Greater San Marcos Partnership hosts 2021 Innovation Summit

The Greater San Marcos Partnership highlighted growth and innovation across the Texas Innovation Corridor during its 2021 Innovation Summit. 

Tuesday's summit featured a keynote discussion from speaker Andres Carvallo, professor of innovation and co-director of the Connected Infrastructure for Education, Demonstration, and Applied Research Consortium (CIEDAR) at Texas State University. GSMP President Jason Giulietti moderated a panel discussion between Brandon Alexander, CEO of Iron Ox; Sean Bauld, COO of Sempulse; and Marcus Ruark, president of goodblend Texas. The summit — held at  Embassy Suites City of San Marcos Hotel and Conference Center — concluded with the presentation of this year’s Dick Burdick award. 

“We are the Texas Innovation Corridor and truly a magnet for innovation and business ingenuity here in Central Texas,” Giulietti said. “Companies have been able to find that out as you’re seeing with the record 12 announcements the partnership has brought through Hays and Caldwell County in this fiscal year alone. They’re finding that this region is special. That we’re finding that there’s amazing things happening when you can put together the right people with the right business to bring ingenuity and innovation forward.”

During his keynote address, Carvallo discussed the work CIEDAR at Texas State University is doing. 

“There are three mega trends that we’re trying to leverage — digitalization, decentralization and decarbonization. And, those three mega trends are the latest five to 10 years, impacting us in many ways,” Carvallo said. “We are really in a rush to innovate in finding solutions and answers to all the challenges. So, (Texas State) has also created a new concept that was birthed in the School of Engineering called technology enhanced infrastructure. The concept around technology enhanced infrastructure is that we want to put in the middle any piece of infrastructure. 

“So, it could be a beam for a highway, and then we’re going to add sensors to that infrastructure. We’re going to have connectivity talking to those sensors. We’re going to start collecting data and we’re going to separate the data.  And, we’re going to start doing analytics and then we’re going to learn how to manage that asset in a different way.” 

Carvallo said CIEDAR is working with private industries to do research and commercialize products. 

“I would say we’re a leading university in the world doing that right now,” Carvallo said. “However, there is some work being done every year and for the last 100 years but it’s always been very siloed, meaning one specific discipline, one school solving specific problems for a customer. And what we’re doing now is we’re bringing transdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, all colleges and all schools coming together and collaborating in finding better answers in a hybrid fashion to accelerate not just the creation of the technology but actually the commercialization, the use, the innovation and the adoption of the technology.” 

He added that across Texas State’s 32 labs and seven centers of excellence, roughly 100 faculty members are working on over 290 projects in their areas of expertise. 

“So, that says that we’re ready,” Carvallo said. “We have the knowledge to actually come together and present a new way of working with industry that accelerates how they do work, how they bring innovation to market and how they collaborate with us.”

Carvallo highlighted that CIEDAR’s founding members, which it has done work with, included Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative, and the cities of San Marcos, Kyle and Brownsville. 

Following Carvallo’s keynote speech, the panel discussion touched on speakers’ respective businesses' innovative qualities.

Ruark's company, goodblend Texas, provides medical patients with access to medicinal cannabis products in a variety of forms that are cultivated and produced locally.

“There are over 100 cannabinoids in plants. It’s not as well researched as it should be given the … illegal nature of the plant. But there’s amazing benefits and we’re helping Texans every day with our medicines,” Ruark said. “In terms of innovation, we’re innovating in a number of different dimensions. I’d say first is on the science and product side of it. We are first in Texas, first in the market with a number of different products.”

Raurk highlight various forms of medicinal cannabis products goodblend offers, including gummies and lozenges.

Above, Greater San Marcos Partnership President Jason Giulietti moderates a panel discussion between Brandon Alexander, CEO of Iron Ox; Sean Bauld, COO of Sempulse; and Marcus Ruark, president of goodblend Texas. Daily Record photo by Lance Winter

Alexander said Iron Ox, which is constructing a 535,000 square foot indoor hydroponic farm in Lockhart, aims to provide local, fresh produce. 

“We’re operating a greenhouse. We grow lettuce, basil, strawberries,” Alexander said. “What we want to do is provide local, fresh, sustainable produce.” 

Bauld said Sempulse — a medical device company — created a device which goes behind the ear and transmits a persons vitals to a smart device.

“Part of what was disruptive about this is the format,” Bauld said. “It can transmit (vitals) to a tablet. It can transmit it to AWS cloud or anywhere in the world. And it does things that are easy like pulse oximetry and respiratory rate. But it also does things that are incredibly hard — like body temperature out on the field … and blood pressure. So, incredibly useful information. The (Department of Defense) actually did as study — we were kind of doing this as a side hustle — the DOD came out with a study and said over half of our fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan were potentially survivable. Over half. I’m like, ‘OK, this isn’t just a side hustle, we got to start raising some money and we gotta make this thing happen.' I’m excited to say we’re three million in sales right now.”

The Innovation Summit ended with Veritacor receiving the 2021 Dick Burdick Award, which is named after San Marcos innovator Dick Burdick and given to a company that “finds creative solutions to complex problems through innovative methods, ideas, products, and practices.”

Veritacor, a company located in Luling, is a third party contract manufacturer for nutraceutical and dietary supplements.

“They manufacture supplements with the most innovative nutraceutical manufacturing machinery available,” Giulietti said. “The principles of Veritacor are Luling natives and are dedicated to their innovative approach to the nutraceutical and dietary supplement industry to focus on becoming a strong community partner and employer.”