Pitch Party

Dallas business summit to feature college students in Shark Tank pitch

There will be no sharks nor Mark Cuban.

Photo via Wikipedia Commons

A new business summit launching in Dallas is being hailed as a dream event for entrepreneurs.

It's called "Changing The World For Good - The 2023 SMU & GSV Mission Summit," and it's a three-day event from May 22-24 with big names and big ideas.

Leading businesses, investors, educational innovators, and entrepreneurs will convene for an inspiring three days of panel discussions, creative huddles, and company presentations designed to bring business + ideas + financing together.

The event was created by GSV and builds on the tradition of an annual summit that GSV holds with Arizona State University. "GSV" stands for “Global Silicon Valley,” an investment platform that has invested in businesses such as Facebook, Twitter, Snap, Palantir, and Spotify.

In addition to host university SMU, partners in Dallas' inaugural Mission Summit include Hoque Global and American City Business Journals.

GSV’s work in Dallas also includes a partnership with Hoque Global in the development of SoGood in Downtown Dallas and an Innovation District at its core. SoGood is a master-planned urban community adjacent to the Famers Market, Deep Ellum, the Cedars, and Fair Park just south of Interstate 30.

Student pitch
One especially inspiring element of the event is The Texas Cup, a Shark Tank-like competition in which students from Texas universities will present business ideas and compete for funding.

Students will give live pitches before a panel of judges. Finals will take place Wednesday, May 24, at the Varsity room at SMU Hughes-Trigg Student Center at 3140 Dyer St, and promise to be a one-of-a-kind live event emceed by Gina Miller, FC Dallas VP of Communications.

The pitches will come from 12 finalists among 100 students who competed statewide from pretty much every DFW college or university: Dallas College, Dallas Baptist University, Paul Quinn College, SMU, Tarrant County College, Texas A&M, TCU, TWU, University of Dallas, UNT, University of Texas at Arlington, University of Texas at Dallas, and UT Southwestern.

Judges include executives from Goldman Sachs, Mt. Vernon Investments, Interlock Partners, CDX Advisors, Artemis Agency, and Hoque Global, who are co-hosting the event. They'll consider criteria such as the market, business model, the inspiration, and what kind of impact it'll have.

Three winning pitches will receive funding from SoGood by HG and GSV. Every participant will receive a free “pitch practice” session with the world’s top vocal coach, Roger Love, plus a free ticket to the Summit, and the chance to rub elbows with other mission-minded entrepreneurs.

“This is a dream event for entrepreneurs, to be able to see great ideas win support to become a reality,” says Hoque Global CEO Mike Hoque in a statement.

Participants leading the Summit include:

Clark Hunt, CEO, Kansas City Chiefs
Robert Kaplan, Former President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas
Avery Johnson, Partner, Avery Capital
Jennifer Chandler, Managing Director, Bank of America
Michael Sorrell, President, Paul Quinn College
Michael Moe, founder of Global Silicon Valley and
Co-Author of the best-selling The Mission Corporation
Elizabeth Loboa, Provost, Southern Methodist University
Mike Hoque, CEO, Hoque Global
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt and Oklahoma First Lady Sarah Stitt

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Artificial Intelligence News

Google to invest $40 billion on AI data centers in Texas

Google

Google data center

Google is investing a huge chunk of money in Texas: According to a release, the company will invest $40 billion on cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, with the development of new data centers in Armstrong and Haskell Counties.

The company announced its intentions at a meeting on November 14 attended by federal, state, and local leaders including
Governor Greg Abbott who called it "a Texas-sized investment."

Other attendees included Deputy Secretary of Energy James Danly, Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and Congressman Jake Ellzey (R-TX 06), Haskell County Judge Kenny Thompson, Armstrong County Judge Adam Ensey, Red Oak Mayor Mark Stanfill, and Midlothian Mayor Justin Coffman.

Google will open two new data center campuses in Haskell County, and a data center campus in Armstrong County.

Additionally, the first building at the company’s Red Oak campus in Ellis County is now operational. Google is continuing to invest in its existing Midlothian campus and Dallas cloud region, which are part of the company’s global network of 42 cloud regions that deliver high-performance, low-latency services that businesses and organizations use to build and scale their own AI-powered solutions.

Energy demands
Google is committed to responsibly growing its infrastructure by bringing new energy resources onto the grid, paying for costs associated with its operations, and supporting community energy efficiency initiatives.

One of the new Haskell data centers will be co-located with — or built directly alongside — a new solar and battery energy storage plant, creating the first industrial park to be developed through Google’s partnership with Intersect and TPG Rise Climate announced last year.

Google has contracted to add more than 6,200 megawatts (MW) of net new energy generation and capacity to the Texas electricity grid through power purchase agreements (PPAs) with energy developers such as AES Corporation, Enel North America, Intersect, Clearway, ENGIE, SB Energy, Ørsted, and X-Elio.

Water demands
Google’s three new facilities in Armstrong and Haskell Counties will use air-cooling technology, limiting water use to site operations like kitchens. The company is also contributing $2.6 million to help Texas Water Trade create and enhance up to 1,000 acres of wetlands along the Trinity-San Jacinto Estuary. Google is also sponsoring a regenerative agriculture program with Indigo Ag in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and an irrigation efficiency project with N-Drip in the Texas High Plains.

Google is committing $7 million in grants to support AI-related initiatives in healthcare, energy, and education across the state. This includes helping CareMessage enhance rural healthcare access; enabling The University of Texas at Austin and Texas Tech University to address energy challenges that will arise with all this new AI stuff, and expanding AI training for Texas educators and students through support to Houston City College.

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