The inaugural Girls in Tech 303 summit took place last Saturday with a focus on leadership and mentoring amongst women in the Boulder technology community. Girls in Tech is a national organization with local branches across the country. The Boulder/Denver chapter was started back in February by Kate Brown, Managing Director. Saturday’s summit featured two separate presentations on mentoring with a keynote address in between on the history of prominent American women.
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by Ryan on June 13, 2010
June’s Green Tech Meetup began with the usual call for announcements which featured several groups looking to hire. The near capacity crowd in the auditorium, as well as anyone watching online via a live streaming feed, watched three groups present this week:
Commercialization & Deployment Center: Allison Wise, a strategist from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) gave a presentation focusing on economic development in the clean energy space. In particular, Wise talked about NREL’s Open Energy Information wiki which allows users to better visualize energy data from around the world in hopes of making the transition to clean energy more efficient.
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by Ryan on June 3, 2010
This month’s New Tech Meetup in Boulder featured five presenters as well as an interesting product review by the crew at One Button Life. Of the 350 people in attendance, about a third self-identified as newcomers to New Tech Meetup. Continuing in the vein of informal audience interaction, Robert Reich, founder of New Tech Boulder, began the event with a lighthearted debate about the merits of the yet to be release iPhone OS 4.0 and Google’s new Froyo OS. The iPhone overwhelmingly won the “aesthetics” category. Google, not surprisingly, won the “flash” category and they mostly split the other categories up for debate. As the room quieted down and the temperature inside pushed north of 80 degrees, the first presenters took the podium:
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CBSA’s May BioBreakfast allowed two of Colorado’s 2009 Bioscience success stories to share their stories. First up was Paul Beresford of Biodesix, a company playing in the diagnostic space. Instead of focusing on evaluating a single analyte to diagnose disease, Biodesix seeks to predict treatment response through the evaluation of many analytes run through an algorithm. The company’s ProTS platform uses mass spectrometry. The first test developed from this platform, VeriStrat was launched in May of 2009. Veristrat helps to identify patients expected to have more favorable outcomes from second line treatment on lung cancer with erlotinib (Tarceva). The test, which is run in Biodesix’ CLIA certified lab in Aurora, requires only a blood sample and not a tumor sample. The company is working to simplify sample collection even further such that blood can be spotted directly on a card for shipment to the lab. Biodesix also continues to strengthen its data package and is currently conducting a prospective study in Italy to supplement the information from previous retrospective studies. Beresford commented on the need to build a sales force to communicate with oncologists that looks more like that of a pharmaceutical company than that of a traditional diagnostic company. Along with commercializing Veristrat, Biodesix continues to develop additional tests from its platform independently and as companion diagnostics.
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Incubators seem to be popping up everywhere in Colorado. Some seem to be sticking pretty close to the blue print laid out by programs such as TechStars while others go further afield. One that definitely falls into the latter category is The Founder Institute. The founder of the Founder Institute, Adeo Ressi, was in the area the last week giving presentations in Denver and Boulder in advance of Sunday when applications close for the Denver summer class.
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Red Door Interactive convened a panel to discuss content marketing on Tuesday morning. The panel, moderated by Scott Esmond of Red Door, included panelists:
- Sandra Ahn of Red Door
- Ken Barber from the Denver Business Journal
- John Dockstader of Vitamin Cottage
- Toby Hedges of White Wave Food
Content marketing encompasses a wide variety of media –from a company website, to email campaigns, to youtube videos. The panel also noted that content marketing can be used throughout all stages of the purchase funnel. With such a wide range of topic and purpose, it should come as no surprise that the answer to many questions related to best practices are “it depends.” The panel did circle back to many issues that apply across many types of content.
- Have your goal in mind when developing content. Tailor messaging to the customer types you expect to view the content and know what action you want them to take after viewing the content. Hedges noted to make sure the tone of the content is appropriate to the channel.
- Content doesn’t create itself. Ahn recommends an editor in chief role to ensure someone is taking the lead on getting new content as left to the masses this task may fall through the cracks. Dockstader noted that a robust backend that makes it easy for employees to contribute can facilitate willingness to contribute.
- Content must be viewed. It seems obvious but even the best content only helps a brand if it is viewed. Barber stated that giving people tools to share content is key to increasing its reach. Given that content may end up far from its original post location, Dockstader cited the importance of making sure the brand was still associated (e.g. having the company web address appear at the beginning of a video)
Red Door’s next panel discussion will focus on local search.
Streat Chefs took home the top prize of $6,000 at the second annual CU New Venture Challenge. Streat Chefs seeks to bring gourmet dining to the streets catering to the growing “fast casual” market in the restaurant segment. The business is modeled after the successful food trucks that are common in LA. Initial food preparation would take place at commissaries with final orders being cooked in the company’s trailers, which can be taken to high traffic locations for different meal times and events. The concept behind Streat Chefs’ food will come from Top Chef winner Hosea Rosenberg, who will also serve as a key element in the company’s marketing. Streat Chefs hope to launch in the Front Range initially with hopes to get its first trailer up and running this summer.
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HepQuant LLC and The University of Colorado have completed a licensing agreement that allows HepQuant to continue development of a CU diagnostic technology for evaluating liver disease. The Colorado-based company originally licensed the technology in 2008 when it also received a $100,000 seed grant from the CU Technology Transfer Office. The underlying technology for the diagnostic was invented by Gregory Everson, Professor and Director of Hepatology at the UC Denver School of Medicine. The first product in development based on this technology is HepQuant-Dual, which is a non-invasive test to measure the liver’s portal circulation using natural compounds labeled with stable isotopes. Information on portal circulation will help physicians detect liver disease and assess its severity and the risk of future complications. The company expects to begin clinical trials of its first product late this year.
The week is a busy one from the clean tech perspective kicking off with a DaVinci Institute program featuring Blake Jones, President of Namaste Solar. Tuesday through Thursday sees CORE’s Sustainable Opportunity Summit at the Colorado Convention Center. Tuesday sees a Boulder edition of New Tech Meetup while Wednesday offers a lunchtime BioBusiness Seminar.
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