|
Coming Events
ITEN 2nd Thursday - September 8th
ITEN and IT Coalition Sponsor 2011 St. Louis SecureWorld Expo - September 13th-14th
The Strange Loop Conference - September 18th-20th
Startup Weekend Columbia - September 30th - October 2nd
Start Up Connection & VentureBounce - October 5th
|
|
| Registration Open for October 5Start-Up Connection |
 |
|
St. Louis, Mo. - On Wednesday, October 5, 2011, from 4:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m., start-up company owners, investors and members of the St. Louis regional entrepreneurial community will come together at Edward Jones for a combined Start-Up Connection and VentureBounce - a unique and energetic networking event where owners of start-up companies present their ideas and products to the community.
"We thought that combining the events would bring the best of both together and make for a much wider ranging group of people," said Jim Brasunas of ITEN." IT and Biotech networking events often attract great companies and resources, but the different groups of entrepreneurs don't often intersect. Start Up Connection enables that to happen."
"The energy in the room is so charged, it's hard to describe," says IVMS' Phyllis Ellison. "There are so many people making connections and talking all at once."
The evening will feature a fair of sorts where start-up company owners populate tables with information on their products and services. What starts as intense networking will finish off with an elevator pitch contest, or bounce, where competing business owners give a two minute presentation of what their company does, what they need to succeed and how they are going to get there. The competition will be judged by a panel of investors from various industries and be moderated by a local business VIP.
"So much of what is happening at this level is creative in ways many of us never thought possible," says Eric Gulve of BioGenerator. "It's all happening here. People in the region do not seem to realize it."
"ITEN has been unbelievably supportive as we have gone from an idea, to a start up and now a profitable business," says Brian Slawin of BusyEvent, an event registration management company. "As an events company, the Start-Up Connections have been a valuable testing ground for our tools and ideas. In all, because of the knowledge that ITEN has helped us gather, we became profitable more quickly than if we'd just slogged along, alone."
In addition to start-up companies, other members of the entrepreneurial system discover new additions. "This is a great opportunity for individuals and investors looking to get involved in the entrepreneurial scene to find out what is happening in St. Louis," says Vicki Gonzalez of Nidus Partners. "There's so much happening out of the spotlight, it's time to shine one on some of these efforts."
|
|
|
|
Startup Weekend Columbia
September 30th - October 2nd
Startup Weekend is a non-profit, community-building event that brings together entrepreneurs of all backgrounds including software developers, marketers, designers, and other enthusiasts to start companies in just 54 hours. The participants that attend have 60 seconds to make a pitch the pitches are whittled down to the top ideas, and then teams form around the ideas to come out with several developed companies or projects. Finally, the weekend culminates with demonstrations in front of an audience of judges and potential investors.
ITEN is a sponsor of the Startup Weekend Columbia.
This is Columbia's first Startup Weekend, but the event occurs all over the world throughout the year and they have been very successful.
|
|
|
Business Partner
|
 |
|
|
|
|
"Across the Divide" - A St. Louis woman IT entrepreneur's story of success
Coming in September 2011, "Across the Divide: Navigating the Digital Revolution as a Woman, Entrepreneur, and CEO" by Susan S. Elliott explores Elliott's 50-plus year career in the technology industry and celebrates her mantra that there is "Nothing as constant as change!"
Her book shares anecdotes, insights and tips drawn from her personal experiences as one of the first female programmers at IBM and later founder of SSE, a national firm recognized globally for application development, education and network infrastructure work.
As a technology pioneer in the early 1980's focused on the PC platform, SSE's business began by helping individuals understand how to harness the power of this new hardware platform and the software that would run on it; hence the advent of our learning services. As individuals began to bring PC's into their offices, SSE worked with them to develop custom, targeted applications to automate basic business processes and our application development practice took off. Corporations then began to embrace the PC platform as an enterprise technology and required assistance in configuring and managing the deployment and ongoing support. Companies turned to SSE, and SSE responded by providing technology management services. In the 1990's with continued greater reliance on PC's and the ability to network them, SSE formed a network infrastructure practice that allowed employees to more easily communicate and collaborate. Finally, with core services defined (as highlighted above), the company's capabilities have evolved with technology through the Internet boom and now in support of the explosion of mobile and wireless technologies to fuel continuing growth and success.
The author brings together a global perspective of the ever-changing computing industry and the stark imbalance of the sexes still present in the technology workforce today. Valuable insights span the critical elements of success, adapting to technology and leadership succession planning.
For more information on the book, media inquiries
or speaking engagements, please contact:
|
 Company Spotlight
Virtual Nerd
Virtual Nerd provides innovative and effective personalized educational content and technology to students and educators, focusing on areas with high need and strong funding streams. The company's Algebra curriculum is in use by thousands of individual students and teachers across the US. Virtual Nerd is currently expanding its math offering to fully cover grades 3-10, and an English Language Arts offering is in development.
Virtual Nerd has been adopted by schools within both the KIPP and Teach for America networks, and in the upcoming school year, New York's School of One will be relying on Virtual Nerd to provide the video component of its customized instruction system. With the development of new school-oriented features, such as assignments and reporting, and the hiring of a VP of Institutional Sales, the company expects accelerated revenue growth in this channel.
Virtual Nerd's partners include some of the biggest companies in education, such as Pearson, Elsevier and MetaMetrics, with more to be announced soon. The company's content and platform are modular and embeddable, making channel partnerships a natural fit, given proper strategic alignment.
Earlier this year Virtual Nerd and the company's patent-pending Dynamic WhiteboardTM instructional platform received recognition from the Software and Information Industry Association for likelihood to succeed in the education marketplace, and the company was also awarded a spot in Blackboard's Building Blocks partnership program.
The self-paced eLearning market is expected to grow to $24.2 billion by 2015, and the fastest-growing segment is in K-12. Increasingly, personalization is seen as key to improving outcomes in education. Virtual Nerd looks forward to capitalizing on these trends, and the company is currently raising capital to fund its next phase of growth.
Virtual Nerd is an ITEN member, a product of IVMS and a former Olin Cup winner and has its offices on Laclede's Landing in St. Louis. The company is looking to expand its technical team, and interested individuals should contact jobs@virtualnerd.com. Experience with Javascript and PHP a plus, but we'll gladly take talent and passion over specific language fluency.
|
|
COCAbiz Creativity in the Workplace Event August 29th & 30th
 COCA (the Center Of Creative Arts in U City) has a goal to use the arts to teach creative thinking in the workplace. In support of this mission, COCAbiz is hosting a big conference at the end of this month that will include some top notch speakers from across the country and very creative breakout sessions. The normal price for the event is over $800, but ITEN members can get a discounted admission: two people admitted for $550, for 2 full days of workshops.
ITEN companies, mentors and investors can find more information about the event and register at cocabiz.com(you will be redirected to coca's site). While registering, use the discount code: bizFriend.
|
Capital Innovators to Announce Companies Chosen for Accelerator Program
Wednesday, August 31st from 6pm to 9pm at the Jazz Bistro Theatre. Come meet the winning companies and also hear entrepreneurs Jean Roberson (Appistry), Gabe Lozano (Lockerdome) and Matt Kulig (Aisle411) share their stories of building successful start-up ventures.
|
|
|
|
