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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.
Left: Dallas Businessman and Philanthropist Pete Schenkel; Right: Cropped early rendering of the proposed Cotton Bowl Plaza [Images: National Football Foundation Gridiron Club of Dallas/Overland Partners]
The Last Word: On the Passing of Dallas Businessman and Philanthropist Pete Schenkel
by David Seeley | Dec 3, 2024
Pete Schenkel—who owned Dallas-based Schepps Dairy before its sale to Suiza Foods in 2000—led a long, accomplished life of leadership in Dallas before his death Wednesday at age 89. But the former board chair of the State Fair of Texas, DFW Airport, and the Methodist Health System Foundation may be best known for preserving something truly valuable: keeping the Texas-OU game at the Cotton Bowl at least through 2036.
by Quincy Preston |
Nov 22, 2024
“It’s destined to happen somewhere. I’d rather it happen here first.”
Giovanni Capriglione
Texas State Representative
Chair, Pensions, Investments, and Financial Services Committee
…on the potential for Texas to create a Bitcoin strategic reserve ahead of federal initiatives, speaking at the Texas Blockchain Summit in Dallas this week....
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by David Seeley |
Nov 21, 2024
Earlier this week, Governor Abbott announced the release of the Texas Advanced Nuclear Reactor Working Group’s final report on Texas’ plan to build "a world-leading advanced nuclear power industry to enhance electric reliability and energy security, promote economic development, and unleash new opportunities for the growing Texas workforce."
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by David Seeley |
Nov 20, 2024
Founded in 2019, Thrift for Good enables people to buy and donate used goods while helping out charities, in an industry where 84% of donated clothes end up either dumped in a landfill or destroyed. Cooper and her fellow co-founder and co-owner, Taylor Watts, are building AI-based software for thrift stores to try to reduce that waste and inefficiency—while working to grow their DFW footprint.
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Tom Currier, president and CEO of Maverick Power [Photo: Maverick Power]
The Last Word: DFW’s ‘Fastest-Growing Company’ CEO on Being David in a Goliath Industry
by Quincy Preston | Nov 18, 2024
McKinney-based Maverick Power tops both Dallas Business Journal's Fast 50 and SMU's Dallas 100 private company rankings with record-breaking recent growth.
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by Dallas Innovates | Staff Report |
Nov 14, 2024
It's been called "Uber with guns." Now the Atlanta-based BlackWolf rideshare service—which features armed drivers with military or security backgrounds—is expanding to Dallas, Austin, and Houston, according to the Dallas Morning News' Sarah Bahari.
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by David Seeley |
Nov 13, 2024
Texas A&M is putting a major stamp on downtown Fort Worth, thanks to a $350 million research campus under construction in the Panther City. On Monday, a milestone was marked 250 feet above the future site of Texas A&M Fort Worth, which is slated to become a major hub for education, research, and innovation for years to come.
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by Dallas Innovates | Staff Report |
Nov 12, 2024
Inside the sprawling, cowboy-chic Texas Barn at the Perot family’s Circle T Ranch in Westlake late last month, an elite group of investors, founders, and key stakeholders gathered for an exclusive VIP event kicking off the 2024 Venture Dallas business summit. Ross Perot Jr. sat at center stage in a fireside chat with Venture Dallas Co-Founder and Board Chair Aaron Pierce and Anurag Jain, founder and managing partner at early-stage VC firm Perot Jain.
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Island Co-Founder and CEO Mike Fey on stage at the 2024 Venture Dallas Summit. [Photo: Grant Miller Photography/istockphoto]
The Last Word: $3B Island’s CEO on Recruiting Tech Workers to North Texas
by Dallas Innovates | Staff Report | Nov 6, 2024
Mike Fey—co-founder and CEO of Dallas-based enterprise browser unicorn Island—launched his company in 2020 during the pandemic and has since seen its valuation rocket to $3 billion. Speaking at the Venture Dallas conference last week, he talked about why he decided to found his company in Dallas instead of in Silicon Valley.
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by Dallas Innovates | Staff Report |
Nov 5, 2024
Coffee with a British accent is politely muscling into North Texas, as anyone driving down East Mockingbird Lane in Dallas this week could tell you. Founded in London, England, in 2013 by college friends Gabriel Shohet and Eirik Holth, Black Sheep Coffee has 110 restaurant locations in the U.K., France, the United Arab Emirates, and Philippines. That total includes the newly opened 6240 E. Mockingbird location (housed in a former bank building) and one at Preston Parkway Center in Plano, which opened a few months ago.
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by David Seeley |
Nov 4, 2024
Offshore wind turbines are a growing ingredient in the race to develop clean and renewable energy sources. But the turbines—which are attached to the ocean floor with cables and "float" on platforms high above—face risks from high winds and harsh storms that lash the open sea. UT Dallas' Dr. Yaqing Jin has found a potential solution inspired by an unlikely source: seal whiskers.
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by David Seeley |
Nov 1, 2024
Strive Enterprises—a financial services firm co-founded in 2022 by former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy—has announced its headquarters relocation from Columbus, Ohio, to Dallas. Paired with its HQ move, Strive announced Friday that it’s launching its wealth management business in Dallas as well, in the wake of its recent close of a $30 million Series B financing round led by New York-based Cantor Fitzgerald.
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#DeepEllumPeople, left to right: Scarlett Deering, Tommy Raps, Pedro Rojas, and Sandy Rojas [Photos: Breonny Lee]
The Last Word: Why Deep Ellum’s Streetlight Poles Will Feature #DeepEllumPeople Banners
by David Seeley | Oct 29, 2024
The Deep Ellum Foundation is installing new streetlight pole banners on Elm Street, Main Street, and Exposition Avenue that celebrate the neighborhood by highlighting business owners, artists, musicians, and other stakeholders "who have invested their talent, sweat, and tears into the incomparable Deep Ellum Cultural District," the foundation said.
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by David Seeley |
Oct 24, 2024
Cx Precision Medicine—a diagnostics company founded on research by Dr. Sid O’Bryant at UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth—spun out from HSC to advance O’Bryant’s pioneering work on blood-based biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative conditions. The company recently gained higher visibility—and an even greater opportunity for impact—by being selected to join the prestigious StartUp Health’s Alzheimer’s Moonshot community.
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by David Seeley |
Oct 23, 2024
Ashraf was quoted in a recent New York Times article, "Reinventing Concrete, the Ancient Roman Way," about using 2,000-year-old Roman secrets to create concrete for underwater use in bridges, breakwaters, and artificial reefs. But unlike the volcanic ash used by Roman engineers as a key concrete ingredient, Ashraf and her team are using clay mixed with the mineral kaolinite. The recipe required heating to about 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit—only half the temperature needed to produce modern Portland cement.
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by David Seeley |
Oct 22, 2024
Benjamin Franklin pioneered "electrostatic motors" in the mid-1700s, creating force through static shock- like interactions between negative and positive charges in components. More than 270 years later, Wisconsin-based C-Motive has developed a modern iteration featuring a proprietary mix of industrial organic fluids and electronics that switch at super fast speeds. C-Motive's motors are now being tested by FedEx Supply Chain to run conveyors at a distribution center near Fort Worth, FedEx automation technician Mark Crowley told the Wall Street Journal.
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