Southeast Shoutouts | MetLife hosting two-day Triangle Tech X conference this week
Two start-ups - one in Charlotte, the other in Birmingham - receive SBIR awards.
From Cary, NC:
Starting October 1 through October 2, MetLife in Cary will be convening the industry’s top leaders and changemakers to address the need for more inclusivity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at the sixth annual Triangle Tech X conference. The free, virtual event will explore the “disruption advantage” and how this new environment is expanding opportunities for those who are willing to embrace disruptive thinking, approaches, and tools.
The agenda includes North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, plus powerhouse trailblazers like Katie Ledecky, one of the greatest female swimmers of all time, New York Times bestselling author Mick Ebeling, whose companies focus on developing technology that benefits humanity, and Sallie Krawcheck, considered one of the most powerful women on Wall Street.
From Birmingham, AL:
The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) start-up company Endomimetics LLC, has received a $2.8 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Under the grant, Endomimetics Co-Founders Dr. Ho-Wook Jun, a Professor in the UAB Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Dr. Brigitta Brott, a professor in the UAB Department of Medicine Division of Cardiovascular Disease, will collaborate with Dr. Ramanathan Kadirvel, a Professor of Neurosurgery and Radiology at Mayo Clinic, and Dr. David Kallmes, a Professor of Radiology at Mayo, to develop a BionanomatrixTM coating for flow diverters in the brain.
More than three percent of the U.S. population — or about 6 million people — have an intracranial aneurysm, a bulge or ballooning in the wall of a blood vessel in the brain. The most feared risk for these people is rupture of the aneurysm, with devastating consequences.
In the past 15 years, intraluminal flow diversion devices have been used successfully as aneurysm therapy. Recent case studies have demonstrated high rates of long-term aneurysm occlusion by the flow diverters; but the most serious concern, and a significant cause of death after neurointervention, is a thromboembolism, a clot that blocks a blood vessel.
From Hammond, LA:
The NSpire Startup Slam, an award-winning business pitch competition, will return to the Columbia Theatre in downtown Hammond on January 9, 2025. Presented by Chevron, the event offers local entrepreneurs a chance to compete for $25,000 in cash and more than $35,000 in in-kind services.
The competition, which received a Gold Award from the International Economic Development Council in 2023, aims to foster innovation and economic growth in the Northshore area. Finalists will present their ideas to a panel of judges, with all three guaranteed a minimum cash prize of $2,500.
From Charlotte, NC:
Charlotte Inno reports that Amissa Health was awarded two grants totaling more than $3 million during the past month.
The start-up generates real-world health and behavior data using Apple’s smartwatches to help prevent or slow Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Last month, the digital health company received a $505,000 SBIR award from the National Institute on Aging. It plans to use those funds to work with researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis to advance its tools that predict preclinical Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
More recently, the National Institutes of Health awarded the company with another SBIR totaling $2.52 million. The start-up intends to use that funding toward expanding its data analytics platform to help research scientists, medical providers, and hospital systems access more diverse real-world health and behavior data sets, according to Jon Corkey, Amissa Health’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer.
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