Categories
Career Current Events Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay Innovation Center’s Entrepreneur & Investment Challenge is looking for applicants

Tampa Bay Innovation Center’s Spring 2020 Entrepreneurship & Investment Challenge takes place from April 28th through July 15th, and they’re looking for Tampa Bay-based tech startups to join!

The Entrepreneurship & Investment Challenge is a program focused on preparing technology ventures in how to scale a company. It’s not about preparing your pitch, marketing, or raising money. Instead, it takes an “inside-out” approach. It’s about preparing your company not to just look ready but to be ready to take an investment, hit the ground running, and execute your plan.

From their site:

The program helps CEOs develop into leaders that can rapidly execute plans, adjust plans when appropriate, and give them the experience to know how to navigate the obstacles that derail promising startups. While a good pitch will attract investors, the deal is closed based on your response to questions and successful due diligence. Having the confidence that you can handle the next phase of your startup will help close the deal with investors.

Eligible companies are:

  • Scalable B2B tech ventures

  • Are pre-seed, seed, or post-seed to Series A

  • At the post-MVP / proof of concept stage

  • In possession of less that $2 million in capital

  • Made up of two or more team members

  • Able to commit to a 12-week program

The program is free-as-in-beer — you won’t spend anything to attend — and no equity is required. It’s offered in a series of 1= to 2-day workshops over 10 to 12 weeks, and accommodates up to 10 companies per cohort.

Interested? Find out more at the Entrepreneurship & Investment Challenge page at the Tampa Bay Innovation Center site.

Categories
Current Events Players Tampa Bay

Don’t miss the 7th annual WITI Geek Glam this Thursday!

The WITI (Women in Technology International) Geek Glam is Tampa Bay’s most glamorous tech event, and it takes place this Thursday, March 5th at Tampa River Center at Julian B Lane Riverfront Park. One of the events at the Geek Glam will be the fashion show, featuring a number of Tampa Bay tech women, including my favorite, Anitra Pavka:

The event will also feature:

  • A silent auction, whose proceeds will go to the WITI Tampa Network Scholarship fund at SPC and USF to support future generations of Tampa Bay technologists
  • A pop-up market
  • Door prizes
  • Networking with 350 of your peers in the Tampa Bay tech community
  • A DJ to keep the tunes going and a photographer for some non-selfie shots
  • Some nerd with an accordion providing scintillating conversation and additional musical merriment

…and it all happens in this gorgeous venue with a wonderful riverfront view:

Here’s the event schedule:

  • 5:30 – Event Starts
  • 6:00 – Welcome from WITI
  • 7:00 – Welcome from Sponsors
  • 7:15 – Fashion Show
  • 8:30 – Silent Auction Closes
  • 9:00 – End of Geek Glam 2020!

And here’s how you can attend:

  1. You can go to the event registration page and buy a ticket, which is $30 for WITI members and $45 for non-members.
  2. You can attend for free by volunteering. Suzanne Ricci is looking for a handful of volunteers; the details are on LinkedIn.

This will be a fun, stylish event, and it’s both a great cause as well as a great opportunity to catch up with local techies and other business movers and shakers. Don’t miss out on this one!

Categories
Humor Programming

“This is just to say” (The 2020 edition)

This is just to say

I have fixed
the bugs
in the app

and which
you coded
and probably thought
were features

Forgive me
they were egregious
so basic
and so avoidable

Categories
Humor Reading Material

Monday morning in the programmer world

Recommended reading and notes: