Lessons from Startups !
These start up lessons are among the most valuable! Did you know that the top 4 startup lessons make up 80% of struggles that startups have?
I love the fact that being an entrepreneur is a club -- sharing is part of it. And that makes the startup nation lessons even more powerful and drives all boats to rise !
Let me know what you think of these lessons or others that have taught you!
Wow! Check out these Entrepreneurs Changing the World around the Globe!
This week we wrapped up our local SmartCamp events in some major cities and did we see some talent on the stage pitching! Here’s this week’s round up of innovators.
Congratulations to these great startups for advancing to the next stage of IBM SmartCamp 2015. Stay tuned next week for our final IBM SmartCamp blog post. Thanks to everyone who participated thus far!
Auckland: Eight Wire Limited
Eight Wire's Conductor is a data integration product that is designed to fix the problems that often derail integration projects. https://www.eight-wire.com/
Austin: The Car Force
The care force connects with 162 million highly sophisticated vehicle computers on the road to the internet and enable franchise dealerships to see service opportunities in real time. www.thecarforce.com
Boston: Feelter
Feelter offers a revolutionary approach to social content harvesting, curation and monetization which can either replace or complement the solutions in the marketplace. www.feelter.com
Berlin: Panatomy and Tripdelta
Panatomy is a breakthrough visual support software for medical imaging specialists, providing the first interactive image-based diagnostic reference system for radiology. www.panatomy.com
Tripdelta is a smart flight search that finds routes and alternative flight options that other flight searches do not find and provides route suggestions. www.tripdelta.com
Cairo: Vidmy and SocialBlink
Vidmy uses Softlayer to manage a site that allows you to choose videos from around the Internet to build a custom video website and make money from Advertisements. http://www.vidmy.com/
SocialBlink analyzes information and sentiments in Arabic and English on social media channels including: Facebook, Twitter & YouTube. http://www.social-blink.com/
Melbourne: Localz
Localz enables enterprises to use the latest in location technology to enhance customer’s in-store experience, improve asset and inventory tracking and provide frictionless mobile payments, at scale. www.localz.com
Milan: Horus Technology
Horus is a wearable personal assistant for blind and visually impaired people. Worn on the user’s head, it observes the scene through a vision system and describes it to the user through a bone conduction device. It can read texts, recognize people and objects and detect obstacles and road signs. http://horus.tech/it/
Montevideo: Bquate and Tizkka
Bquate created a talent platform for the music and video industries in South America. Their dashboard allows industry professionals to make educated talent decisions based on transparency and real data. www.bquate.com
TiZKKA is the first fashion app that connects users with their favorite fashion bloggers to purchase the same products worn by the fashion bloggers seamlessly in an app. http://www.tizkka.com/
Raleigh: Plum Print and Akilis Software
Plum Print takes artwork that children create, transforms them into digital archives and prints elegant custom coffee-table books and keepsakes. www.plumprint.com
Akili Software's Savii Care is a workflow management platform that streamlines agency tasks and allows end-users to complete those tasks in a fraction of the time.
Silicon Valley: Kukun
Kukun is a SaaS driven marketplace for home renovation that brings together home owners, buyers and sellers. www.mykukun.com
Congrats to Macrolynk and Saul Haro, the President and CEO on their award from CNN!
![Macrolynk_Social-Tile-[V1]](http://advanced911.inmotionhosting.com/~socialbusinesssa/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/macrolynk_social-tile-v1.png)
Congrats to Macrolynk and Saul Haro, the President and CEO on their award from CNN!
They just won the CNN Expansion Entrepreneur of the Year Award for 2015,!
We recognize their work in "How Combining Social and Supply Chain Led to Exceptional Management.".
.
Back to school! Note in a lunch box - Is Twitter your note to your followers?
When school starts, and I pack my kid's lunches, I always finish them off with a special note to encourage them in the day.
For instance, with my youngest Kassie I did a bunch of K's that I think are special for her!
- K is for Kisses!
- K is for Krazy special -- for the special girl that you are!
- K is for Kind - be kind to your friends today -- for they are precious!
My kids say that it is a moment in the day -- among hard work, getting teased, and questioning their confidence --- that they pause to know that someone really cares for them!
As I was thinking about how my oldest daughter carefully folds and saves each note, I wondered how much we all need that encouragement.
- How could I place a "virtual note in each of my team's lunch box" ?
- What would it say?
- Would they appreciate it like my kids?
- And what would I want my note to say if someone left one for me!
But then I thought -- do we do this each day -- through Twitter? For instance, when I share quotes or welcome the beautiful sunrise, is that the same?
Is that the new form of the lunch box note?
What do you think?
IBM proudly supports the next generation of Technology Professionals
Grand Central Tech (GCT) had their inaugural Innovation Night following their new successful 6 weeks internship program. The innovative program is meant to facilitate technology education by offering high school and college students real work experience at real startups. The startups were from GCT's second year class, which has already raised 7 million USD in venture funding. NYC currently has 300,000 technology positions and in the next 5 years, it is estimated the US will have 1 million open tech jobs, so training the next generation of technology professionals will be critical to continued growth. With these dynamics in mind, Eddie Cullen (previously at Fordham University's accelerator), set out to design the GCT internship program.
On Innovation night, the Goldman Sachs auditorium was packed with interns, startups, and proud family. Interns were matched up with GCT startups based on skills and interests. The intern's backgrounds ranged from high school students with interests in technology, to college computer science majors. Students created projects that spanned from non-profit shoe donations, IoT data stream (IOBeam), payment platforms (Arthur) to 3D printing projects (Source3). However, the real outcome of these 19 startups and 33 students were the indelible memories and valuable real life work experience.
Words like creativity, perseverance, innovation, and great code were used to describe the outcomes of the program. Nurturing the next generation of tech entrepreneurs benefits NYC, the economy and creates better lives for all. Most of the students started the program with fledgling technical skills. However at the event most interns prided themselves to have learned HTML, CSS and JavaScript, creating web forms and simple mobile applications. A few students even went above and beyond, chasing leads and customer, successfully demonstrating mastery of advanced tech skills, and thriving in the fast paced reality of a genuine startup.
IBM is a corporate sponsor of GCT. IBM Cloud Ecosystem Development makes available business and technical support to GCT startups and offers Bluemix for cloud apps and services. IBM is also part of Digital.NYC initiative, a unique public/private partnership between the office of Mayor Bill de Blasio, the New York City Economic Development Corporation, Gust, and over a dozen leading NYC-based technology and media companies..
Are you the next CitiMobile Challenge Champion? Registration is open now!
Can you help to transform banking as we know it? The answer is YES and here's how...
IBM is proud to be a strategic sponsor of the Citi® Mobile Challenge - a quest to find developers and designers to create new and innovative FinTech solutions with Citi's digital platforms. After successful events in the US, Europe, Middle East and Africa, the Citi® Mobile Challenge is now starting in Asia Pacific and is hosting Demo Days in Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangalore and Sydney - and registration is open now!
Using Bluemix, you can apply your skills to develop, design and impress in two categories:
Consumer solutions: create innovations which give consumers personalized, intuitive products and services that transform how they think about banking.
Business solutions: develop new financial technology tools and services to meet the needs of small businesses, large corporations, institutions, organizations or governments.
Developers using Bluemix will be ahead of the game with a platform as a service (PaaS) that gives them simplicity, speed, agility and critical tools - all without the overhead of setting up the underlying architecture. And, as strategic sponsor, IBM is there each step of the way, giving Challenge participants a wide spectrum of face-to-face and virtual product education, consulting and coding assistance by top experts - throughout the competition.
Finalists will compete for an opportunity to take their technologies into production with Citi’s support, plus a share of USD $100,000 in cash awards and a suite of services from Citi Mobile Challenge sponsors. Selected participants will showcase their concepts at live Demo Day events.
So, be a part of the banking transformation! Go to http://www.citimobilechallenge.com/ to register for the Citi Mobile Challenge (registration closes September 2, 2015). Rally your team and get everyone registered to use Bluemix here: https://ibm.biz/IBMCMCAP15
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introducing IBM Cloud Developer Certification in India!
What do you get when you take a skilled cloud developer, an open by design cloud architecture, and IBM professional certification? You get the new Cloud Application Developer Certification program! http://www-03.ibm.com/certify/certs/50001601.shtml
Today, I'm announcing the launch of a very special new program which offers significant benefits to both developers and business. We are creating campaigns customized around the geographic needs and opportunities of developers, starting in India, to accelerate the adoption of the certification program. Stay tuned as we progress delivery and enablement worldwide in October.
Through this new program, all developers will be able to showcase their expertise by designing, developing and deploying secure applications using open technologies, to the IBM Cloud. For systems integrators, the program allows them to convey their differentiation to customers in creating open Cloud solutions. Business, too, will realize the benefits of this program as it will help to quickly identify developers who have proven that they have the skills to deliver scalable, secure and open Cloud solutions. As IBM's Cloud integration platform, Bluemix competencies will play a central role in the certification content.
So, if you're interested in
- Planning and implementing secure, cloud-ready apps
- Enhancing your cloud apps with managed services
- Using devOps services and tools to manage apps
...then, come get certified using the Cloud Application Developer Certification program to showcase what you can do!
Interested? Learn more, today! http://www-03.ibm.com/certify/tests/objC5020-285.shtml