Recently, The DEC Network announced the initial cohort of the six companies selected for its Innov8te Smart Cities Incubator in its flagship West End Dallas, Texas location. The location is focused on supporting entrepreneurs and early-stage companies in sectors supporting urban and civic transformation. Founding public, private and academic collaborators include AT&T, Cisco,Microsoft, the University of Texas at Dallas(UT Dallas) and the Dallas Innovation Alliance.
This incubator’s presence in the Dallas Innovation District and Smart Cities Living Lab continues to drive a focus on smart city technology research and development for the region. “Startup City Hall” will be housed within Innov8te to provide senior leaders at the city a dedicated office amongst the companies and ideas building from within the incubator to discuss ideas and solutions to address challenges facing the city.
The founding cohort includes:
- CityFront: CityFront’s Smart Cities Integration Platform is an integration platform for local government. CityFront seeks to solve the integration problem that is inherent in local governments by linking data between siloed systems, thus creating a unified view of the city’s data via one mobile app experience.
- OrgCentral: OrgCentral is a web-based system designed to centralize and organize the vast amount of dynamic information and tasks every organization has to deal with today. It integrates a suite of tools designed to let users manage public facing websites and staff intranets, and streamline and automate business processes.
- Planet Alpha Corp: Planet Alpha Corporation (PαC) is a greenhouse gas (GHG) measurement infrastructure, GHG pricing, and GHG products company integrating multiple Earth, economic, and social transactions to reduce emissions of GHGs. PαC creates new forest carbon storage products by commercializing and deploying patented technologies and services developed by Planetary Emissions Management Inc. (PEM). PαC has entered into a license and collaboration agreement, whereby PαC will be able to use PEM’s patented technologies.
- RedHouse: RedHouse Virtual Education is a team of educators, developers, designers and innovators founded in 2016 to change and develop the new medium for education by using VR and mix reality application for Microsoft HoloLens and ViVE device. RedHouse said that Virtual Education will engage students at a higher level of cognitive education and will advance students by advancing their learning through a “theory of successful intelligence” models.
- Stroll: Stroll provides patented, “smart-city” marketing and analytics technology designed to empower cities, tourism boards and merchants to drive and track regional economic development and commerce in near real-time.
- The Virtual Wild: An Innovation Studio, marketing agency, engineering firm and a creative design group all in one. The Virtual Wild is home to experts in everything from engineering to creative strategy — blurring the boundaries between marketing, art, and technology.
The cohort was introduced at the Dallas Innovation Alliance’s Munch & Learn event and will begin the six-month program in June.
“We are excited to announce the inaugural cohort of companies for the Innov8te Smart Cities Incubator out of our West End location,” stated Alyce Alston, CEO, The DEC Network. “We are grateful for the cooperation of these leading companies and universities in the Smart Cities space. And we are thrilled to support the great work that the Dallas Innovation Alliance has done in partnership with the City of Dallas and its collaborators through the Smart Cities Living Lab and the Dallas Innovation District. We look forward to bringing our background and experience in helping to accelerate startups through education, mentorship, and community to this important initiative.”
By taking a regional approach, the incubator’s mission is to support and highlight the burgeoning DFW ecosystem of companies focused on building products and technologies in sub-sectors including data analytics and visualization, Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, blockchain, augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR), and beyond. The application of these technologies seeks to improve eight areas of civic innovation:
- Citizen Engagement/Services
- Equity/Inclusion
- Infrastructure
- Governance
- Mobility
- Public Health/Healthcare
- Public Safety
- Sustainability
“We have appreciated our partnership with The Dallas Innovation Alliance over the past three years,” stated T.C. Broadnax, City Manager, City of Dallas. “The City’s Chief Information Officer and inaugural Chief Innovation Officer look forward to finding ways to engage with these emerging tech companies as we formulate non-traditional approaches and solutions to the needs of our city and residents.”
Participating startups in the six-month program will receive exclusive access to education, mentorship, networking, programming, products and services, connections to leading corporations and access to capital channels. Programs and events open to the larger community will also be offered by the incubator.
“Through our work with the Dallas Innovation Alliance and Innovation District, we’ve had a front-row seat for Dallas’ entrepreneurial and civic innovation enabled by smart cities technology,” said Mike Zeto, VP and GM, Smart Cities, AT&T. “By providing resources, education and training to the Innov8te Smart Cities Incubator, we can empower bright minds in our city to address today’s greatest challenges and effectively grow the smart city solutions marketplace.”
Edited by
Ken Briodagh
