pitch to talk about their algorithm that tracks social media opinions.
Judd Maroney, OKHotShot, next demonstrated his collaborative software to judges. Andrew Ticket, a member of the Pawaa software board, demonstrated his firm's data leak protection software.
Cliff Zintgraff, chief executive officer, DaVinciMinds, Inc., showed software and its science, technology, math and engineering applications. One of their new "green energy" apps will feature an energy brownout that requires them to find alternative ways to provide energy.
The six finalists will demonstrate their products or services March 5 as part of the Innotech trade show at the Norris Conference Center.
At Innotech, we want to thank Dean McCall for chairing the event for us.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Nichols shares vision on how San Antonio can succeed with emerging medical technology
Paul Nichols, the keynote speaker for the San Antonio Emerging Medical Technologies luncheon, March 3, sat down with Matt Scherer, our event's publicist, for an interview about his presentation.
Innotech: As someone who lives in San Diego, you are probably aware that your home town and San Antonio have some similarities with a large military base, major health centers and great weather. Many in San Antonio believe that San Diego is ahead of us in terms of emerging medical technology development. What does our city need to do to be on the same level as San Diego?
Nichols: San Diego is home to many prominent medical research institutions that serve as a wellspring for both intellectual property and human capital. The medical school at the University of California at San Diego was rated in the top ten in the country after graduating its first class. The university’s biology department was a leading pioneer in biotechnology research in the 1970s. The Salk Institute, the Scripps Research Institute and the Burnham Institute, all world renowned life science research centers, are located within walking distance of the USCD campus.
UCSD Connect was founded in 1985 to provide a forum to share expertise among the institutional research, university, venture investment and entrepreneur communities. Connect is considered the most successful organization of its type and has served as a model for over 40 similar organizations worldwide. If San Antonio does not have an organization with a similar mission the leaders in med tech community might benefit from looking at the success of the Connect model.
Innotech: You have helped lead the process for new emerging medical technology. Surely, there's a need for more development in this area, and so I am wondering where you think the next opportunities might arise?
Nichols: Technologies that meaningfully reduce the cost of healthcare (while maintaining or improving clinical outcomes) are the “sweet spot” of the future. I believe many opportunities exist in the medical device field to improve procedure and treatment efficiencies.
Innotech: What are the biggest challenges facing those who want to pursue business development opportunities within emerging medical technology?
Nichols: Access to capital has become very difficult since September 2008. Fundable opportunities must be both meaningfully impact outcomes and reduce healthcare costs. Entrepreneurs must find creative, capital efficient pathways to value creation. And then there’s the FDA….
Innotech: As someone who lives in San Diego, you are probably aware that your home town and San Antonio have some similarities with a large military base, major health centers and great weather. Many in San Antonio believe that San Diego is ahead of us in terms of emerging medical technology development. What does our city need to do to be on the same level as San Diego?
Nichols: San Diego is home to many prominent medical research institutions that serve as a wellspring for both intellectual property and human capital. The medical school at the University of California at San Diego was rated in the top ten in the country after graduating its first class. The university’s biology department was a leading pioneer in biotechnology research in the 1970s. The Salk Institute, the Scripps Research Institute and the Burnham Institute, all world renowned life science research centers, are located within walking distance of the USCD campus.
UCSD Connect was founded in 1985 to provide a forum to share expertise among the institutional research, university, venture investment and entrepreneur communities. Connect is considered the most successful organization of its type and has served as a model for over 40 similar organizations worldwide. If San Antonio does not have an organization with a similar mission the leaders in med tech community might benefit from looking at the success of the Connect model.
Innotech: You have helped lead the process for new emerging medical technology. Surely, there's a need for more development in this area, and so I am wondering where you think the next opportunities might arise?
Nichols: Technologies that meaningfully reduce the cost of healthcare (while maintaining or improving clinical outcomes) are the “sweet spot” of the future. I believe many opportunities exist in the medical device field to improve procedure and treatment efficiencies.
Innotech: What are the biggest challenges facing those who want to pursue business development opportunities within emerging medical technology?
Nichols: Access to capital has become very difficult since September 2008. Fundable opportunities must be both meaningfully impact outcomes and reduce healthcare costs. Entrepreneurs must find creative, capital efficient pathways to value creation. And then there’s the FDA….
Friday, February 12, 2010
Beta summit still looking for more applicants
We are still looking for a few good technical startups to apply for a panel position at this year's Beta Summit March 4.
So far, the Rackspace/Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce event has attracted five firms. However, there is still an opportunity for others to apply by next Tuesday.
"We are working with various technology groups to get the word out, but we can always use a few more applicants," Dean McCall, the chairman of this year's competition, said.
Last year, the initial response had 11 companies applying for six spots at the first beta summit with Ryan Kelly and Pear Analytics winning the first competition.
Businesses interested in applying for the Beta Summit can call Rodriguez at 503-841-5285.
So far, the Rackspace/Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce event has attracted five firms. However, there is still an opportunity for others to apply by next Tuesday.
"We are working with various technology groups to get the word out, but we can always use a few more applicants," Dean McCall, the chairman of this year's competition, said.
Last year, the initial response had 11 companies applying for six spots at the first beta summit with Ryan Kelly and Pear Analytics winning the first competition.
Businesses interested in applying for the Beta Summit can call Rodriguez at 503-841-5285.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Qs and As with Jeff Reich about his upcoming panel at Innotech
Q.1: As the director of operations for the Institute for CyberSecurity at the University of Texas at San Antonio, it would seem
natural that you would speak on a security issue. Yet, you are
serving as the program chair for "The Future of CIOs" at the March 4
Innotech. What inspired you to want to be part of this discussion?
Jeff Reich: The future of IT and of CIOs intrigues me because I believe that we have witnessed the emergence of another generation of IT and more importantly, how IT will be used. Enterprises have so many choices now when it comes to technology decisions that rules we used two years ago may no longer apply. Individual business units can now leverage technology available to them that may not require much of the traditional IT infrastructure and resources.
Q.2: How will the roles for technical management change for CIOs in the future? And, what are some of the biggest challenges to CIOs as well?
Jeff Reich; I think that the major change in store for CIOs is the role that they play across the business. Instead of being the manager of all IT resources for the enterprise, CIOs will take on a role of consulting business units in how technology can work for them, and which services they may want to use directly from a provider, possibly without using many IT resources.
Q.3: While I know you have spoken a lot on cloud security, how will cloud data storage impact businesses?
Jeff Reich: I think that the success of cloud computing will affect business in two major areas. The amount of money that they spend on technology resources and how they spend it will shift. A lot of typical capital expenses will now be treated as operating expenses as technology shifts to delivering services instead of simply resources. The second major affect will be how business protect their assets. Appropriate controls will probably need to shift more towards the application and not have as much focus on the data.
Q.4: Is there anything else you wish to add about your panel discussion?
[Jeff Reich] I think that this panel discussion get people thinking about what is next for IT and what role they can play in it.
natural that you would speak on a security issue. Yet, you are
serving as the program chair for "The Future of CIOs" at the March 4
Innotech. What inspired you to want to be part of this discussion?
Jeff Reich: The future of IT and of CIOs intrigues me because I believe that we have witnessed the emergence of another generation of IT and more importantly, how IT will be used. Enterprises have so many choices now when it comes to technology decisions that rules we used two years ago may no longer apply. Individual business units can now leverage technology available to them that may not require much of the traditional IT infrastructure and resources.
Q.2: How will the roles for technical management change for CIOs in the future? And, what are some of the biggest challenges to CIOs as well?
Jeff Reich; I think that the major change in store for CIOs is the role that they play across the business. Instead of being the manager of all IT resources for the enterprise, CIOs will take on a role of consulting business units in how technology can work for them, and which services they may want to use directly from a provider, possibly without using many IT resources.
Q.3: While I know you have spoken a lot on cloud security, how will cloud data storage impact businesses?
Jeff Reich: I think that the success of cloud computing will affect business in two major areas. The amount of money that they spend on technology resources and how they spend it will shift. A lot of typical capital expenses will now be treated as operating expenses as technology shifts to delivering services instead of simply resources. The second major affect will be how business protect their assets. Appropriate controls will probably need to shift more towards the application and not have as much focus on the data.
Q.4: Is there anything else you wish to add about your panel discussion?
[Jeff Reich] I think that this panel discussion get people thinking about what is next for IT and what role they can play in it.
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