ENRICH in the USA Smart City Landing Hub

Located in Dallas, Texas and hosted by the Dallas Innovation Alliance (DIA) and their Innov8te Incubator, the Smart City Landing Hub welcomes EU research, innovation, and business stakeholders who work within smart city applications.

The city of Dallas, with DIA at the helm, has had over ten years of government officials and industrial giants collaboratively transforming parts of the city into a “living lab”, enabling state of the art solutions in transportation, commerce, environmental monitoring, public safety, utilities, recreation, and more, to find a real-world, real-time urban demonstration site. Born from necessity, as Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington is the fourth largest populated metropolitan in the United States and annual influx of 100,000 people, government and citizens alike have strived for public solutions to improve traffic, safety, pollution, and other challenges as a result of an overcrowded, high growth population.

With major initiatives across the metropolitan area, from Dallas Fort Worth International Airport’s stunning commitment to innovative traveler amenities, to Plano’s FritoLay IoT-infrastructure laden manufacturing plant, to the North Central Texas Council of Governments’ impressive intelligent transportation system plan, visiting EU innovators will truly have access to a breadth of applications in one location. Placed on the 2018 Forbes list for the 6th best place in the US for business and career, as well as Business Insider’s 11th most high-tech city in the world, Dallas, Texas provides a rich ecosystem of incentives and benefits for EU companies. So much so, that EU corporations Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent, and Ericsson Inc. join 200 other foreign companies who have located their North American headquarters in Dallas.

About Dallas Innovation Alliance and the Innov8te Smart Cities Incubator

The Dallas Innovation Alliance is a private-public partnership made up of the city of Dallas and more than two dozen large companies and local foundations. DIA is focused on creating a living lab in Dallas’ historic district (West End) that is piloting/leveraging smart technology to improve the intersection of community, technology and data solutions to facilitate sustainable growth, increase efficiency and, importantly, improve the quality of life. The DIA in partnership with City leadership was launched at the White House in September 2015 as part of the Office of Science and Technology Policy announcement of federal Smart City initiatives. Currently, the DIA has nearly 30 partner organizations across the public, private, civic and academic sectors and has worked with over 20 City departments. The partnership has working reciprocal relationships with nearly 40 cities around the world.

In addition to DIA’s living lab, their newly opened Innov8te Smart Cities Incubator was launched in February 2019 to support 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, and The Dallas Entrepreneur Center network. 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.

Additional Resources on the ENRICH in the USA Smart City Landing Hub:

The role and importance of the Dallas Hub provides a promising future for ENRICH startups.

 

What about Austin, the city where SXSW Conference and Festival takes place?

ENRICH in the USA is also partnering with UT Austin Texas. 

 

UT Austin

The University of Texas at Austin, founded in 1883, ranks among the 40 best universities in the world. It supports some 51,000 diverse students with top national programs across 18 colleges and schools. And as Texas’ leading research university, UT attracts more than $650 million annually for discovery.

The mission of The University of Texas at Austin is to achieve excellence in the interrelated areas of undergraduate education, graduate education, research and public service. The university provides superior and comprehensive educational opportunities at the baccalaureate through doctoral and special professional educational levels.

The university contributes to the advancement of society through research, creative activity, scholarly inquiry and the development and dissemination of new knowledge, including the commercialization of University discoveries. The university serves the citizens through public programs and provides other public services.

It has also a strong focus on Smart City and Smart Society innovations and applications.

TechR

In Austin, we are also delighted and grateful to work with Tech Ranch. Tech Ranch equips innovation entrepreneurs, emerging small businesses, and early stage ecosystems with insights, proven techniques, tools and processes entrepreneurs need to expand their social impact in the US, Mexico, Europe, the Americas or anywhere they do business around the world.

Tech Ranch offers a variety of entrepreneur development programs to assist technology startup, and technology startup entrepreneurs at any stage. From ideation to global expansion, their programs guide and support growth for companies' ventures.

Mission focus: Radical innovation, Cutting edge research, Impact innovation, Disruptive technologies

It also shows entrepreneurs how to fast-track their market readiness, find resources, grow relationships and expand their reach. Tech Ranch programs have influenced more than 6,500​ ​entrepreneurs in 42+ countries with over 750​ solutions deployed.

Last but not least, we have established a strong partnership with SWAN Impact. SWAN Impact (previously the Southwest Angel Network) focuses on supporting early-stage companies which are addressing significant challenges facing society. The network has two important goals, making the world a better place and making a return for the investors. SWAN has chapters in Austin and Dallas, and includes angels from across the US. 

“We’re stronger when we work together.” That’s why Texas values partnerships in education, research and other services — partnerships with businesses, community groups and other non-profits to make an even bigger impact on their city, state and world.