Acadiana Business

The INNOV8 Lecture: Rackspace to Robots

by Leslie Turk

Part of INNOV8 2013, IND Monthly Lecture Series hosts investor/lawyer/CEO/salesman Morris Miller Thursday, April 25.

As part of this year's INNOV8 festival, the IND Monthly Lecture Series will feature Morris Miller's "Rackspace to Robots - The Adventure of an Entrepreneur-Investor." Miller's talk takes place Thursday, April 25, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Hilton Lafayette.

INNOV8, a project of the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce, is an eight-day festival of innovation and creativity held at venues throughout the city from Friday, April 19, to Friday, April 26.

An investor, lawyer, CEO and salesman, Miller also is a dynamic entrepreneur. He started his career fresh out of SMU Law School by launching the first company to publish Texas case law on CDROM (later sold to West Publishing). He was co-founder, CEO and president of Rackspace Hosting (NYSE:RAX), which today has in excess of 175,000 customers, more than $1 billion in annual revenues and a market cap of over $4 billion.

Three years ago he invested in Xenex Disinfection Systems, a health care startup that uses patented UV light technology to disinfect hospital rooms and is now the company's CEO, overseeing overall business strategy and day-to-day operations. Xenex infection killing "robots" are used in some 120 hospitals nationwide, including MD Anderson, UCLA and Stanford.

Morris is also founder of Sequel Ventures, where he invests in and acts as an adviser to numerous startup companies, such as Inventables (recently profiled in The Kauffman Foundation Newsletter). He is also a shareholder and board adviser to Lafayette's own Golfballs.com.

Tickets to hear Miller are $40, and a table of eight is $350. IberiaBank is presenting sponsor of the lecture series; the Lafayette Economic Development Authority is supporting sponsor for this event.

For information or to order tickets, contact Robin Hebert at [email protected], (337) 769.8603, or online at www.theind.com/events.