Competition Heats Up for the San Antonio MX Challenge

Already 30 teams have registered to compete in the San Antonio MX Challenge, said Jesus Salas, head of the project.
Salas gave an update on the San Antonio MX Challenge Tuesday night at the SA NewTech meetup. About 50 people attended the meetup, which was organized by Cole Wollak and Michael Girdley.
The San Antonio MX Challenge begins in September and is a competition to see who can best foster the tech entrepreneurial connection between Mexico and San Antonio by fostering startups here.
The competitors will be judged on sustainability of the business plan, sustainability of the project in San Antonio, revenue generated and the number of jobs created, Salas said.
The San Antonio MX Challenge will award $500,000 to the team, business or organization that best meets that challenge.
The 18 month competition will officially kick off at a special San Antonio MX Challenge Summit in San Antonio on September 15th and 16th. The event coincides with Mexican Independence Day and will incorporate local celebrations of that holiday, Salas said.
Salas has visited Mexico City and Guadalajara to spread the word about the San Antonio MX Challenge, which is an offshoot of the HeroX challenge, a smaller and more localized version of the X Prize.
At his meetings, Salas emphasized San Antonio’s growing entrepreneurial community and its large workforce in the biosciences, cybersecurity and information technology industries.
In addition to Salas, three teams, made up of former Code Up students, pitched their capstone projects from their class. The teams graduated from the program recently.
The projects included Spotspy, a parking reservation app, VIND IT, a lost and found app and EatSafe-Sa.com, which provide restaurant ratings based on city health inspection reports.