NTXIA’s 2024 Year In Review!
NTXIA’s 2024 Year In Review
2024 has been a whirlwind of a year! We were so excited to end the year on such a successful note and be incredibly proud of all we have achieved in the past 12 months.
This year has brought NTXIA a variety of new collaborations, members, and programs to continue building a stronger and smarter North Texas region. As we embark into the new year, we’re taking the time to highlight all the moments that shaped our journey for a more innovative Texas!
2024 Members & Partnerships
We want to take the time to thank our members. Through your collaboration, we have been able to achieve and launch so many new programs, roundtables, and innovations. Your close collaboration is continuing our main mission and establishing what it means to partner. In 2024, we had the opportunity to welcome many new partners including Moonshot Compost, the University of Texas at Dallas, Sand Technologies, Trilogy NextGen and Marketplace.city.
Convening & Roundtables
Bringing members and the community together is key and last year we had the opportunity to hold a total of 11 convenings that addressed a variety of topics including best broadband practices, modeling social return on investment, and as well as had roundtables focused on innovation in mobility ranging from autonomous vehicles to drones. Our broadband practices featured speaker and Executive Director, Rhia Pape of SA Digital Connects as well as HR&A Digest of the NTIA Digital Equity Competitive Grant. Our Innovation at Mobility roundtable discussed a variety of model delivery programs that are changing the future of the industry. This included Bonton Farms’ Grocery Connect Program, the Wing and Walmart Delivery program in Frisco and much more.
This past year in 2024, we were able to launch new programs and continue growing current member programs through insightful roundtables, field trips, and much more. With numerous activations, we wanted to take the time to highlight some of our most memorable launches and accomplishments that brought together members to learn about new perspectives and bring unique ideas together!
Last year, we launched our Immersive Innovation quarterly program, allowing us to give members exposure to innovation across the North Texas region.
The Immersive Innovation Program kicked off at the National Science Foundation's newly opened eCAT Center at the University of North Texas, focusing on research across electric, connected, and autonomous technologies for mobility. Here, members experienced autonomous shuttles, toured the outdoor testing facility, and viewed demos of new self-driving cars.
The series ended with a field trip to Robotlab where members were able to immerse themselves and interact with various innovative robots. The trip also included an exclusive Q&A discussion with Jay Johnson, Manager Director of Deputy Chief Counsel Charles Schwab, Josh Parecki, Chief Compliance & Ethics Officer, Head of Trust & Safety, Zoom, Samuel King, R&D Integration Manager, Robotlab, and Ben Bhatti, CEO, Texas AI Association to learn more about the impacts of AI from a regional and national level.
In March of 2024, we launched the Urban Resilience Fellowship Program. In partnership with the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) and the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), this pioneering initiative aimed to nurture emerging leaders and equip them with the knowledge and skills needed to address critical challenges facing the North Texas Community. The program connected students from universities and higher education institutions across Dallas Fort Worth with community and industry partners. Students worked with industry and community partners to find real solutions to current regional issues in the North Texas region.
FBI Breakfast Briefings
In June 2024, we announced our exciting new collaboration with FBI Dallas to help educate members more on cybersecurity precautions. The workshops will cover a range of critical topics, including safeguarding critical infrastructure, understanding the dual nature of AI as both an asset and a risk, cybersecurity and fraud prevention, digital literacy, corporate data and IP theft, combating misinformation and ensuring supply chain transparency.
Our first briefing was held on June 5th where we focused on discussing AI and cybersecurity to continue staying connected and safe digitally.
One of the many key issues we continuously address is broadband connectivity for all. Last year, we relaunched the Internet For All Coalition in partnership with the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG).
NTXIA, together with the NCTCOG and members of the Texas Governor’s Broadband Council, are spearheading this initiative, building on the work of the Dallas-focused Internet for All Coalition while expanding efforts to the regional level.
Originally launched in 2020 with the establishment of Operation Connectivity, the Internet for All Coalition illustrated disparities in broadband access at the school district and neighborhood level, which set the ambitious target of connecting every K-16 student to high-speed broadband at home. We were super excited to work together with NCTCOG to relaunch this program and continue the broadband connectivity movement!
The Smart City World Conference (SCEWC) is our most anticipated event of the year. Along with our partners, Curiosity Lab at Peachtree Corners, McKinney, Frisco, Dallas College, Fort Worth, and DFW Airport had a packed schedule with exciting new initiatives and panels ahead of us.
With five members of the team on site, and more than 20 across NTX, we had the opportunity to connect with a variety of attendees across start-ups, established companies, and delegations to share more about NTXIA’s mission! We also are proud to share we were part of over eight speaking opportunities sharing more insight into what smart city innovation looks like from our regional experience.
Additionally, along with our partners, we were super excited to launch our first-ever Global Startup Pitching Competition. Focused on the future of transportation, sustainability and VRUs and its various challenges, we received numerous entries and the final pitches for our competition were held with our partners at Curiosity Lab at Peachtree Corners. Our top four finalists joined us at SCEWC for the day for our live and interactive pitching session. Our esteemed panel of judges included members across Curiosity Lab, NTXIA, McKinney, and Frisco, representing multiple U.S. smart city ecosystems.
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
We were honored to award VisionCraft AI the title of the 2024 SCEWC Smart Cities Global Startup Challenge Winner. Based in the Czech Republic, VisionCraft AI is a technology company providing a 'Digital Data Eye,' with solutions that provide real-time information from AI-based computer vision object detection algorithms. As part of the award, VisionCraft AI received office space, funding for their first pilot, travel and accommodations across the U.S., introductions to high-level individuals across public and private organizations to support their entrance into the U.S. market, and more.
We want to send a warm thank you to all our partners and start-ups who took part in the pitching challenge, and to our team members who all joined us at Barcelona! We were honored to bring our knowledge and interact with various industry peers!
At a Glance: NTXIA In The Media
We are excited to share our media presence across both regional and national publications speaking more on our initiatives and sharing our insight into relevant topics in broadband access, sustainability, and smart city innovation. With over 1,200 media hits, we’ve shared news of our initiatives with various outlets including Yahoo!, Dallas Innovates, Forbes, Telecompetitior, Beyond The Cable Podcast, Business Insider, and more. In 2024, we reached a total of 801+ million readers across local and national publications!
As 2024 has passed and as we start 2025, we continue to reflect on the various accomplishments NTXIA and our members and partners have completed. We are proud to have accomplished, launched, and relaunched new programs, initiatives, and conversations with members and peers. We’re looking forward to continuing to bring together the North Texas region as well as national and international leaders. To our partners and peers, thank you for your support in 2024 and for helping us bring industries closer and closer together to create a smarter and more innovative Texas. With 2025 in full swing, we’re looking forward to sharing the exciting new initiatives we have in the works and what is next for NTXIA in the New Year!