Top Honors Awarded To:

• How’s My Driving (Washington, D.C.) – This locally-made app helps users report dangerous drivers and works to improve traffic congestion
• Enpira (Durham, NC) – Energy management solutions for municipal utilities and local government
• Helix Health LLC (Kansas City, MO) – Solution to incorporate real-time analytics into healthcare workflows.

 

The US Ignite/AWS Accelerator Showcase took place on September 19th with eight finalist teams competing for top honors and prizes. The teams presented startup pitches developed throughout the Accelerator training program, which includes mentoring by Kauffman FastTrac.

Lindsey Parker, Chief Technology Officer for the city of Washington, D.C., was the keynote speaker for the event. She delivered an inspiring talk on the vision for D.C.’s progression in the smart city movement and noted the vital importance of bringing everyone along as these technologies develop and are deployed. “We have to be sure we’re bringing everyone along,” Parker noted, further commenting that cities are a place where technology begins and stating, “I really do believe that if we can get things right in cities, we can get things right in other places”.

 

 

The competition gave each of the eight teams seven minutes to deliver their pitch decks to the audience and a panel of expert judges. The judge’s panel then had three minutes for lighting round questions to determine the impact, viability, and value of the startups.

The judges for this event were:

• Holly DeArmond – Managing Director, Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland
• Andrew Gallo – Principal IT Architect at George Washington University
• Meghan Histand – Director of Program Operations for US Ignite
• Jennifer Krusius – Venture Partner at Columbia Capital
• Philip Luca – Business Development Manager VC and Startups for Amazon Web Services

After a spirited discussion, the judges awarded prizes to teams selected for the top three positions. Every team participating in the final pitch competition was awarded additional Amazon Web Services credits on top of the credits and mentoring already received as part of the generous support provided by AWS. The top three teams were awarded larger prizes, but all are recognized for their innovation and excellence. The top teams named were:

1. How’s My Driving (Washington, DC) – This locally-made app helps report dangerous drivers and works to improve traffic congestion
2. Enpira (Durham, NC) – Energy management solutions for municipal utilities and local government
3. Helix Health LLC (Kansas City, MO) – Solution to incorporate real-time analytics into healthcare workflows.

Congratulations to all the teams that participated in the final pitch event.

This training and the event would not have been possible were it not for the goodwill and partnership of our friends at Amazon Web Services. We would like to thank them for their strong support of the smart city movement and entrepreneurs.