Category: Startups

Voter engagement startup, Motivote coming to Pittsburgh to meet voters in the PA 18 district

I know the motivote team through the StartingBloc fellowship program. I participated in the StartingBloc fellowship and have helped to organize a few StartingBloc related events around Pittsburgh. If you are interested in social innovation, entrepreneurship and making the world a better place, please consider applying to StartingBloc.

Please share this information with anyone who lives in the Pennsylvania 18th Congressional district. The founders of motivote, a NYC startup which focused on voter engagement, will be in Western Pa this weekend and want to talk with voters. They have planned several meetups in Greensburg and Carnegie at some great local businesses.

Meet motivote @ DV8
Saturday, March 3, 2018
12:00 PM 2:00 PM
DV8 – 208 S Pennsylvania Ave. Greensburg, PA 15601
Seton Hill students, we’re in your neighborhood! Swing by DV8’s gallery space to meet the motivote team and learn about how we help you hold yourself and your friends accountable for voting. We’re focusing on voters in the PA-18 district in preparation for the special Congressional election on March 13, 2018. Coffee and snacks on us!

Meet motivote @ Bakn
Saturday, March 3, 2018
3:00 PM 6:00 PM
Bakn – 335 E Main St. Carnegie, PA 15106
Swing by Bakn’s communal table to meet the motivote team and learn about how we help you hold yourself and your friends accountable for voting. We’re focusing on voters in the PA-18 district in preparation for the special Congressional election on March 13, 2018. We’ll provide the coffee and some brunch bites.

Meet motivote @ The Flying Squirrel
Saturday, March 3, 2018
3:00 PM 6:00 PM
The Flying Squirrel – 241 E Main St. Carnegie, PA 15106
What’s better than toys and and candy? Toys, candy AND increased voter turnout! Swing by The Flying Squirrel to meet the motivote team and learn about how we help you hold yourself and your friends accountable for voting. We’re focusing on voters in the PA-18 district in preparation for the special Congressional election on March 13, 2018.

Meet motivote @ Carnegie Coffee Company
Sunday, March 4, 2018
10:00 AM 3:00 PM
Carnegie Coffee Company – 132 E Main St. Carnegie, PA 15106
Swing by Carnegie Coffee Company to meet the motivote team and learn about how we help you hold yourself and your friends accountable for voting. We’re focusing on voters in the PA-18 district in preparation for the special Congressional election on March 13, 2018. Coffee and snacks on us!

March 2, 2018
Local Startup making Batteries Smart

Congratulations, you’ve made it to the 21st Century! We’ve got smartphones, smart cars, and smart mouths, but no smart batteries. Unlike our other tech, batteries lack any ability to think and they, as we have all experienced, die way too quickly. Solving this powerful problem is Watt-Learn, who just emerged from the Pittsburgh-based accelerator AlphaLab. Watt-Learn is using machine learning to give batteries the ability to think independently. So, when you need to manage power for things like getting the most out of your home’s solar + battery or have sufficient energy during a thunderstorm, batteries can make it happen without help.

To find out more about this innovative tech, we interviewed Watt-Learn’s CEO, Matt Maroon, and CTO, Matineh Eybpoosh.

Listen to the Interview

Read The Full Interview

(more…)

November 21, 2017
Construction Mapping w/ Drones – Identified Technologies Interview

Pittsburgh is home to a plethora of tech leaders, from Google to Uber, to Duolingo. But, did you know that this City home to a company that maps construction sites with drones? Yeah, drones for construction!

Nowadays, most people are familiar with drones as novelty toys and as something used by the U.S. military. But, few may know that drones are being used in other industries. For construction, Pittsburgh based Identified Technologies offers managed commercial drone solutions. To find out about how drones are being used in construction and to learn more about Identified Technologies, we interviewed their Founder and CEO, Dick Zhang.

Listen to the interview…

Read the full interview…

(more…)

November 15, 2017
Startup Weekend Pittsburgh is back Nov. 20-22– get 20% off tickets!
I’ll keep this short since it’s no secret that I love Startup Weekend– if you’re interested in entrepreneurship and the tech scene at all, there’s no better way to get involved than jumping right in! Use code SWheartsPGH for 20% off.

The most recent Startup Weekend, hosted by Work Hard Pittsburgh, was a Civic-themed event held in September that focused on making impacts in our community.

We were due for a general-themed event open to all ideas, regardless of vertical or sector, so Startup Weekend Pittsburgh is coming this weekend!

For a quick recap, here’s what you can expect over the course of a Startup Weekend:
- Pitch your brilliant idea, form a team, and work together to build something great
- Meet some really smart, really motivated people and make valuable long-term connections
- Learn from seasoned mentors who have built their own companies and know what it takes
- Develop new skills and expand your talent set
- Actually build the foundations of company. Market validation, business modeling, prototyping, development– it all happens over the course of 54 hours
- Have all your meals covered, and plenty of celebration beer on Sunday
If you can’t make it for the whole weekend, we also have tickets for just the Friday and/or Sunday night pitches. It’s a perfect way to get a feel for what a Startup Weekend is like, without committing for the whole weekend.

Go here for more info and here for tickets. Don’t forget to use code SWheartsPGH for 20% off all tickets!
November 19, 2015
Startup Weekend is back! Join us Sept. 18-20 for Startup Weekend Civic

A 54-hour hackathon cultivating impact and entrepreneurship

Do you know what’s great?

We are living through an interesting time in the history of technology, where everyday people can choose to have a real impact. It’s not a matter of waiting for large institutions to fix what we know can be fixed. You and me, me and you, we can just choose to engage each other and build solutions.

That’s why Startup Weekend Civic Pittsburgh is happening at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, September 18th in the neighborhood of Allentown. It is a chance for us to come together and build solutions. These weekends are a global movement, but it’s nothing new to our region; there have been about a dozen in the area over the past few years.

If you’re not familiar, a Startup Weekend is typically a 54-hour hackathon where folks from different backgrounds come together to pitch ideas, form teams, and start new companies. They have a great track record of launching some of the hottest new companies in town that often go on to Alpha Lab and Thrill Mill.

Although, our event is a Startup Weekend with a twist.

Instead of creating solutions on a national or global level, we’ll be helping to launch new companies and nonprofits that seek to be impactful in our neighborhoods, city, and region. For some people, that might mean starting a company that solves a problem affecting communities. Others may choose to focus on leveraging the City of Pittsburgh’s new Open Data Forum. Either way, this weekend offers participants a unique opportunity to move their great idea along fast.

It all starts next Friday night when participants will pitch their ideas for solutions to problems associated with communities, government, big data, and economic development.

Teams of strangers from diverse backgrounds will form around the best ideas, and then over the next two days, solutions will be born. Sometimes the solution is an app or website, sometimes it is a new company like Project Playground. No idea is too big or small to explore.

Then Sunday night, an esteemed panel of judges sourced from local foundations, city government, and startups will choose the winners. That’s right, we’re putting your solutions directly in front of organizations that can move it even further forward.

It doesn’t matter what your background is, everyone is welcome. You can contribute if you’re a designer, business person, idea girl/guy, software engineer, social media guru, videographer, large squirrel, government official, someone in economic development, or just a normal everyday person that cares.

So what are you waiting for?

You’ve got ideas. You’ve got passion. You want to help make the region better, stronger, and more livable.

It’s time to register. Use code SWHeartsPGH for an extra discount. Tickets for the weekend include all your meals (plus the best networking and professional development you could ever ask for).

Startup Weekend Civic Pittsburgh
When: Friday, September 18 at 6:30pm through Sunday, September 20 at 9pm
Where: RE360 Building in Allentown
829 Industry St.
Pittsburgh, PA 15210
Tickets

September 11, 2015