Yes it happened today! The Great Mind Challenge Kicked OFF!

We kicked off the world's largest Challenge !   Vice Chancellor Maheshappa and I  celebrated with over 500 students!!!

TGMC

 


A wearable I need ! What is it?

First Fitness Tracker Designed For Swimmers (Compliments to Ray Hammond for his future trends)

Yes, since my injury I have been doing a lot of PT in the pool.   But there really hasn't been a FitBit that shows me how I'm doing!

It had to happen - iHealth has launched Wave, a swimming tracker that aims to help improve performance in the pool.

The wrist-based device is designed to work in and out of the pool, and will count daily steps, activity and active time.

However, it's in the pool that Wave really comes into its own. It's capable of recording stroke type, number of strokes and calories burned, and displays the information in iHealth's MyVitals 3.0 app, before offering a full report on your session.


Johannesberg and Madrid SmartCamp Winners Drive Job Creation, Gaming Innovation and Mobile Business Solutions!

I have loved the IBM SmartCamps, which are pitch competitions with incredible talent!
These camps brought a huge talent pool of startups to showcase to judges worldwide, thank you to all the startups who participated! Today we're taking a look at a few exciting innovations coming from Johannesberg and Madrid before announcing our ten finalists, at the end of the week, who will move on to the next stage of IBM SmartCamps.

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Congratulations to M4Jam from Johannesberg and both Jugo and Visualtis from Madrid. All three of these startups very much deserved their winner status for the solutions that they bring to the market.

About the startups:

1. M4Jam (Johannesberg) is a micro jobbing platform. They launched their solution as a platform as a service model taking the concept of EARN to existing communities and enabling people to earn extra cash while going about their daily routine by using apps that they are already using most.

2. Jugo (Madrid) believes that play will become the dominant way of human interaction within the next five years. By bringing game elements into everyday activities of organizations and individuals around the world, Jugo introduces a whole new level of purpose and passion to the workplace.

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3. Visualtis helps “mobilize ” existing information systems to manage them from a smartphone and further help clients manage any aspect of their business from their smartphone or tablet.

To learn more about these exciting companies, follow them on Twitter: @visualtis, @m4jam and @playjugo.

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Please continue to follow my blog to read more about the ten startups who will move on to the next stage of IBM SmartCamp 2015!

 


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!

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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

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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/

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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


Mexico Startups Take On Online Education and Stock Image Purchasing!

Congratulations to TutorOnline and Capptu.com, two web based platforms built to create efficiency in online education and stock image purchasing.

These two companies are well suited as Mexico's SmartCamp winners for their smart approaches to an ever growing need for imagery in marketing and on-the-spot education!

What's their story? TutorOnline is an online tutoring platform where any student can have access to a private tutor through our virtual classroom; anytime, anywhere.

Global Industry Analysis, market research firm, projects that by 2018 the global market for tutorials will reach $102.8 B USD, more than 30% will be coming from emerging markets. TutorOnline aims to be the leading online tutoring in Mexico and Latin America.

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Capptu.com is a crowdsourced web platform designed to create a community of stock images that allows amateur and professional photographers to have their photos available for sale in a marketplace where potential buyers can acquire licenses. Purchasers can also convene competitions to order "on-demand" photos for any given particular purpose.

Capptu uses SoftLayer as their main server which gives support to all our back-end platform functioning.

Thanks again Capptu and TutorOnline for participating! Follow their stories @TutorOnlineMx and @Capptu.

For a complete look at application deadlines and public SmartCamp events, click here: http://www.smartcamp2015.com/cities/. Stay tuned for more SmartCamp stories in your city.


Colorado SmartCamp Winner Works to Bring Attorney-Client Relationship Online!

Colorado held their SmartCamp event September 10th at accelerator partner Galvanize in Boulder and finished the evening by awarding an innovative legal advice technology startup the winner!

Congratulations to Congo for creating the first online free market solution for the legal industry. Clients can schedule an appointment with an attorney in less than 60 seconds (think Zocdoc for attorneys ).

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How does Congo work? With three simple steps Congo takes away the pain of searching for a lawyer by streamlining the search process, delivering the information and credibility needed to make an informed decision. Attorneys are licensed, vetted and have no history of malpractice. When I say simple, I mean simple.

Step 1. go to www.congo.io  - find an attorney for DUI, Criminal Law, or Business Law

Step 2. Book an appointment

Step 3. Connect by phone or video

Congo was originally a school project that started in a CU-Boulder Entrepreneurial class in the Spring semester of 2013. . Their long-term vision is to bring the entire attorney-client relationship online.

Congo leverages IBM Softlayer in their solution and is learning more about how Bluemix can benefit their mission.

Congratulations again to Congo. Follow their story on Twitter at congo_io.

For a complete look at application deadlines and public SmartCamp events, click here: http://www.smartcamp2015.com/cities/. Stay tuned for more SmartCamp stories in your city.