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
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An Entrepreneur's Thoughts -- in a plane ride bite size snack!
While flying to Dallas, I sat beside a serial entrepreneur! He shared some interesting points with me that were impactful in his quest for entrepreneur success -- of which he has had at least 3 successful exits!
Here's what I drew as I talked to him!
FOMA - What are you looking at today?
I am seeing this "Fear of Missing Out" growing and emerging as a new stress point. With everyone watching social networks, where people only post the "great things",
This phenomenal has become so common that it was placed in the dictionary in 2013. FOMO is defined as the "anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on a social media website."
So that you do not get caught up in this new theme, here's some tips:
- Stay focused on what's important to focus on in your life. Set your goals and where you want to go. Don't go with a goal just because someone else has.
- Remind yourself that what's posted is only part of life. Most people most the signature moments of their life, not everything. Your mundane moments are part of life -- maybe just not tweetable!
- Enjoy and focus on what you have -- not just what others have! This is true in life overall! But in particular in Social Media.
