UTSA grads win contest at InnoTech conference

When Daniel Mendez and Nicholas Flores started working on their senior project at the University of Texas at San Antonio, they didn't think it would turn into a business.

Along with five other emerging-innovation companies from San Antonio and Austin, Invictus presented their ideas to a packed room of about 200 people and a panel of four venture capitalists who judged the competition. They didn't have a presentation that blew away the audience, however the product and the market need escalated their device to the top, said Shaun Williams, chairman of the Beta Summit committee.

The fourth annual InnoTech conference

The fourth annual InnoTech conference, which was sponsored by Sigma Solutions, showcased various speakers from different sectors in research. About 1,200 people attended the conference, said Sean Lowery, director of InnoTech San Antonio. InnoTech holds the conference in five cities nationwide, including Dallas, Austin, Oklahoma City and Portland, Ore.

Lowery called it a "business to business event," which provides educational sessions, networking opportunities and exposure to the near 70 organizations that attended.

Jeff Reich, director of innovation operations at the Institute for Cyber Security at UTSA, mediated an afternoon talk about cloud computing. Panelists spoke about security issues, cost benefits and privacy within the cloud.