With a few swipes, a rideshare app selects a combination of ground and air transportation to get you from your home west of Fort Worth to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport to your office in Frisco.

When you board the hybrid-powered, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft developed by Bell Helicopter, it may have a pilot or it could be autonomous.

On the flight, your personal AI assistant will have your curated list of songs, news articles, and social media feeds queued up for streaming. Instead of paying via credit card or working through the “free” economy in which you are the product, there are a series of seamless microtransactions that cost fractions of a penny using a cryptocurrency wallet created by Hedera Hashgraph.

Less than 10 minutes later, you arrive at your job at a company that funds an interest-free loan to a local nonprofit through Good Returns. Once you’re at your desk, you are alerted to a message from your doctor about your genomic DNA sequence. The biometric research done at the North Texas Genome Center at the University of Texas at Arlington will inform your decision about lunch that day.

These kinds of technologies challenge the way people think about transportation, the economy, where we live, how we live, and how we do business—and they are fueling change that will be felt the world over. They weren’t conceived in Silicon Valley or somewhere on the East Coast. They’re happening right here, in North Texas, and they have the potential to change everything.

Here are four making an impact in the region—and beyond. 

Hedera Hashgraph: Going Beyond Bitcoin

North Texas-based Hedera Hashgraph has built an alternative distributed ledger technology that corrects a lot of the problems that have plagued better-known blockchains, founders say. That could revolutionize smart contracts, cryptocurrency, file storage, and more—as well as help protect people’s privacy on social media platforms.

[Photo: Courtesy Hedera]

North Texas Genome Center: Leading the Way in Biometrics

At the North Texas Genome Center in Arlington, scientists are unlocking human DNA through genome sequencing to create databases that would inform doctors of the right care approach.

[Photo: Sharon Ellman]

Bell: Giving New Meaning to “Get a Lift”

Headquartered in Fort Worth, Bell is engineering its VTOL air taxi, which uses an electric propulsion system to democratize regional air travel—making it affordable for the average Joe.

[Rendering: Courtesy Bell]

Good Returns: Shifting the Paradigm on Giving

Salah Boukadoum’s GIVS program allows for a portion of an investor’s managed assets to be used as collateral for Good Returns cycles. That way, giving to a social cause can be mutually beneficial and done without any risk.

[Photo: Rebeca Posadas-Nava]

A version of this article was first published in Dallas Innovates 2019—The Magazine.

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Dallas Innovates 2019—The Magazine explores the region as a rising tech hub that will shape the future of innovation. The theme of our second annual print publication, “A Breakout Moment,” explores why now is the time for the region to grab its place in the tech universe.

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