Presenting Experts:

Chris Curran
Principal & Technology and Strategy Leader, Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC)

Chris is an experienced technology professional, who works closely with clients on many of their most fundamental IT challenges. As an expert in technology innovation, Chris co-leads the advisory practice’s investments in new product offerings and technology strategy. Chris also spearheads PwC’s “Digital IQ Study,” in which 730 C-level business and technology executives express their beliefs about IT’s role in economic competition.

Chris is a regular contributor to industry journals such as CIO Leadership Forum, CIO Insight, Investor’s Business Daily, Baseline, InformationWeek, and Insurance and Technology. In addition, he is an active sponsor of the Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and serves on the MIS Quarterly Executive Advisory Board.

Audio Presentation:

Slide Presentation:

Mike Bartlett
President, Vital Art and Science, Incorporated

Mike is President of Vital Art and Science Incorporated (VAS) – an early stage medical equipment Start-up Company focused on providing home-based vision function monitoring for tracking of degenerative diseases of the eye, including Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy. VAS has won NIH/National Eye Institute Phase I and II SBIR Grants, a $1 million grant from the Emerging Technology Fund and is currently collaborating with a multinational Drug company to validate its first product.

As the founder of the North Texas Angel Network, a retired Vice President of High Speed Communications Products at Texas Instruments, Inc and board member of three start-ups. He has a unique background as a financier, entrepreneur and corporate leader.

Slide Presentation:

About the Gravity Center:
The Gravity Center is a collaborative workspace for tech start-ups and entrepreneurs to collaborate with other like-minded people. Sponsored by Alcatel-Lucent, our mission is to create an ecosystem of incredible start-up companies in North Texas, provide access to resources, capital, and networks, and organize educational events and workshops for the startups and the community in order to accelerate the development lifecycle of a start-up company. We are located above the AT&T Foundry on Alcatel-Lucent’s campus in Plano, TX.

Audio Version:

Pictures from the event:

Featured Innovators: Robert Sherrard & Steve Hebert, Founders, Nimbix

The MIT Enterprise Forum of Dallas/Fort Worth is proud to present its monthly innovation luncheon, featuring the start-up company Nimbix!  This month’s featured innovators are Robert Sherrard and Steve Hebert, co-founders of the cloud computing start-up. (http://www.nimbix.net).

Nimbix is a provider of cloud-based High Performance Computing infrastructure and applications. Nimbix offers hardware accelerated server platforms as a service through the Nimbix Accelerated Compute Cloud ™ Portal and dramatically speeds data processing for Life Sciences, Finance and Graphics applications.  Nimbix has established partnerships with NVIDIA and is a graduate of the Tech Wildcatters start-up accelerator program.

Robert and Steve will present the Nimbix story, from an idea to a product producing start-up.  The presentation will be more than just a “pitch”.  We will cover the value of Nimbix, its experiences and where it is heading in the future.  Audience interaction and feedback is highly encouraged.  The agenda is outlined below.

Agenda:

12:00 – 12:15 Chair’s Introduction and Forum Business

12:15 – 12:35 Innovation Presentation

12:35 – 12:45 Discussion and feedback

12:45 -  2:00 Lunch, Discussion and Networking

We will each order from the menu and pay our own lunch expenses.  Anyone interested in the MIT Enterprise Forum or innovation is encouraged to attend. Coming to our Monthly Meeting is how you get involved. You do not have to be an MIT Alum.

Location:
Texas Land and Cattle
812 S. Central Expressway
Richardson, TX 75080

Eagle-Eye Sensor Systems provides petroleum producers with instantaneous ‘Situational Awareness’ through the use of accurate measuring equipment coupled with real-time telemetry. If you are interested  in contacting Eagle Eye Sensors, check out their website http://www.eagleeyesensors.com.

Be sure to save the date for our next innovation luncheon  – March 10, 2012 from 12pm to 2pm.  Registration will open soon.

Featured Innovator: Ross Fosolino, President, Eagle-Eye Sensor Systems

The MIT Enterprise Forum of Dallas/Fort Worth has changed the format of its usual second Saturday business meeting! We are now featuring an entrepreneur, researcher or thought leader from the local area. This month’s featured innovator is the president of Eagle-Eye Sensor Systems, a local start-up.

Eagle-Eye Sensor Systems, Inc. (EESS) is in the business of allowing the petroleum producer to review and run his entire operation from his desktop, anywhere in the world. They provide petroleum producers instantaneous ‘Situational Awareness’ through the use of accurate measuring equipment coupled with real-time telemetry.

Ross will present his story of growing the company from an idea to a product producing start-up. Beginning with only his personal savings, Ross bootstrapped his company all the way. EESS has now finally made it to market and is beginning to elicit significant interest from the petroleum industry. We will hear about the EESS journey, where it is heading, mistakes made and successes enjoyed.

Agenda:

12:00 – 12:15 Chair’s Introduction and Forum Business

12:15 – 12:35 Innovation Presentation

12:35 – 2:00 Lunch, Discussion and Networking

We will each order from the menu and pay our own lunch expenses. Anyone interested in the MIT Enterprise Forum or innovation is encouraged to attend. Coming to our Monthly Meeting is how you get involved. You do not have to be an MIT Alum.

Location:
Texas Land and Cattle
812 S. Central Expressway
Richardson, TX 75080

Register Now

Dallas Startup Weekend

Dates: Friday Nov 20- Sunday Nov 22, 2009.
Location: Infomart, 1950 Stemmon Freeway, Dallas 75207

As contributor to the Global Entrepreneurship Week, MIT Enterprise Forum is proud to support the first Startup Weekend in Dallas, scheduled for Nov 20-22. If you ever wondered about the startup scene in DFW or wanted to make connections with the entrepreneurs, this is the event for you.

Check out the video from Startup Weekend Dallas

Other November Events:

MIT Enterprise Forum DFW is supporting UTA, the local partner with Kauffman Foundation to participate in the week of “Unleashing Ideas” event.Nov 17 – Free event on Branding for Entrepreneurs. See details in this brochure.

Nov 18 – The Texas governor’s office is sponsoring a free, one-day event on November 18, 2009 organized by the Small Business Development Center for Enterprise Excellence headquartered at UTA’s ARRI campus. Details are here.

First ever startup weekend in Dallas kicked off yesterday evening. Over 50 energetic and enthusiastic folks got together at Infomart over pizza and drinks, eager to pitch their ideas and to network. I think this is a great time for Dallas Fort Worth to build on the momentum that some of the successful local entrepreneurs have provided.  I enjoyed spending time with Marc, Gabriella, Steve, Ryan, Eddy, Alex and meeting Blake, Seth, John P, Jake, Jordan and  many others who were there.

There was a presentation by John P of Woopra, followed by 90 seconds pitches for ideas. The 25 or so ideas got interesting comments and responses by the crowd. Overall it was fun and interesting. Voting for the top ideas began around 9pm with each participant getting 2 dollar bills to stuff in the envelope of their favorite idea.

As you can see here, the brainstorming has already started. Let’s see how thing progress over the weekend!

The virtual event is on Monday, October 26th 12-1pm US EDT. Register here.

Learn in this interactive MasterClass how to:

Implement six strategic steps to become a dynamic catalyst company
Generate value by creating relationships among your different groups of customers
Create profitable and flexible business models by assembling audiences, cutting costs and connecting other companies

About the author:

Richard Schmalensee is the Howard W. Johnson Professor of Economics and Management at MIT and the Director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research. He served as the Dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management from 1998 through 2007.

He, along with colleague David Evans, developed a new area in the field of economics and business strategy that explores the design of business models that unleash the hidden value associated by getting multiple customer groups together on the same platform. He shares his findings in the Harvard Business School book with David called “Catalyst Code: The Strategies Behind the World’s Most Dynamic Companies”. He is a member of the National Commission on Energy Policy and a Director of the global Venture Capital firm IDG. He has served as a consultant to both corporations and government agencies.

Through TechQuest, small tech companies, university researchers, and industry technologists, the Innovation Providers, have an opportunity to present their technology-based ideas and business plans to a major company, an Innovation Seeker, from the Dallas/Ft.Worth area.  Those connections may result in technology licensing, funding, a customer/supplier relationship or a strategic partnership.

Innovation Providers are not required to be MTBC members nor do they need to have a location in DFW.

Here’s the information about the latest TechQuest program from Alcatel-Lucent. More information about the process is provided towards the end.

Problem Statement
The bandwidth of mobile uplinks and downlinks as well as data latency parameters promise to be much improved over currently available 3G services with the advent of LTE and 4G wireless broadband technologies. ALU is seeking applications and services that will benefit from this improved connectivity especially in these key areas:

• Public Safety
• Media and Entertainment
• eHealthcare
• eLearning

Background Information:
Long Term Evolution (LTE) and Fourth Generation wireless networks (4G) will provide much higher data rates for mobile devices and applications than existing solutions. The LTE specification is defined and telecommunications equipment vendors are already executing contracts with carriers to deploy LTE gear. The definition of 4G is a bit more nebulous as standards are still being defined; however 4G has objectives of 100Mbits/s bandwidth between any two points in the world (although much higher rates have been lab tested) and support of IPv6.

More information on LTE specifications can be found at http://www.3gpp.org/article/lte.

To submit an application for the Alcatel-Lucent TechQuest, click here.

More About TechQuest

Process - Click here to learn more.

Current Innovation Seeker – Click here to find out the current TechQuest Innovation Seeker company.

Previous Innovation Seekers – You can still apply to previous TechQuests.  To learn more, click here.

Disclaimer – Important notice regarding participating in TechQuest.  Click here to learn more.