Food X & Urban X Demo Days

The 4th cohort of companies from the Food-X accelerator presented at their demo day in New York last week. Before the companies made their pitches, keynote speaker Susie Fogelson (Presenter on Food Network) spoke about some of the trends in food today. In particular, she made reference to the fact that food is the fastest growing category on YouTube accounting for over 100 million searches a year. She also spoke about the growing importance of food in the workplace, how it contributes to wellbeing and creativity plus cross collaboration between departments in big companies. Ideo have just hired a well known chef from San Francisco to be be their chief food officer.Food X received over 300 applications for 10 places this year, the full list of companies who presented is here. Two of the most interesting companies were;Fresh Surety - Real time freshness reporting anywhere in the world to monitor and improve the freshness of produce in your local stores using their proprietary technologyBite - Tablet menus that promote high margin items and increase revenue in restaurantsLess than a week later, it was a full house once again at the Hudson Mercantile for the inaugural demo day from the first cohort of companies to go through theUrban-X Accelerator program also run by VC fund SOS-V in collaboration withMini/BMW and HAX, the Shenzhen based hardware accelerator.Former chief urban designer for New York City, Alex Washburn was the keynote speaker who set the scene on urban planning in NYC and around the world. referencing his book "The Nature of Urban Design: A New York Perspective on Resilience." He discussed how vulnerable major cities are to both rapid change and nature using Hurricane Sandy as an example of how nature can bring even a city like NYC to a halt and set their strategic urban development initiatives back years.The level of innovation in the space reflected by the companies who presented on the day is encouraging to city planners who estimate that an extra 2.5 billion people will live in cities, over two-thirds of the population worldwide. Their innovations will help city planners adapt faster and cheaper to meet the needs of future cities and protect their inhabitants from future disasters.A full list of the companies who presented is available here. The closing date to apply for the second cohort is September 6th. Apply here.