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One Platform, Multiple Tiers, Endless Potential
Discover How MiraCloudTM Can Help You Get Back to What You Do Best
We are excited and proud to announce that our new cloud platform offering - MiraCloud is now available. MiraCloud is designed for anyone who is searching for a powerful, flexible and customizable solution to address their unique cloud computing requirements. Full Article
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Top 10 to Watch from the St. Louis Start-Up Connection
by Sheila Burkett (ITEN Mentor)
The Spry Digital team headed to the St Louis Start-Up Connection hosted by Edward Jones on October 4th. Over 30 companies and 300 people attended this event that helped connect leaders in the entrepreneurial community to start-up companies in St. Louis. The start-up companies then had an opportunity to participate in an InnovateVMS VentureBounce, an elevator pitch competition
One of the event's sponsors was Innovate St. Louis. Through their two key programs, InnovateVMS and the IT Entrepreneur Network (ITEN), they are a driving force supporting startups in St. Louis. Innovate St. Louis has assisted over 100 new and young companies that now employ over 450 people and have a collected revenue of over $6 million. As an ITEN mentor, I'm proud to be a part of an organization making such an impact in St. Louis.
The Spry team had an opportunity to talk to many of the startup companies at the event. We are excited about the passion and drive behind so many of these companies. Here is our Top 10 St. Louis Startups to watch (in no particular order). Full Article
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Strange Loop Conference -- Huge Success
Dr. Gerald Sussman of MIT
keynote speaker at Strange Loop
On September 18th-20th, 900 software developers from across the world descended on downtown St. Louis for another sold out Strange Loop conference. This was the 3rd year of the premiere conference for leading edge software developers and it saw a 50% increase in attendance from last year's conference at the Pageant, including attendees from 17 countries and 35 states.
Sunday featured 16 long form workshops from a who's who of authors and software gurus, followed by a speaker's dinner with live music by St. Louis jazz guitarist Dave Black and bassist Dave Troncoso. Monday morning began with a keynote featuring Erik Meijer of Microsoft discussing "category theory for breakfast" followed by a day of sessions. Monday closed with a keynote by noted professor Gerald Sussman of MIT that ranged from electronics to physics to biology and argued for a whole new kind of computation. Monday evening featured a geek trivia contest with questions about programming languages, robots, and videos games.
Tuesday included more sessions and keynotes by Allen Wirfs-Brock, editor of the EcmaScript standard and Rich Hickey, creator of the Clojure language. Other session highlights included Nathan Marz from
Twitter open-sourcing the Storm project during his talk and product designer Mike Lee delivering his talk in a full mariachi costume. [http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2011/09/app-genius-mike-lee-talks-prod.php]
Tuesday ended with a trip to Busch Stadium for a Cardinals win against the Mets!
More extensive coverage of the conference is available on the Strange Loop web site at http://thestrangeloop.com/about/coverage.
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Applications for the Capital Innovators Program in St. Louis are NOW OPEN
Applications for the Capital Innovators Accelerator Program in St. Louis are NOW OPEN. If you've been waiting for the perfect opportunity to get your tech startup off the ground, this is it. Why should you apply? We're glad you asked - here's a taste of what you'll get:
- $50,000 in seed funding in exchange for 5-10% equity.
- Free office space in the Railway Exchange Building in downtown St. Louis.
- Project-based mentorship from our seasoned pool of knowledgeable entrepreneurs.
- Free marketing, legal, accounting, IT, and project management services from our sponsors.
- Educational and social events to round-out your skills and boost your personal and professional networks.
- The opportunity to pitch to angel investors and venture capitalist firms at our Demo Day.
- And much more!
Submit your application now for the Spring 2012 Class.
The application process is straightforward - simply tell us who you are and how you are going to change the world with your innovative new product or service. Anyone with a tech-related business is encouraged to apply. If you applied for a previous class and have continued to make strides with your business, please reapply. We will be accepting applications until November 30, 2011.
Our Spring 2012 Program will kick-off with the selected companies on February 6, 2012 and wrap up with Demo Day the last week in April. Check out the full schedule on our website.
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 Company Spotlight
EDTHENA
One of the best ways to help teachers improve is through direct observation and feedback, but this process is extremely resource intensive. It's nearly impossible to deliver more support without
more resources. Until now. The Edthena platform is delivering better coaching for teachers using technology.
Now in the hands of customers, it's possible to see the process in action: A teacher records herself in the classroom, uploads the video, and coaches on the other end provide feedback at specific moments in time.
This fall's launch includes teachers in locations across the country and some of the biggest names in education reform. The University of Washington College of Education and Teach For America are both using Edthena to better enable their teacher support programs.
Edthena is getting positive initial feedback from users on its design approach. Even on the most painful part of using video online - the process of uploading - a user said, "I was able to upload without any problems. Your interface is responsive and intuitive."
Today Edthena is sold in a software-as-a-service model.This is the foundation for building a new type of marketplace for selling coaching-as-a-service. It's this vision that makes it possible for the venture to address $2B of the $12B spent annually on teacher improvement.
Sign up on our website for email updates, or email info@edthena.com if interested in finding out more.
(Adam Geller, Founder of Edthena, was doing the two-minute elevator pitch at Start Up Connection & Venture Bounce on Oct. 5th 2011.)
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Mentor Spotlight
Heidi Anderson
I've always loved the Fall! Everything is changing and preparing for what's next. Writing this, I realize that describes well my technology and business success. The engineer in me is bizarrely attracted to chaos, because that's where there's opportunity to extract that which can be simplified. So, whether it's introducing a new product or a new way to develop that solution, I love change!
I was fortunate to practice hardware and software development, vendor management and cross-discipline design at McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing). They still have great toys! When I jumped over to Enterprise Rent-a-Car, I got to practice RF engineering on the Earth and 22,300 miles away. Yes, it felt just as cool as it sounds. Experiences from McDonnell applied to data link performance, system design practices, and standing up a network engineering organization often invited to participate in designing major new IXC and OEM solutions. My exposure to databases, platform architectures, software development, and business grew with the company. With a mature and stable network and income, I became restless.
Sandbox Concepts was born from a desire to return to a more varied product development experience. Well that looked like several different things from hardware development to public safety consultant to just plain lost. Today it is a growing focus and strength in technical product development as strategic planner, technology director, system analyst, and project manager. Once I began to mentor with ITEN, I discovered why I really left the large corporate world. I really missed the chaos! It's the clay my mind needed to work with.
I'm quite certain that I continue to get more than I give from participating in ITEN mentoring, Technology & Architecture Review, and now Business Model Validation. I've learned so much more about the start-up environment, business, and new technologies and practices. While I recognize that one of my strengths is the ability to create new strategies from a background of diverse experiences, I am still surprised at the scatter of sectors and products to which I can provide some helpful direction.
You gotta know where you are to define the next turn. Passionate about extracting information from data, I have helped businesses understand who and what they may need when. Baby steps are for babies and leaping before you look can get you killed. Helping businesses assess their organization and operations, and develop product roadmaps, documentation, and practices allows them to step, skip, and run quickly and smoothly to the next level. A colleague once mentioned that I was going to work my way out of a job. Awesome! What's next!
Fine print: Heidi holds a BSEE and MSEE from Washington University in St. Louis. She has negotiated groundbreaking contracts with major telecommunications carriers and network equipment manufacturers. She is a Senior Member of IEEE where she brought structure to member development activities, and interacts regularly with local engineering schools. Other volunteer experiences include Capitol Innovators and various STEM activities.Travel and cultural exploration bring opportunities to change and be changed.
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