Every Last Word

Dallas Innovates’ signature series capturing what leaders across North Texas are saying — in their own words — about innovation, impact, and what’s next.

The Last Word: HSC’s Cameron Cushman on Fort Worth’s ‘Guide to Starting a Small Business’ Webpage

by | Aug 4, 2023
"No matter where you are in your startup journey, the City of Fort Worth's "Guide to Starting a Small Business" webpage directs small business owners to local resources—all in an easy-to-understand, step-by-step guide," the post reads.
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The Last Word: Why Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos Won the DMA’s International Design Competition
by | Aug 3, 2023
The Madrid-based competition winners describe their winning proposal to reimagine the Dallas Museum of Art "as a reflection of the original building, transforming the relationship between art, landscape, and community into a balance of memory and innovation."
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The Last Word: The Loop Dallas on Nic Nicosia’s ‘The Twins’ on the Katy Trail
by | Aug 2, 2023
Watch out for something curious the next time you walk, run, or bike down Dallas' Katy Trail at the Thomson Overlook. There you'll find the two "alien avatars" created by artist Nic Nicosia after a commission by The Austin Contemporary. 
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The Last Word: Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson On Joining the ‘Smart Surfaces’ Coalition to Cool Cities
by | Jul 31, 2023
Johnson and four other U.S. mayors recently joined with the coalition to announce a project to cool cities and metropolitan areas with "Smart Surfaces"—an integrated solution that aims to reduce heat and fight climate change through the use of reflective "cool" roofs and pavements, green roofs, solar energy, porous pavements, rain gardens, and trees.
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The Last Word: Hue’s Fahad Khawaja on the Importance of Community-Building in Innovation

During a keynote discussion at MassChallenge's recent MC | Innovate 2023, event at Pegasus Park, Khawaja stressed the importance of trust and community-building in the innovation process.
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The Last Word: DeSoto Mayor Rachel Proctor on Asking Residents To Take Part in City’s Video Campaign
by | Jul 26, 2023
“By taking the time to look at our residents up close, and showing who they are and how they make a difference in the fabric of our city, everyone will be able to see the DeSoto that I see," Mayor Proctor said in a statement. "And they’ll know exactly why there's so much to love about DeSoto.”
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The Last Word: Dale Sheehan on the Newly Opened Meow Wolf Grapevine
Sheehan, who joined the experiential art collective Meow Wolf in 2019 after working at Walt Disney Imagineering for a decade, spoke with ArtNet about the collective's recently opened permanent exhibition at Grapevine Mills mall in Grapevine.
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The Last Word: HiFAB’s Brent Jackson on How Prefab Homes Are Built in His Grand Prairie Factory
by | Jul 24, 2023
Now, instead of building its prefab houses on home sites, HiFAB is putting them together at the plant in three or four Lake|Flato-designed "modules." Later, they'll be put together like Lego blocks once they arrive at their permanent addresses.
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The Last Word: UTD’s Shalini Prasad on How High-Tech Soil Sensors Can Help Gardeners and Farmers

by | Jul 20, 2023
"This is the equivalent of having a wearable health sensor on your body that tells you in real-time what’s happening," Prasad said. "Think of it as a wearable for the soil."
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The Last Word: Akorbi’s Claudia Mirza on the Impact of AI on Artistic Expression
by | Jul 19, 2023
Since co-founding it in 2002, Mirza has led Akorbi, a provider of translation, interpretation, staffing, call centers, learning services, and localization. Writing in LinkedIn, she discusses a different kind of translation: asking generative AI tool Bing to create an image of a woman fighting robots. Bing refused, saying it couldn't display violence.
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The Last Word: ORCA AG’s Charmaine Tang on Her Wall Street Beginnings
by | Jul 18, 2023
The daughter of Filipino immigrants took a long, winding road to get to her office at Old Parkland, from a coveted spot at New York City's public Stuyvesant High School to a $5-an-hour job at JPMorgan Chase tugging bond trades out of pneumatic tubes to a finance and accounting degree at New York University.
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The Last Word: Dallas AI’s Aamer Charania on the Promise—and Perils—of Artificial Intelligence
by | Jul 17, 2023
Sunday was national AI Appreciation Day, so to mark it, the Dallas Regional Chamber did a Q&A with Charania and Babar Bhatti, co-founder and EVP of DallasAI, a nonprofit forum to accelerate learning and adoption of artificial intelligence.
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The Last Word: JLL’s Todd Burnette On How Fast Fort Worth is Expanding — ‘Even By Texas’ Standards’

$2.3 billion in real estate projects are in the pipeline or currently under construction in Fort Worth, said Todd Burnette, Managing Director at JLL, drawing parallels to Austin in the Wall Street Journal.
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The Last Word: Robert Sturns on MP Materials’ Rare Earth Magnet Plant at AllianceTexas
by | Jul 11, 2023
Through a long-term agreement with General Motors, MP Materials is bringing its MP Magnets division to AllianceTexas in Fort Worth. The company is building a new, 200,000-square-foot rare earth magnetics and materials manufacturing facility which will "re-shore" critical components for America's EV batteries, robots, drones, defense systems, and other tech.
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The Last Word: The DSO’s Kim Notelmy On a Symphony of Outreach, Education, and Unforgettable Acoustics
A former chief operation and communications officer for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Noltemy joined the Dallas Symphony Association in 2018. Since then she's learned a lot about the city—and a lot about what orchestral music can do for its citizens.
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The Last Word: Brinc’s Mark Lang On Why Suspects Surrender to His Company’s Drones
by | Jun 29, 2023
On Tuesday, Dallas County held a Drone & Robotics Demo Day featuring presentations by 10 trailblazing companies. The event showcased a range of high-tech solutions—from surveillance drones to cleaning robots—that were both practical and, at times, awe-inspiring.
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