This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.
So Google just launched Google Nose (smelling is believing!) and Google Maps now has a Treasure View mode, while Virgin is creating a glass-bottomed plane, Twitter will start charging $5 per month for vowels and Youtube is shutting down. Hmmmm… either I am hallucinating or it must be April Fools Day!
I recently came across something awesome: brainstorming sessions between George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Lawrence Kasdan for the movie Indiana Jones and The Raiders of the Lost Ark (easily one of my all-time faves). There were five consecutive nine-hour, day-long sessions, and it’s fascinating to see their thought process as the characters and story are fleshed out. Here’s the New Yorker‘s abbreviated take.
Hola, Jersey peeps! It’s Newark Tech Week, and a bunch of stuff is happening including TEDxNJIT, #blackhack Newark, STEM Education Day, The Future of Newark Tech and more. And hey, you just might run into super mayor Cory Booker at one of the events!
Also coming up is NYU Startup Week, with a bunch of events including Hack Days, a keynote interview with Jason Goldberg of Fab.com, Investing in NYC, Innovating in NYC, Demo Days, hackNY Hackathon and more!
The Makery is hosting a pop-up Makerspace (part shop and part workshop) until April 30, with a bunch of awesome events planned including Make Your Own Drawing Robot, 3D Design + Printing and Bring Your Doll or Toy to Life (yikes!).
Heard of the National STEM Video Game Challenge? Inspired by President Obama’s Educate to Innovate campaign, it’s a competition to motivate interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) learning among America’s middle and high school kids. How? By tapping into their passion for playing and making video games. Nice! Deadline to enter the challenge is April 25. They even have a couple of workshops this week, on Wednesday and Saturday.
Girls Who Code’s Summer Immersion Program is coming up. Deadline to apply is April 15.
A few more odds and ends to remember: The Kaplan EdTech Accelerator is having an info session tomorrow. The folks at fashion startup Missionelle are throwing an Art of Seduction gala this Thursday. Monday of next week are the 5th Annual Shorty Awards. Also on Monday is The British Invasion, organized by UK Trade Invest and VentureOutNY, with demos by hand-picked UK startups and a networking party afterward.
Also coming up soon: The Big Apple Smackdown (aka the Silicon Alley ping-pong tournament) that I’m co-organizing. 🙂 It’s going to be an epic night of beats and bounce with the city’s startup peeps duking it, out including Gilt Groupe’s Kevin Ryan, First Round Capital’s Phin Barnes, Seth Godin and others. Also, I’m giving away five free passes.
Remember Startup Chile? Well here’s another interesting accelerator. It’s called TechPeaks and they’ll give you €25,000 to go build your startup in the Italian Alps, in the Trentino region of Northern Italy to be precise. The deadline to apply is April 5.
And now let’s see what’s going down in the Alley this week…
Ad Think: Emerging Tech in Advertising
With Brian Cohen (Chairman, New York Angels), Andreas Dahlqvist (vice chairman, McCann Erickson NY) and Nihal Mehta (founder and CEO, Local Response and partner, ENIAC Ventures)
Tuesday (Apr. 2), 6:30 p.m. @ The Advertising Club HQ, 989 Avenue of the Americas, 7th Fl.
Kaplan EdTech Accelerator (powered by TechStars) Founder Information Session
With Kaplan’s Investment and Corporate Strategy team (Kate Eberle Walker and Phil Schwarz) and TechStars (Dave Drach, VP and Daniel Feld, Director of Operations)
Tuesday (Apr. 2), 7 p.m. @ Kaplan HQ, 395 Hudson St.
Entrepreneurs Roundtable 57
With Brad Burnham (Union Square Ventures)
Wednesday (Apr. 3), 6:30 p.m. @ NYU Stern School of Business, 44 W. 4th Street
April FinTech Meetup: Selling your Products & Your Company to the Banks
With Rishi Nangalia (Goldman Sachs), Dmitri Galinov (FastMatch), Jessica Taylor (Morgan Stanley), Bina Kalola (Bank of America), Jose Marques (Deutche Bank) and Jason Kunreuther (Barclays)
Wednesday (Apr. 3), 6:30 p.m. @ Dechert, 1095 6th Avenue, 28th Fl.
Demo Night for NYC Journalism & Media Entrepreneurs
Demos by Bibliocrunch, Skillcrush, Marquee, Spundge, Tagasauris and NowThisNews
Wednesday (Apr. 3), 6:30 p.m. @ CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, 219 W. 40th Street
The Startup Kids Screening
A documentary about young web entrepreneurs. Interviews with the founders of Vimeo, SoundCloud, Kiip, InDinero, Dropbox, FoodSpotting and many others.
Wednesday (Apr. 3), 8 p.m. @ Tribeca Screening Room, 375 Greenwich Street
Blueprint Health Demo Day
Come meet thirty amazing healthcare entrepreneurs who are twelve weeks into building and growing successful businesses.
Thursday (Apr. 4), 1:30 p.m. @ By Invitation Only
Newark Tech Week: TEDxNJIT – Connections / Digital Everywhere
Speakers include Guy Story (CTO, Audible), Carlos Dominguez (SVP, Cisco), Michael Smith (Chief Digital Officer, Forbes Media) and others.
Thursday (Apr. 4), 5 p.m. @ NJIT Jim Wise Theater Kufrian Hall, 154 Summit Street, Newark
Unleashing the Power of Data to Help Change the World
An out-of-this-world technology networking party and panel discussion on citizen science and data visualization.
Thursday (Apr. 4), 6 p.m. @ AlleyNYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.
NYU Stern EEX Entrepreneurship Summit 2013
Keynote by Michael Wolf (founder, Activate; former president, MTV, and an early mentor to Mark Zuckerberg). Startup Crawl through Warby Parker, ZocDoc, Foursquare, Betaworks, Fab.com and more.
Friday (Apr. 5), 12:30 p.m. @ NYU Stern , 44 W. 4th Street
FinTech Hackathon
Bringing together FinTech developers and designers to develop financial products and discover new technologies.
Saturday (Apr. 6), 8:30 a.m. @ AlleyNYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.
More events on the horizon…
The 5th Annual Shorty Awards on Apr. 8 @ TheTimesCenter at the New York Times
British Invasion on Apr. 8 @ Greenhouse
April 2013 NY Tech Meetup on Apr. 9 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
[NYU Startup Week] Hacking NYU – DemoDays on Apr. 10 @ John Paulson Auditorium
Investor Feedback Forum on Apr. 11 @ Microsoft
Assembled Food on Apr. 13 @ General Assembly
Big Apple Smackdown: Silicon Alleys 1st Annual Ping-Pong Tournament! on Apr. 14 @ SPiN New York
ERA Summer 2013 Happy Hour With MicroOffice on Apr. 15 @ MicroOffice
Kingpins of Silicon Alley on Apr. 15 @ Bowlmor – Union Square
2013 International Space Apps Challenge led by NASA on Apr. 20 @ AlleyNYC
Women Innovate Mobile: Behind The Pitch on Apr. 22 @ AppNexus
NYTECH Presents: Designing for Touch on Apr. 24 @ Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz
NY Tech Day on Apr. 25 @ Pier 92
Women Entrepreneurs Rock the World 2013 on May 8 @ Altman Building
Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! 😉
