Austin-based Q2ebanking plans to open an office outside of Atlanta in August to serve its growing client base in the region.
The startup company provides electronic banking solutions to banks and credit unions nationwide.
“Expanding into the Atlanta area is a natural move for us and is a testament to the demand we are experiencing for electronic banking services,” Matt Flake, CEO and president of Q2ebanking, said in a news statement. “Atlanta is rapidly becoming an East Coast technology corridor and was recently ranked by the U.S. Census Bureau as one of the nation’s fastest growing cities. Having a presence there gives us access to some of the industry’s most well respected professionals and ensures that our clients continue to receive unprecedented support.”
Category: San Antonio (Page 48 of 62)
A white board plastered with dozens of sticky notes tells part of the story of the first Central Texas Barcamp at Geekdom.
People attending this unconference filled the board with ideas for sessions including ethical hacking, how to create a kick ass page on Facebook for a nonprofit, Creating the Wow: marketing yourself/business on the Internet, Blog tips and tricks and so much more.
An unconference is an event in which the participants put on the show. But the chief organizer behind Central Texas Barcamp is Joey Lopez, a professor of convergent media at the University of Incarnate Word.
“I lived in Austin for 10 years, we had built a creative space there. Back in 2008, I pitched the idea of having a creative space in San Antonio,” Lopez said. “My goal with this conference was to bring together like minded individuals from a diverse background, Chicanas, architects, startups, academics, just everyone from all over Central Texas to talk about the cool, creative things that are going on in their lives.”
More than 120 people signed up for the Barcamp and half of those people showed up, Lopez said. They came from San Antonio, Austin and Houston.
“We’ve got people who have talked at Tedx here. We have people who have talked at Foo Camps, where Barcamp is based off,” Lopez said. 
Dustin Younse with Dorkbot in Austin is here. So is Brandon Wiley who runs Hackerspace in Austin. And Jennifer Navarrete, who started Barcamps in San Antonio back in 2008, is livestreaming the event.”
The focus of the event was to get people invigorated to have new ideas come out and share them, Lopez said.
“It’s a participatory, collaborative environment and unlike something like Tedx, it’s free,” Lopez said. “The participants are the speakers and the audience.”
The event also brought together Austin and San Antonio’s tech community and creative community.
“I met some people in San Antonio who want to do some civic hacking and one gentleman who is already doing it,” said Chip Rosenthal, who drove from Austin to attend the event. He runs a site, Unicom.com, for people creating software and tools with a civic interest in mind. He did a session on “Hack Your City: Open Government and Data.”
Brandon Wiley drove down from Austin also. He’s a member of Hackerspace in Austin and he consults with startup companies. He has put on several unconferences in Austin. On Saturday, he saw some good talks including one on how to make video games and another on autonomous vehicles.
Joey Lopez, organizer of CTX Barcamp
Jennifer Navarrete organized the first Barcamp in San Antonio in 2008 and attended the latest one.
“It’s a way to bring together a diverse group of people under one roof,” Navarrete said. That creates a certain kind of “magic” around the principals of Barcamp, which are to learn, share and grow, she said.
Alicia Arenas, who runs Sanera Camp, a business bootcamp in San Antonio, attended the day-long event to learn from others.
“What I love about camp is the informal atmosphere and getting to connect with people,” she said. “Unconferences really reveal the brillance of the people in the room.”
The audience asks questions, shares their own experiences and offers up new ideas, Arenas said.
“You don’t get to go to a regular conference and float ideas, but you can do that here.”
The first CreateAthon Austin will kick off Sept. 20 and run 24 hours.
During that time, volunteers will donate their creative marketing expertise to nonprofit organizations.
BuildASign.com and AIGA are sponsoring the event. They are inviting nonprofit organizations to apply for CreateAthon Austin now through July 22. They will notify the selected organizations by July 30..
“Austin is home to so many nonprofits that deserve creative marketing services to help them support their missions,” Erin Bender, President of AIGA Austin, said in a statement. “We look forward to making that possible through CreateAthon Austin, and can’t wait to see the work this event produces.”
“Bringing CreateAthon to Austin made total sense,” Dan Graham, co-founder and CEO of BuildASign.com, said in a statement. “We live in a city full of creative professionals that are not only extremely talented, but also committed to giving back. The work this event produces in 24 hours can help make a tremendous impact in the community, and we are so excited to be a part of that.”
Now in its 14th year, more than 75 agencies have participated in the national CreateAthon network, hosting annual events across the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. The program has benefited more than 1,275 nonprofits with 3,100 projects valued at more than $15 million.
BuildASign.com, an online custom printing provider, has 240 employees and $30 million in revenue last year.
As a technology region, Austin and San Antonio combined have great strengths that rival major tech centers like Silicon Valley.
Austin, known for software, hardware and silicon chips, has also become a vibrant incubator for high tech startups.
San Antonio, home to Rackspace, a Web hosting company, is also a high tech mecca with tons of research and development taking place at Southwest Research Institute, the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, the University of Texas at San Antonio and now Texas A&M. San Antonio, with its military bases, also has one of the highest concentrations of cyber security workers outside of the Washington, D.C. area.
San Antonio is also working to nurture its high-tech workforce and encourage startup companies.
So what better place to discuss the region’s strengths and how the two communities can help each other out than at a Barcamp, which is a free event in which the participants put on the show.
San Antonio has had several Barcamps and Austin has had several Barcamps. But this is the first time the two communities have joined together at a Barcamp to cross pollinate ideas.
The Central Texas Barcamp takes place this Saturday, July 7 starting at 9 a.m. and running until 5 p.m. at Geekdom at the Weston Centre, 112 Pecan Street in downtown San Antonio. A happy hour will follow the day long camp. It’s not too late to sign up. Register here. Silicon Hills News will be there. I hope you will be too.
In the old days, inventors tinkered in obscurity in their garages, spare bedrooms and basements.
But now that cool collaboration and coworking spaces like Geekdom have arrived on the scene, there’s no need to tinker in private. And if you’ve got a hankering to make something out of nothing, but you’re not into crafting like Martha Stewart or cooking like Gordon Ramsay, then you might want to take a shot at company creation especially if you like to get your hands dirty with coding and graphic design.
And Startup Weekend San Antonio and Geekdom have an opportunity for you to spend a weekend with like-minded individuals, brainstorming ideas, pounding out code and creating a new venture.
I covered the first Startup Weekend in San Antonio organized by Jennifer Navarrete when I worked at the local paper. I hung out with the teams for most of the weekend and I can tell you this is a serious venture. The people who attend this event are passionate about entrepreneurship. And they worked hard all weekend long. Some of the teams pulled all nighters.
The event generally starts out Friday evening with a brainstorming session. The group considers the ideas and votes on the best ones. The teams are formed and then the fun begins. They work the rest of the time to put together business plans, web sites and products and at the end they pitch their companies to venture capitalists and other interested investors.
Alan Torng and Michele Stewart of Austin are organizing the event along with Cristal Glangchai of San Antonio. Rackspace, the Kaufman Foundation and Geekdom are sponsoring it.
The event takes place on Friday, July 20 through Sunday, July 22 at Geekdom, on the 11th floor of the Weston Centre at 112 East Pecan street in downtown San Antonio. The early bird registration prices are done, but you can still snag a ticket for $99 here. This event usually sells out. At the last Startup Weekend Austin, people were submitting videos for a chance to get off the waiting list and get a ticket.
South by Southwest has become one of the must attend technology shows for those who want to stay on top of the latest trends in technology, music and film.
And a big reason SXSW has become so popular is that the show attracts top-notch speakers.
And the selection of some of those speakers and panels are crowdsourced through its PanelPicker process which began accepting proposals for the 2013 show that takes place March 8 – 17 in Austin.
To enter your idea, visit PanelPicker and fill out the forms. The deadline to submit proposals is July 20. After that, SXSW allows the community to view and rate the proposals. Voting begins on Monday, Aug. 13 and ends on Aug. 31.
The votes and the SXSW Advisory board and staff determine the programming for the show. More information can be found at the PanelPicker FAQ.
“The core of SXSW’s programming is to involve and engage the community with diverse and compelling content,” Roland Swenson, SXSW’s Managing Director said in a news release. “PanelPicker allows our community to not only have a voice in what we program, but share their innovative ideas. Every year we are impressed by the creative and forward-thinking submissions.”
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
I covered the conference for the local newspaper.
Florida made quite an impression on me. I thought he understood the high-tech workforce better than anyone.
And at a time when everyone focused on globalization and a mobile workforce, Florida’s message was that cities needed to create places where talented people liked to live.
“Place is the single most important thing in the global economy,” Florida said at the time.
That’s still true.
That’s why Austin does so well in attracting and retaining a high-tech workforce. The city is a wonderful place to live and raise a family. It’s affordable and the city has a thriving creative class of artists, musicians, writers and high tech workers. The city has lakes, hike and bike trails, parks and more. Austin Fit, a marathon training program downtown, regularly attracts between 300 to 500 people at 6 a.m. on a Saturday during the sweltering summer heat to train for marathons. Austin and its citizens focus on recreation and exercise. But they still know how to have fun with festivals like Keep Austin Weird and Eeyore’s Birthday as well as the nationally known Austin City Limits and South by Southwest. Austin also has great restaurants, bars and more than a dozen coworking sites.
One of the things that makes Austin attractive, in my humble opinion, is the collective intelligence of its people. Maybe it’s because the University of Texas makes it home there, but Austin people are whip-smart.
San Antonio isn’t on the list – yet. But I think San Antonio is making huge progress toward becoming a high-tech hub. Mayor Julian Castro has addressed the obesity epidemic and put a huge focus on the importance of exercise and nutrition. San Antonio has the Fit Family Challenge with free Zumba classes and more every week in city parks.
The city is also focusing on improving its high school dropout rate, which is among the highest in the country. San Antonio is affordable, beautiful and has a creative class of artists, musicians and writers. And it’s high-tech workforce has also been growing.
This month, Richard Florida has a revision of The Rise of the Creative Class book coming out: The Rise of the Creative Class Revisited and he’s compiled a list of the top tech cities in the U.S.
Seattle, home to Microsoft and Amazon, claims the top place from Silicon Valley, which ranked first in his last book. Silicon Valley, which consists of the San Jose metro area, ranks second followed by the greater San Francisco area.
Portland, Oregon claims the fourth spot followed by Austin.
Raleigh, San Diego, Durham, Greater Boston and Boulder round out the top 10.
New York and Washington, D.C., don’t make the list despite their growing high-tech regions.
Florida ranks the top Tech cities by technology, talent and tolerance.
“While technology is an important driver of economic growth and development, it needs to be part of a broader social and cultural ecosystem before it can generate real prosperity,” Florida writes in this article in Atlantic Cities. “There is considerable overlap between the Technology Index and the Creative Class, which makes up more than 35 percent of the workforce in 14 of the top 20 Technology Index metros, and exceeds 40 percent in six of them.”
VolunteerSpot, which creates tools for moms, nonprofit organizers and others to coordinate volunteers, has received $1.5 million.
ff Venture Capital of New York led the investment along with the Central Texas Angel Network, Nebraska Angel network, Angel List and Baylor Angel Network.
The Austin-based startup plans to use the funds for marketing and to double its user base from 1.5 million to 3 million this fall when kids go back to school.
“VolunteerSpot makes giving of your time, talent and money easy for our legion of power moms, teachers and community coordinators who drive the lion share of volunteer activities in this country,” VolunteerSpot CEO, Karen Bantuveris said in a news release.
“VolunteerSpot has tapped into a highly desirable demographic and created an accessible solution to a long-time vexing problem,” John Frankel of ff Venture Capital said in a news release. “ff Venture Capital appreciates VolunteerSpot’s unique approach to both the mom-focused and cause-marketing markets and sees huge potential in their business.”
Austin-based Skyonic Corp. received $9 million of a $35 million investment for a carbon capture and utilization plant in the U.S.
Investors included Northwater Capital Management, ConocoPhillips, PVS Chemicals, Carl Berg and Zachry Corp. in the Series C funding.
The company plans to use the fund to build the plant this summer and for research and development and company operations.
“Skyonic’s green carbon chemistry technologies present a cost-effective solution to a problem that many industries have struggled with for years: emissions,” Frank Egan, Managing Director at Northwater, said in a statement.
Skyonic’s lab in San Antonio
“Skyonic’s electrolytic carbon capture technology, SkyMine®, will selectively remove CO2, acid gases, and heavy metals emitted from the cement plant’s flue gas streams and recycle it into hydrochloric acid, sodium bicarbonate and other byproducts,” according to the company. The City of San Antonio will provide utilities for the plant.
The GIF, Graphics Interchange Format, is 25 years old.
And it’s gotten a makeover.
The annoying images of flashing e-mail boxes and under construction signs from the early days of the Internet still exist. But few people use them.
Instead, companies looking to get the attention of a highly distracted Internet audience have turned to the video GIF.
And Cinegif in Austin wants to create special GIFs for them.
“Animated GIFs are making a comeback,” said Graham McFarland, Cinegif’s CEO.
Some people say the GIF killed Myspace.com because everyone junked up their profiles by placing numerous animated files on them, McFarland said. But GIFs are one of the most popular postings to Tumblr, the popular blogging platform, he said.
“GIFs are making a comeback because they can be easily put together to look like a video file.”
Cinegif is bringing this trend to businesses, McFarland said.
Companies can put the video GIFs into e-mail campaigns and social media campaigns, McFarland said.
“Anywhere you can use an image file you can use an animated GIF,” he said.
Right now the biggest creators of animated GIFs are teenagers and high-end fashion photographers in New York and Los Angeles, McFarland said.
Earlier this month, Burberry’s tweeted animated GIFs from its London Fashion week show.
Cinegif is doing a handful of pilot projects with small businesses locally and nationally to bring the technology to a wider business market, McFarland said.
The startup company recently launched its Cinegif App for the iPhone that lets consumers share 10 second video clips within a text message.
Cinegif has created a video conversion software that reduces file size and makes sharing short videos easy. The company has three patents on its technology and one more pending, McFarland said.
With the Cinegif video app, which is free, anyone can send a 10 second video GIF in a text message. The size of the file is compatible for mobile delivery with any telecommunications carrier, according to the company.
Doug Richardson, a professional photographer, came up with the idea and formed the company in 2006, but he’s only recently begun to commercialize it. The company has some angel funding and plans to seek additional funding later on this year. Cinegif currently has three employees and two contract employees.
Cinegif plans to host a 20 second film festival in Austin later this year to raise the awareness of what GIFs are and how they can be used, McFarland said.
“The goal is to get the technology out and into the hands of creative people,” McFarland said.
