Knight Foundation Refreshes Miami Startup Community With $150K For Refresh Miami

Refresh Miami, an organization that supports startups and entrepreneurship in Miami, has been connecting entrepreneurs to each other, growth capital, and resources since 2005, since before it was “cool”. The 5,000 member organization has held over 1000 events since it’s inception 8 years ago, according to Florida Technology Journal.

Now the organization is the recipient of $150,000 from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Knight Foundation is a philantrhopic cousin to the Knight Ridder newspaper family. They often support startups and startup communities, especially in the areas of media.

That’s where this funding will come in handy. Refresh Miami is looking to revamp its web offerings by generating more content for entrepreneurs, founders, and investors. They’re also looking to connect their user base to a an event calendar, job listings, and even member profiles.

“Its great to be a part of the growing climate for innovation in Miami, and we hope to contribute more with this support from the Knight Foundation,” said Brian Breslin, Refresh Miami founder and co-director.

“Through this expansion Refresh can continue on its mission of growing and refreshing the technology and entrepreneurial community in the city,” said Peter Martinez, Refresh Miami co-director.

“Miami’s start-up ecosystem continues to gain momentum, but people need the right connections and a central place for ways to learn and engage in the community,” said Matt Haggman, Miami program director for Knight Foundation. “Refresh Miami will fill this gap by providing entrepreneurs with the opportunities they need to build their ideas and inspire others to participate.”

Find out more about Refresh Miami.

Steve Case Re-Affirms Faith In Startups, Raising Another $150 Million Dollar Fund

Washington, DC-based Steve Case, founder of AOL, Revolution, and the founding Chairman of Startup America, has made some bold moves over the past few years when it comes to startups. He’s also been a strong advocate for startups everywhere across the nation and on Capitol Hill.

Monday, Case put his money where his mouth is again by announcing through TechCrunch. The AOL-owned website reports that through his venture capital arm, Revolution Ventures, Case and partners are raising another $150 million dollar fund to support early stage startup ventures.

Revolution is calling the fund “Revolution Ventures II,” and like the previous fund, it will back early stage tech companies. Some of their previous portfolio companies include ZipCar, Living Social, and HomeSnap.

TechCrunch also reported that they’ve heard $125 million was already committed.

Two and a half years ago Case launched Startup America, a three-year initiative to spur startups, innovation, and job creation. Two months ago Case, along with several others, announced that Statup America was joining forces with Startup Weekend to take the initiatives global. Now we know that Case wants to continue to do his part directly by launching more companies.

A Must Attend Conference For Startups Everywhere Else, Early Bird Discounts Going Away

The inaugural “everywhereelse.co The Startup Conference” was heralded by forbes.com as a “Must attend” This one of a kind conference caters to the collective trials, problems and victories unique to startups “everywhere else”, giving founders from anywhere USA access to the kind of conference that typically costs thousands of dollars to attend.

The first conference, held February 10-12th in Memphis Tennessee was attended by over 1200 attendees from 43 states, 7 countries and 3 continents with over 75 startups in the startup village from an equally large footprint across the country, and around the world. Attendees were treated to keynotes, workshops, networking, pitch contests and three great after party events.

On day one all of the attendees went together to the Memphis Grizzlies vs Minnesota Timberwolves game. The other, overflowing parties included one at the world famous Ernestine and Hazels (a brothel over 30 years ago) and Raiford’s a one of a kind discotech djed by an old man with a cape that brought the house down. Far and wide people are still talking about that party.

We’ve got some amazing things lined up for our next Memphis conference February 17-19 2014 and an even bigger announcement at the end of July (stay tuned).

We have longer sessions, even better content, catered breakfast and lunch sessions, learning sessions on marketing, branding, startup accounting and legal issues and much more. Mike Muhney the godfater of CRM and founder of ACT, Gary Swart, CEO of oDesk, Jonathon Perrelli, Danny Boice, several 500 Startups founders, YCombinator Founders and Techstars founders and many more have already committed to the next conference and we’ll have a bunch more announcements in the coming weeks.

With that in mind you want to act now and get your attendee tickets or startup village booth during the early bird discount period where you can get tickets to the next conference (and startup village booths) at the same rate as last year. Attendee discounted tickets are $59 and Startup Village booths (including 3 tickets) just $395. These discounts absolutely end July 6.

Startup Village booths get:

3 conference passes for your team. Exhibitors will have the same access as paid attendees to everything found here
Tickets to all of our after conference events
pitch contests
8×10 exhibit booth space
6 foot table
Description in our professionally printed program
Description on the everywhereelse.co website (startups will be posted starting October 15)
Early access on to set up and late access to take down
Yes you can purchase extra tickets for team members beyond the initial three tickets. Those “exhibitor guest” tickets are only $50
Can we sell stuff at our booth YES
Can we demo our app at our booth YES
Just so we’re clear if your team is 3 people or less, you DO NOT need to buy additional attendee tickets.
We do ask that your booth is manned by at least one human being from your team during all exhibition hours but feel free to rotate that human and enjoy the rest of the event.

Steve Case: Passing Immigration Legislation Victory For Startups

While Nibletz isn’t going to pontificate on the southern border issue in the United States, the recently passed Senate Immigration Bill is solving a huge problem for startups. One that the likes of Steve Case, Scott Case, Marc Nager, Brad Feld, and others have been championing.

In the most basic of laymen’s terms, it’s somewhat easy for a foreigner to come to America, attend an accelerator, get funding for their company, and go home. It gets rocky when they want to stay and build their company in America, one of the reasons Startup America and other organizations are even around.

It’s also somewhat easy for a sharp foreigner to come and work for Google, Microsoft, or Facebook, but when they have that great idea and want to build their startup in the U.S. things get a lot more dicey.

The new immigration legislation includes “startup visas” that according to The Washington Post, will “allow entrepreneurs from around the world to start firms and create jobs.”

Earlier this year at SXSW Steve Case and Scott Case (no relation) spent a lot of time celebrating startups across the country. However at Startup America’s huge SXSW party, Steve Case took to the stage to talk about immigration and how we needed this reform in order to help spur innovation from great minds who, in most cases, have come over to the United States and seen what they can do here.

Steve Case told The Washington Post: “This important step demonstrates the capacity of our elected leaders in Washington to come together across party lines to advance what is clearly in our nation’s best interest – an immigration system that meets the needs of our 21st century economy. The Senate’s bill will attract the world’s best entrepreneurs and innovators and be a key ingredient to sustaining America’s long-term competitive edge.”

Steve Case, the founder of AOL and Revolution has done some major lobbying on Capitol Hill over the past 4 years to help spur entrepreneurship and innovation across the country. He is the founding chairman of Startup America, which recently merged resources to go global with Startup Weekend as UpGlobal.

Steve Case is also trying to save social local commerce

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Praises Chicago Tech & Startups At Chicago TechWeek

For the second year in a row Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed out day two of Chicago TechWeek, congratulating We Deliver, the winner of the TechWeek Launch startup contest.

At the beginning of his remarks Emanuel congratulated TechWeek on improving the attendance and excitement of the conference, now in it’s third year. The mayor also had the chance to recognize the two people in the audience wearing Chicago Blackhawk’s jerseys. It was also “Black Hawk Day” where over 1 million Chicago area residents were in downtown Chicago for a parade to celebrate the Black Hawk’s Stanley Cup victory over the Boston Bruins.

Mayor Emanuel took a minute to recognize the new Google Motorola headquarters. The company is now an anchor tenant at the Merchandise Mart building, which houses TechWeek and over 200 startups in the 1871 co-working, incubation, and acceleration space on the 12th floor. The Google Motorola headquarters is the largest build out in Chicago history since 2005 with a total of 600,000 square feet within the walls of the Merchandise Mart.

When you put together the startups in the neighborhood along with the new Google Motorola headquarters there will be 8,000 employees in what Emanuel calls “the digital alley” which runs alongside the river. “8,000 employees that didn’t exist just four years ago,” Mayor Emanuel told the audience.

“I think the city of Chicago will become the mecca of startups in the midwest,” Mayor Emanuel said. “Just last year, worldwide, we went from 15th to 10th in startups.”

Mayor Emanuel praised 1871, calling it a startup itself because it just turned a year old. The mayor stressed the fact that Chicago has been known for the diversity in its economy, and he feels that the digital economy is becoming a pillar in the Chicago economy.

After his speech Mayor Emanuel toured the exhibit hall and even had time to play defense in a game of beer pong (with cups of water) on a C5 Beer Pong table. C5 is a Chicago startup.

Check out Mayor Emanuel’s remarks in the video.

Even more Chicago TechWeek Startup Coverage here.

Minnesota Startup Theory.io Launches NoteSuite, A Safer Syncable Notebook

Ever since Prism and Edward Snowden became household words, people that resort to keeping their lives managed on their mobile devices have been worried about the security of their personal, professional, and most intimate notes. If their notes are living in the cloud, are they actually safe from prying eyes?

The other big problem with note taking apps and notebook apps today is that users are worried about being trapped in a proprietary ecosystem. What happens if the app they’re using shuts the service down, or they just don’t feel like paying anymore? Sure there are a ton of simple notebook apps that may work. There are also a ton of Microsoft Office solutions, but familiar names like Evernote mean you’re stuck in the Evernote ecosystem.

That’s why Peter Tamte, President of Theory,io is releasing NoteSuite for iPad. This new notebook app has all the syncing functionality of other cloud-based note taking apps, but the notes live device side. Also, equally as important, they can be quickly exported.

NoteSuite for iPad is also the only mobile app that allows users to take notes, manage to-dos, clip web pages, annotate almost anything, and read/search PDFs, MS Office files, and web clips together in one app. It makes it easier to stay organized while mobile. NoteSuite for Mac automatically syncs with NoteSuite for iPad and combines note-taking, to-do management, web clipping, and document organization.

Different from most note-taking apps, NoteSuite does not require a subscription. NoteSuite stores users’ data safely on their iPad or computer, employing popular cloud services for syncing and backup rather than primary storage. This ensures users’ never pay extra to access notes offline, data will not vanish if their web service gets cancelled, access to notes will not be jeopardized by security concerns or lost Internet connections, and users’ data can never get held hostage for higher fees in the future.

NoteSuite is a sequel to Theory.io’s Projectbook, which launched in August 2012 as the #1 best-selling paid iPad productivity app. NoteSuite is an original app, with more than 100 new features and changes and is available as a free upgrade for Projectbook users.

“Web services are ideal for syncing, backup, and collaboration. But, our notes hold our most important ideas and information,” Tamte said in a statement. “Our research shows that 62% of notes app users are worried about trapping their data inside a proprietary, subscription-based system. NoteSuite lets users stay on top of everything that matters in one organized place and never lose control of their data.”

Here are just some of NoteSuite for iPad’s features:

– Capture Anything: Type, make lists, take photos, record audio, and capture to-dos collectively within notes pages. The iPad version also lets users draw and handwrite directly on notes pages.

– Clip Web Pages: Save clutter-free, fully searchable articles, shopping pages, recipes, and PDFs directly from the web into the app to enjoy anytime, anywhere – even offline.

– Manage To-dos: Track due dates and start dates, set reminders, and match to-dos and projects with relevant notes and documents using comprehensive to-do management features.

– Annotate PDFs: Markup, highlight, sign, fill out forms, type, draw freehand, write, and more on iPad using the PDF capabilities.

– Annotate Anything: Convert MS Office and Apple iWork documents to PDF on iPad, draw or type directly on photos, and convert PowerPoint slides into notes pages for note taking during meetings and lectures.

– Read and Search Documents: Read and search Word docs, PowerPoint files, PDFs, notes, web clips, and to-dos.

– Find Things That Aren’t Organized: Find notes, Word docs, PDFs, and PowerPoint files even if they haven’t been tagged or filed in folders, and without having to remember keywords.

– Sync Across Devices: Tapping one button allows users to sync their data automatically via iCloud from that point forward, without creating a new account or remembering more passwords.

Normally priced at $4.99, NoteSuite for iPad is available at a special introductory price of $1.99 through July 15, 2013 and is a free upgrade for Projectbook users. NoteSuite for iPad is available on the App Store here.

Normally priced at $9.99, NoteSuite for Mac is available at a special introductory price of $4.99 through July 15, 2013. NoteSuite for Mac is available on the Mac App Store here.

These are the top cities for women entrepreneurs.

Sprint Becomes Latest Corporate Sponsor For Up Global

Sprint, the third largest wireless carrier in the United States, has signed on as the newest sponsor of Up Global, the organization formed when Startup America and Startup Weekend joined forces last month.

When Startup America was originally formed, it was decided by chairman Steve Case and the other entities involved that they were going to see what kind of disruption and innovation they could shake up across the country in three years. As the organization began to approach that third year, they wanted to continue to impact the Startup America regions and push further.

That’s why on May 22nd it was announced that the two organizations would merge. Startup Weekend is the organization that promotes and ignites innovation, startups, and entrepreneurship through 54 hour hackathon-style events. To date Startup Weekend has done over 600 events in over 300 cities and over 100 countries.

Startup Weekend has now branched out a bit. They are the organization behind the weekly Startup Digest, a curated list of startup events in cities across the country typically curated by the local startup community leaders. Over the last two years they’ve also started doing vertical oriented Startup Weekend events like Startup Weekend EDU and a maker’s edition of Startup Weekend. With all of the various touchpoints for Startup Weekend, they were a natural partner for Startup America and had already collaborated with Startup America for Startup Weekend Next.

Startup Weekend, Startup America, and now Up Global have been attracting some of America’s largest corporations as sponsors for their entrepreneurial efforts. Current Up Global partners include Coca Cola, Google, Microsoft, Dell, The Case Foundation, and The Kauffman Foundation.

On Monday it was announced that Sprint, the Overland Park, KS-based wireless carrier, was signing on as Up Global’s latest sponsor. Sprint is no stranger to innovation. They were the first wireless carrier to host a developer conference, they’ve supported local startup initiatives in the Midwest, and keep open channels for developers and startups looking to utilize their network and devices for their software and companies.

“The move to team with Sprint is a result of a shared vision for the necessity of entrepreneurship and stronger communities built around innovation. Like us, Sprint understands that the future of our economy rests largely on the shoulders of entrepreneurs and new businesses. We’re excited to create more meaningful impact with the support of such a forward-thinking company,” Marc Nager, UP Global CEO, said in a statement.

“Sprint recognizes that corporate involvement is important to the success of any entrepreneurial or startup ecosystem,” said Kevin McGinnis, Vice President of Product Platforms at Sprint. “Our UP Global relationship enables Sprint to bring new resources to Kansas City and also extend support on a national scale. In addition, it allows Sprint visibility to high-growth technology startups across the country that we may not be able to identify through our more traditional VC and business development efforts.”

You can find out more and join Up Global here at up.co

Ernst & Young Partners With Cincinnati’s Cintrifuse

Cintrifuse is a huge regional initiative in Cincinnati, Ohio, designed to support high potential startups in the region. It’s backed by the Cincinnati Business Committee, with it’s initial venture capital investors including Proctor & Gamble, Cincinnati’s Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Duke Energy, University of Cincinnati, and Western Southern Financial Group.

In addition to a venture capital fund, Cintrifuse links entrepreneurs and startups with business partners, research institutions, mentors, and investors. They have partnerships with every startup-facing organization in Cincinnati including CincyTech and The Brandery, organizations we’ve written about here quite a bit.

On Friday the Cintrifuse and professional services giant Ernst & Young announced a partnership that will include capital, professional services, and annual operating support. The Cincinnati Business Courier reports that the parthership is slated to run for five years.

“Cintrifuse is just kind of a startup itself – it’s really just been starting its activities this last year,” Julia Poston, Managing Partner for Ernst & Young in Cincinnati told the Business Courier. “Tax considerations, organizational considerations, human capital, that’s what we are offering as part of our contribution to Cintrifuse.”

Ernst & Young’s Erica Patterson is on loan to Cintrifuse. She previously worked in Ernst & Young’s growth market in Chicago.

Find out more about Cintrifuse here.

Ann Arbor Venture Firm Raises First $11 Million Dollar Fund

Huron River Ventures, an Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids, Michigan-based venture capital firm, announced late last week that they have raised their first venture capital fund.

“We started working on this fund in 2010 and we had our first close at $7.5 million in March 2011,” managing director Tim Streit told AnnArbor.com.

Huron River Ventures is a ten year fund and to date they’ve deployed about 30% across seven different companies. They plan to invest in another 7 or 8 companies within the next two to three years and round out the fund at 15.

The fund was started by Streit and college friend Ryan Waddington, who met at the University of Michigan. The goal of the fund was to invest in Michigan companies and with that mission they were able to raise an initial $6 million dollars from the State of Michigan as part of their Accelerator Fund Program.

“We’re here, we want Michigan deals, and that’s what we focus on… we invest in Michigan-based companies or companies that have a strong presence in the state. Almost all of our capital is from the state or investors who are from Michigan or still live here.” Streit said.

Announcing a fund’s closing is basically a formality; however it sends a signal to Michigan entrepreneurs that Huron River is funded and ready to invest.

Find out more about Huron River Ventures here.

source

Check out this new startup accelerator in Michigan, Coolhouse Labs.

Image.

Arkansas Catches Teenpreneur Bug With Sparkible Startup Summer Camps

Last week we sat in on a pretty intense startup community meeting in Tennessee. During the meeting some of the community stakeholders reminded us that successful startup communities are drilling down even further with education.

Entrepreneurs are getting younger and younger. Stories about 22 year old entrepreneurs are regular occurrences. The new wave of entrepreneurs are teenagers, and we’re not talking the 18-19 year old variety. Earlier this month we reported that a team led by a 14-year-old won Tampa Bay’s most recent Startup Weekend.

Startup communities across the country are starting to recognize this trend of innovation and entrepreneurism hitting a younger demographic. Also in the beginning of the month, the Kauffman Foundation and Kansas City entrepreneur William Robinson announced Teen Idea Labs, a conference style event for teenagers.

Now Arkansas has announced an initiative aimed at teenagers and innovation. Sparkible is a 4 day mini-accelerator summer camp for teenagers, complete with a demo day for potential investors, educators, stakeholders, and of course parents.

Sparkible is the brain child of Arkansas serial entrepreneur Mike Steely with help from Northwest Arkansas serial entrepreneur and Ark Challenge mentor David Moody, Innovate Arkansas reports.

Steely posted on his LinkedIn:

I am pleased to announce the creation of Sparkible, a non-profit education company focused on sparking innovation and startup learning. Sparkible is kicking off a series of summer camps in Arkansas structured to immerse teenagers in idea creation, innovation and building a business. This series is also our initial fundraising effort, proceeds from the camps will be used to build out our technologies and curriculum for this fall.
If you would like to learn more, know of a potential camper who would be interested in attending, would be interested in sponsoring a camp or camp participant, please contact me and also go check out our startup website at www.sparkible.org.
– See more at: http://innovation.arkansasbusiness.com/blog/2013/06/18/sparkible-launches-offers-startup-education-for-teenagers/#sthash.IO8Sxbmp.dpuf

Sparkible will allow participants between the ages of 14-18 to:

Learn ways to spot innovative ideas
Experience the lean startup process for turning an idea to a plan in less than a day
Understand what it takes to build a startup company and define your role.
Learn how to build a team, plan, and develop your idea.
Understand how Social Media interacts with your company.
Understand how mobile technologies, including Apps, will impact businesses of the future.
How to craft your message via an elevator pitch for funding and growth.
Where to find startup capital to grow your idea into a business.

Find out more here at Innovate Arkansas.

Check out with these two kidpreneurs did with cardboard.

Image source.

Startup Weekend Hosting “Makers” Event Next Week In Seattle

Startup Weekend, the non profit in Seattle that recently joined forces with Startup America, is hosting a new kind of 54 hour hackathon startup weekend event in their hometown next weekend. This time, instead of assembling entrepreneurs, designers, and developers to create businesses, they’ll be working on making things.

Startup Weekends are typically about creating software and other tech startups. This time around at the MakerHaus, the hackers will have the resources to “bring innovation to a whole new level.” The teams at the Seattle event will be able to design and prototype actual physical products using micro-controllers, laser cutting, 3D printing, metal working, and wood working.

People with ideas for products will get to pitch those ideas on Friday evening. From there the group will vote on the products that they want to build and several will be built out over the following 52 hours.

Normally there are three kinds of tickets sold to a startup weekend event; developer, designer, and non-technical. These teams have produced countless startups that are still going today. Some have even gone on to get funding like Zaarly, or win bigger startup contests like Aspiredu.

For this Maker’s edition, Startup Weekend is throwing in one more ticket, a “unicorn” ticket. These are people who agree to be taught how to run the machinery at MakerHaus.

There will be some great coaches on hand for the weekend:

Alex Diener, Creative Director Pensar Development
Marc Barros, co-founder and former CEO of Contour
Ayemerik Renard, Vice President Accelerator, PCH International
H.B. Siegel, CTO IMDb.com
Jim Young, President and Creative Director, Nice Inc
Adam Benzion, Portfolio Manager, 10AK Technologies
Beth Kolko, co-founder and CEO Shift Labs
Terence Tam, Principal Engineer, OpenBeam USA

To register or for more info click here.

Check out this great event for startups everywhere else.

Nashville Opens New 22,000 Square Foot Entrepreneur Center

Michael Burcham is a Nashville serial entrepreneur, angel investor, Startup Tennessee director, and Director of the Entrepreneur Center. On Thursday Burcham opened their new 22,000 square foot facility in the converted trolley barn at Rolling Mill Hill. The mayor, the governor, and Startup America founding CEO and Priceline founding CTO, Scott Case, were on hand for the opening of the new facility.

The new entrepreneur center has more space for education, collaboration, and acceleration within the walls of the 22,000 square foot building. It’s been outfitted with the technology needed to help achieve all of those goals.

The former Entrepreneur Center was always a temporary location after opening in May 2010. The center, led by Burcham, immediately began a search for a permanent home and found it in Nashville’s creatively rich SoBro neighborhood in Trolley Barn #1 at Rolling Mill.

In addition to the new facility, the epicenter of Nashville’s startup ecosystem got a new name, sort of. They are now “The Nashville Entrepreneur Center”, thanks to a pending lawsuit from Entrepreneur Magazine which has a reputation for bullying entrepreneurial organizations that use their trademarked word in their name.

The new location is in the same park as one of Nashville’s most successful startups, Emma.

“It scales us in every direction,Burcham told the Nashville Business Journal. “It brings legitimacy to Nashville as the best place to start a business.”

The old trolley barns also serve as home to several other young companies. There are plans to build out a restaurant and possibly a bowling alley on the property that overlooks both the football stadium and the river. Since it’s inception, the Nashville Entrepreneur Center has served as a hub for the thriving community which allows entrepreneurs to collaborate and learn from each other.

“Being with other people who are ahead of you in that process and in some ways behind you in that process, it’s sort of the crucible through which much, much better businesses go through,” Case said. “If you are not in place with a strong community … and Nashville is one of the fastest-emerging strong startup communities in the country, you tend to not have the quality of companies come out of it.”

You can find out more about the Nashville Entrepreneur Center here.

Image: Facebook.com

Microsoft Manager Heading To Baghdad For Their First Ever Startup Weekend

Last month when Startup Weekend and Startup America joined forces to launch UpGlobal, one of the big factors was expanding the Startup America vision across the globe. Startup Weekend holds 54 hour hackathon style events worldwide every weekend. To date they’ve held over 600 events in 113 countries and 325 cities. Now they are looking forward to the first Startup Weekend Baghdad.

Baghdad has been rebuilding for years and is still one of the most violent regions in the world. GeekWire reminds us that in May alone over 1000 civilians and security officials were killed. But that won’t stop entrepreneurs, designers and developers from coming together to startup.

The Baghdad event will start this Thursday June 27th (Friday in Baghdad) and continue for 54 hours.

Startup Weekend is no stranger to violence and they don’t let it interrupt their events. In countries facing war, violence, and even poverty, entrepreneurs escape by coming together, collaborating and working on companies. Even missile attacks last November in Israel couldn’t stop one of the largest Startup Weekend groups from pushing through.

During that Startup Weekend in Israel it wasn’t until the third missile alarm and a missile striking a building just 12 yards away that organizers finally caved in and postponed the event:

After the first missile alarm we didn’t change our minds and it was amazing to see everyone starting to carry tables and chairs into the safe zones (Shelters) inside the building just so they can keep on working on their projects. Sometimes, the entrepreneurial spirit can overcome fear. It was so inspiring to see how everyone are focused on what seems to be the most important thing at the moment – how to take their idea and make it into a successful venture.

But sometimes reality just hits you in the face. At about 8:30PM, after the third missile alarm and one rocket hitting a few dozen yards away from the building where we were hosted, we had to submit the safety order by the Israeli Army and the city’s representatives who told us to shut down and cancel the rest of the event.

The current in violence in Iraq is not stopping Othmane Rahmouni a senior product manager with Microsoft Advertising, from heading to the middle east to help advise and mentor the 200 participants.

Geekwire reports that Rahmouni is a volunteer with Mercy Corps an agency that has partnered with Startup Weekend to organize events in the developing world.

Find out more about Startup Weekend Baghdad here.

Team led by 14 year old ins Startup Wekend Tampa.

Vine Is Not Dead, Gary Vaynerchuck Launches Talent Agency For Viners

New York entrepreneur, wine connoisseur, angel investor and now talent agent. Gary Vaynerchuck must believe that Instagram’s Thursday introduction of 15 second video clips won’t hurt Twitter’s popular Vine product.

Vine allows users to create 6 second videos that are looped for eternity and then share them across Twitter and Facebook.

It was long reported that Instagram was working on a video product to rival Vine. The Facebook-owned company unveiled that feature for Android and iOS users on Thursday. It became an instant success (no pun intended), especially with Instagram users who hadn’t started using Vine.

As for the Vine users, the verdict is still out. Several Vine and Instagram users posted “goodbye Vine” videos on their Instragram channels. Others quickly learned that the looping feature wasn’t available on Instagram and that sometimes 15 seconds is too much.

Vine gained almost instant popularity among popular bloggers, like the crew at Phillip DeFranco’s SourceFed and several sports stars and celebrities. 6 seconds gives viewers just enough of a glimpse into people’s lives that it’s fun. It’s quick enough that it doesn’t sidetrack viewers for very long.

Some people are getting very creative with Vine, often using the six second loop to make a continuous movie of sorts.

Vaynerchuck is no stranger to how successful video can be. He started a very successful YouTube show about wine in 2006. Now he thinks Vine is where it’s at.

“I’d seen this rodeo before,” Vaynerchuk tells Fast Company. “I started a YouTube show in 2006, so I lived that phenomenon. I lived what happened on Twitter for the first year and a half, before quote, unquote, real celebrities were on it. It’s just so obvious to me that this is going to happen.”

Vaynerchuck’s Vine talent agency is appropriately called Grape Story, and Virgin Mobile is his first client.

Though the talent will have a level of creative freedom while crafting contracted videos, they’ll incorporate specific Virgin Mobile messages. Vaynerchuck wouldn’t disclose how much stars will be paid per video, but according to Fast Company he did say that a star who made about 20 videos each year could make a living. That’s only two minutes of video. In a year.

Vaynerchuck isn’t the least bit worried about Instagram’s new video feature.

Ron Fairs, Virgin Mobile’s head of brand marketing, and Vaynerchuck’s first client for this venture added “I often question when a platform has its tried and true, which is photography, still photo, moves into another medium,” he says. “What is really the motivation behind it? . . . There could be a host of reasons other than this is what the consumer wants. Vine is something that was born into the model of [six]-seconds of video. And I think when you see other people trying to replicate that model, it’s not going to have the same organic lift and success as the person who came up with it first did.”

Move over Gary Vee, this New York startup says they’re the Wolverine of wine startups.

Gary Vaynerchuck image, vimeo