Here is the latest innovation news in Texas:
—Officials with South By Southwest were in Houston recently drumming up support for the upcoming V2V event in Las Vegas next month, as well as launch the Panel Picker program for next year’s next year’s festival. The program is the process by which a large number of SXSW panels are chosen. Have an idea? Enter your suggestion here; the deadline is July 24.
—SparkCognition, an Austin, TX-based artificial intelligence software company, says it can identify safety and security problems in the energy industry, among others, and do it faster and more efficiently than a human could. Xconomy’s David Holley reports on the company’s growth.
—A group of grade-schoolers from the British International School of Houston held a demo day at the Texas Medical Center’s accelerator, TMCx. Learn more about their health IT inventions, from more comfortable crutches to a sensors-and-camera system that can soothe an irritated baby.
—Have you met Exome? Xconomy’s life sciences and biotech coverage has a new home and Exome has additional features such as “Deal of the Day” and “People on the Move.”
—While Houston has made strides recently in building up its life sciences commercialization scene—think TMCx, new investments by Fannin Innovation Studios, BioHouston’s events—Austin is also developing its own biotech cluster.
—Houston Health Ventures has invested in an app created by North Carolina-based InRFood. The company says it can help us make better food choices. Founder Keval Mehta says not all calories are equal and the app shows how to differentiate between the good and the bad with its database of 500,000 products and 650 restaurants.
—Austin’s Aeglea BioTherapeutics is the latest Texas biotech company to file for an IPO. Aeglea is developing a drug that would essentially starve cancers to death.
