The City of Durham, Durham County and Durham Public Schools partnered with six companies for the third year of Innovate Durham. The program gives startups and entrepreneurs a way to test their products or services using local government data and infrastructure. The program received 28 applications from companies interested in participating. A review committee of City & County staff narrowed the field down first to eight finalists, who went through a second round of evaluation, then to the six participants. Each company brought a unique and innovative solution to the program.

Brief descriptions from the companies about their technological solutions along with the assigned test-case departments are as follows:

AC AnalytiX

Department: County General Services

AC AnalytiX is an air conditioning/refrigeration early warning, monitoring system that utilizes data analytics and cloud technology to analyze, and troubleshoot. The system also alerts anomalies that may be occurring in real-time. AC AnalytiX gives the end-user the ability to view multiple locations from a desk, or on the go. 

B.combs

Durham Public Schools

B.combs is a comprehensive platform that aims to save teachers’ and administrator’s times, by aggregating activities and events, automating processes, and providing actionable metrics.

Don't Waste Durham

Department: City Solid Waste

Don't Waste Durham's vision for the future is a circular economy that designs waste out of the picture. Don’t Waste Durham builds technology, infrastructure, and logistics to make possible the mainstream use of reusable food and beverage packaging. Through Innovate Durham, Don't Waste Durham will explore using the City's existing recycling infrastructure for collection of reusables and test new technologies for sorting.

NeedsList

Department: City/County Emergency Management

NeedsList is a real-time needs registry for crisis response. NeedsList's vision is to build resilient communities by tackling this challenge of communication and coordination of needs and offers during crisis. Our platform aggregates supply, volunteer, and funding needs in real-time from the field intro a centralized database to help communities get what they need, when they need it. For Innovate Durham, NeedsList is partnering with Emergency Management to pilot their platform as a viable crisis response registry for Durham. 

ProcessMaker

Department: County IS&T

ProcessMaker makes it easy for business analysts to collaborate with IT to automate complex business processes connecting people and existing company systems. Headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, ProcessMaker has a partner network spread across 35 countries serving customers in 52 different countries. Through Innovate Durham, ProcessMaker is working with Durham County iS&T to pilot an automation of one of their workflow processes. 

Reaszon

Department: City Human Resources

Reaszon is a Durham-based technology company that provides a new and unique critical reasoning assessment to industry and academia. The Reaszon test is the first accurate, unbiased, and fully automated critical reasoning assessment of its kind. It is web-based allowing for flexible administration and immediate feedback. These characteristics enable frequent, easy distribution of a powerful assessment that accurately measures the critical reasoning ability of job candidates and students. For Innovate Durham, Reaszon is working with City Human Resources to see if there are significant correlations between a Reaszon score and job performance.