The 7 best things @stevecase said to Senate committee on #immigration bit.ly/12ibMcb
— Steve Case (@SteveCase) February 15, 2013
Scott Case sends Arkansas cool video for #ThinkBigArkansas
better video of @tscottcase on #ThinkBigArkansastelly.com/1W2Q5U#aridea #startuparkansas
— Lee Watson (@rleewatson) February 8, 2013
Thanks @SteveCase for the RT
Excited about #ThinkBigArkansas
I can't wait until March 1st when we host #ThinkBigArkansas and the launch of Startup Arkansas. The website is live and registration is open. It's going to be great to have my friends Brad Feld from Techstars and the Foundry Group and the team from Startup America (Scott Case, Mary Simonds and more) visit Arkansas and meet our fantastic startup entrepreneurs.
startup graph research project
We've started a side project to analyze the social infuence and connections of startup communitities. Its going to be a while before we can share a demo, but thought I would add a little teaser.
a startup conference for startups 'EverywhereElse'
Scott Case, Ingrid Vanderveldt and many others took the stage at the first annual EverywhereElse conference at the Memphis Cook Convention Center. The event was a hit with startups from around the US and the world attending. I can't wait until next year. Checkout the event using #ee2013
A previous intern becomes "teen enemy number 1"
Brendan Lee started as an intern with Clarovista in the winter of 2010. He worked on several mobile app projects while attending the University of Central Arkansas. Unfortunately, Brendan left Arkansas to pursue a degree in South Caroline and work with a startup incubator.
Brendan is co-founder of a mobile app development startup called 52 Apps. The premise being, his team will release roughly one app a week. Ambitious. Read this Bloomberg article.
His latest app to make it big is the Canary Project. Canary let's you monitor your child's phone. The goal of the app is to reduce teen driving distractions like texting while driving and speeding.
With this leveling of monitoring, you can see why friends are calling him "teen enemy number 1."
Pulled from TheCanaryProject.com
Canary is an iPhone and Android Application that will let parents know immediately via real time e-mail and pushed text alerts if their teenager is:
• Talking on the phone while in a moving vehicle
• Using the phone while in a moving vehicle (includes texting, facebook, twitter, email, web surfing)
• Traveling over a designated speed limit
The app also has several safety features for concerned parents. They include:
• An "Emergency / Panic Button" that will send a notification with location information to designated contacts
• A location system that parents can setup for:
• Restricted Areas: parents get alerted if you enter one of these areas - examples would be a boyfriend's house or a bad area of town
• Safe Zones: parents get alerted if you leave the area - examples would be if you are staying overnight at a friends or you are at the mall
• Curfew areas: parents get alerted if you are late arriving or early leaving - examples would be your school or your home
Startup Arkansas
There's a lot going on in Arkansas, here are just a few things.
For the past few months, I've been working on an initiative with Josh Clemence and Steven Trotter called Startup Arkansas (@StartupArkansas). A year and a half or so ago, Steve and Jean Case with the Case Foundation, the Kauffman Foundation and Brad Feld of TechStars and the Foundry launched the Startup America Partnership. Startup Arkansas is a region (aka part of the Startup America Partnership) who's mission is to better connect the state.
Yesterday, the ARK Challenge Accelerator in Fayetteville (part of the Global Accelerator Network) held its first Demo Day at Crystal Bridges in Bentonville. 15 startup teams presented and two were selected by a group of angel investors to receive $150,000 each (via a convertible note) to continue building and executing their startup. Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe threw a curve ball and announced that the AEDC (Arkansas Economic Development Commission) would contribute $150,000 so the angel mentors could select a third team. This was a fantastic signal from state government that they are willing and actively supporting startups! (Read: http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/08/the-ark-challenge-demo-day/ and http://www.thecitywire.com/node/25026#.UJ0buLQml5i )
In addition to groups adding more programming, mentorship, and forming of angel and vc groups - we need to do a better job at connecting founders, resources, students, and others so everyone knows what's going on and can benefit from each other. This is where Startup Arkansas comes in. Startup Arkansas should be thought of as a platform, the connective tissue tying the state together.
After the first of the year, we'll be launching a new website that will enable better communication and opportunity to plug people in, especially those that are students or people who work in remote areas of the state.
Startup Arkansas will have a formal "launch week" in February. We should have the dates chosen soon (stay tuned to @StartupArkansas). There will be keynotes, workshops, town hall discussions, and networking events in each of the three regions (North East, North West, and Central). The goal of the launch week is formally announce Startup Arkansas, but also to draw people together to start having conversations about what is needed in the ecosystem and to educate us all on things that are already happening. More to come.
In March, Brad Feld will be in central Arkansas to speak on startups and for a book signing. His latest book "Startup Communities" is about growing the ecosystem. We'll be doing several events throughout the day ending in a talk and networking event in Conway that evening. More to come on this as well. We'll be making the formal announcement later this month. (stay tuned to @StartupArkansas)
Dr. Chenyi Hu, UCA Computer Science Chair, is staring a senior level seminar class at UCA on "finding the business opportunities in data." Its open to computer science and business majors. It starts this spring and will meet weekly on Wednesday evenings for 3 hours. Each week/topic will be taught by someone from the real-word. The objections are: (1) help students identify and carry out business opportunities based on data (2) connect and help mentor high-achieving students and (3) provide students with "real world" experience and knowledge from people who manage "big data" every day. Hopefully, this is something we can replicate at the U of A, UALR, ASU and others.
Many things are happening. Many more things are to come. I'm looking forward to using my new blog to share projects I'm involved with and startup related news in Arkansas.
Stay tuned...
Gone in 60 Seconds business pitch in Conway
in Events
Conway recently hosted the Innovate Arkansas Gone in 60 Seconds business plan pitch competition. Winners were: Refurral (1st), Passenger Baggage Xpress (2nd) and Conway Brewing Co (3rd) - all from Conway. #G60Conway #aridea
TechCrunch Disrupt 2012
This year marks my inaugural attendance at TechCrunch Disrupt. The annual conferences starts with a 24-hour Hackathon at The Concourse event center in San Francisco. Over 125 teams participated in the hackathon. Teams built social apps, widgets, hardware connection tools and interfaced with Ford's SYNC. While not all the teams got very far along with their idea, some are nearly market ready.
A couple of notable projects include: HeatData for mobile UI analytics, Communly to visually follow hashtags, LinkedOut which allows you to find startups with common interests, Livebolt which allows you to unlock doors from your phone, BattleSuck for sentiment analysis on Twitter, and several others. (as of this post we're only about half way through the presentations)
While writing this, InstaMillion pitched - worth checking out if you're raising funds.
more on the hackathon coming later
Hackathon Presentations about to begin.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
The morning's keynotes took off with Ben Horowitz, Bill Campbell, and Jack Dorsey. View the 2012 agenda.
Jack Dorsey (Square & Twitter)
Mayor Cory Booker (Newark, NJ) interviewed about his new startup, a content sharing platform for news videos. Mayor Booker has a true understanding of how to use social media for public good and is a huge supporter of building America's future through education.
Salman Khan (Khan Academy) and Sebastian Thrun (Udacity) talk disrupting education. In Udacity's first test, 160,000 students signed up for a AI class. The top 400 were not at Stanford. Sebastian said that the problem with education is access. To get into Stanford, "you're parents have to do everything right."
Salman Khan said his model works because change occurs with students, parents, and teachers - its not a "top down" approach.
Sal demos (below) his new CS tutorial tools with a real-time code editing video. Definitely worth checking it out.
Next Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn) speaks.
Reid Hoffman interviewed by Michael Arrington.
Dave Morin - Path.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee announces October as Innovation Month. Visit InnovateSF.com for a startup map and more information on startup open house which kicks off Innovation Month. - Maybe an idea for other Startup America Regions.
Learn more about Mayor Lee's SF CIty and tech job creation.
Ron Conway - active? Yes. I couldn't keep up with all the growth initiatives he was going through.
Michael Arrington interviews SF Mayor Ed Lee and Angel Investor Ron Conway.
Kevin Rose speaking on investing and Google Ventures.
Kevin provides thoughts on valuation, due diligence, CAP and other insights into Google Ventures.
Krik Dunn (Cloudera), Aaron Levie (Box), Todd McKinnon (Okta), and Justin Rosenstein (Asana) talk big data and enterprise software.
Michael Arrington (TechCrunch founder) interviewing Marc Benioff (Salesforce.com)
After lunch, the disruption continues with Facebook founder and ceo, Mark Zuckerberg.
Michael Arrington with Facebook founder and ceo, Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuck on IPO, "chil out." Zuck says the true test of Facebook is how they perform over the next 3 to 5 years with mobile.
Michael Arrington, "Before the IPO, you said "We don't make services to make money. We make money to make great services." "Seems like you really meant that.""
Zuck, "ads in mobile will have to be more integrated. Early tests show performance better than desktop."
What's Zuck doing with his time, he says he's spending it on mobile and the Open Graph.
Michael, "Last question. Are you having fun?" Mark, "Its not about fun, its about mission."
