By ANDREW MOORE
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Joshua Singer and Abhinav Suri are the 16-year-old founders of educational nonprofit Apps for Aptitude. As they go into their junior year of high school in San Antonio, they are also meeting with mentors, applying for funding with the 80/20 Foundation, and looking for office space at Geekdom in San Antonio.
Both Singer and Suri have taught themselves several coding languages including HTML5, JQuery, Objective-C, PHP, and more. As they developed their skills, the students began looking for a way to create a series of educational apps as well as get more students involved in programming.
Their solution, Apps for Aptitude, is an educational nonprofit organization that can award up to 300 community service hours to students and developers for creating and uploading their own educational apps. Upon receiving a student’s submission, the nonprofit organization will grade the app on its educational benefits, entertainment value, and user interface design; and reward a number of service hours based on the final score. Apps for Aptitude will accept app submissions for iOS, Android, and Windows devices; and a full description of the coding formats they accept is available on their website.

Giving Back to the Community

Singer and Suri hope that offering a reward of community service hours will encourage young students to sharpen their programming skills and create quality applications. The hours can be used for fellowship applications, college admissions, and scholarships. Some high schools even require a student to gain community service hours to graduate.
“I personally want to encourage middle schoolers and high schoolers and just students in general to start developing applications from an early age,” Suri said. “It’s really nice to help a high schooler or middle schooler who is just starting out.”
Appsforaptitude.org links to several free resources and tutorials to help students along the way. In the future, the nonprofit organization plans to work with San Antonio schools and Geekdom’s SparkEd program to help students learn to code.
In addition to grading apps, Apps for Aptitude will also produce two of their own educational apps with the help of iOS developer, Canzhi Ye. Ye is going into his senior year at Ronald Reagan High School and is the co-founder of San Antonio startup Rectangle. Ye’s apps will have users answer educational questions in a trivia format and will provide another opportunity for students to submit content in exchange for service hours.
“What we plan on doing is making an app that will allow others to feed in content – kind of a trivia type app where there is questions and answers,” Ye said.

Encouraging literacy

But encouraging students to code is only part of the Apps for Aptitude mission. It plans to donate the majority of its revenue to organizations that promote child literacy in San Antonio. According to the SA2020 indicator report, released on June 4, 27 percent of San Antonio’s third grade students scored lower than satisfactory on the STAAR reading assessment in the 2011-2012 school year. This is up from the 12 percent that failed to pass the less challenging TAKS test in the 2010 – 2011 school year. Founder Singer chose to help promote child illiteracy because he wants all students to be literate enough to benefit from educational apps.
“We wanted to create kind of an educational curriculum of applications, but we realized you can’t teach people to read without having someone teach them,” Singer said. “We thought maybe we could help our individual community, and the global community, by donating our profits to fighting illiteracy.”
To generate funding for child literacy organizations, Apps for Aptitude will submit the best apps they receive from students to the Apple App Store or to Google Play. Apps for Aptitude will offer both paid and free versions of educational apps – using iAd and Playhaven to attach advertising to the free versions.
Of course, even a nonprofit organization needs some financial help to get the ball rolling. To that end, Apps for Aptitude has secured a pledge of $1,000 from the 80/20 Foundation – Rackspace Chairman Graham Weston’s personal philanthropy foundation focused on funding urbanization, entrepreneurship, and STEM education in San Antonio. The funding pledge will come into effect once the nonprofit organization achieves 501(c)(3) status, and will be beneficial in the IRS nonprofit application process.

A Catalyst to Inspire Young People

The 80/20 Foundation Executive Director Lorenzo Gomez sees Apps for Aptitude as a catalyst that will inspire even more young people to start careers in programming.
“When you are a young person, you are much more apt to listen and take the advice of someone who looks like you than some old person,” Gomez said. “What I really love about their model is they are in high school trying to teach something that other high schoolers or even middle school people would respond better to because they are their own age.”
In addition to helping with funding, 80/20 will play a mentoring role with Apps for Aptitude by offering personal guidance. They will also introduce the founders to additional organizations, such as the San Antonio Area Foundation, which can help them through the IRS application process.
To help Apps for Aptitude promote child literacy, 80/20 Foundation Deputy Director Scott Meltzer will create a list of potential organizations, such as SA Reads and San Antonio Youth Literacy, for the nonprofit organization to consider funding.
While it has a basic framework in place, Apps for Aptitude is still looking to build its team. It has recruited two more students from the International School of the Americas: Senior Cosmo Albrecht, who will be the organization’s head of marketing, and sophomore Brendan Rodriguez who will serve as the creative director. The team is still looking for students familiar with Java and C+ to help grade incoming student submissions.
For further guidance, Apps for Aptitude also has a board of directors which serves in a mentoring and advising role. The board currently includes Trinity University Associate Professor of Education Angela Breidenstein, International School of the Americas Principal Emily Bieser, and Chairman Emeritus of the UK Atomic Energy Authority Lady Barbara Judge. It is currently looking for additional board members and mentors with a technology background.

This week the Austin Technology Council announced plans to host the Battle of the Bands during Austin Startup Week.
The event, in partnership with Austin Music People, will take place at the Mohawk will feature musical acts from Austin’s technology sector.
“This is really a celebration of the two industries that drive our city: music and technology,” said James Moody, member of the AMP executive committee and co-founder of Transmission Entertainment. “Any opportunity we have to collaborate and showcase our city’s talent should be embraced.”
The event is open to the public. Bands must include a member of an Austin Technology Council member company. Bands can submit their video audition via Vine, YouTube, Twitter or Instagram along with the band’s name and the hashtag #ATCbattle by Oct. 1.
“The Battle of the Bands is where technology and music merge at a crossroads of cool,” Julie Huls, president of the Austin Technology Council, said in a news release. “This is an opportunity for Austin’s technology companies to promote their cool culture as well as spend an evening among peers and friends.”

The deal to take Dell private just got a little more lucrative.
Today, Michael Dell, the company’s founder, issued a letter to shareholders asking them to the approve the deal when they meet on August 2 to vote on the buyout.
“I believe that taking Dell private is the right thing to do for the company. We need to transform, and we need to do it quickly,” Dell wrote in the letter. “The transformation is not without risks and challenges, and I believe that we can do what we need to do better as a private company than a public company.”
Dell also reported that he and his partner, Silver Lake, have increased their buyout offer to $13.75 per share, up from $13.65. The increase provides an additional $150 million to shareholders.
He also reported it was “our best and final offer.”
“I believe this offer is in the best interests of the company and our shareholders,” Dell wrote. “Certain other parties have been proposing alternatives such as leveraged recapitalizations, sales of assets and other steps that I believe would be destructive to the company and that I do not and will not support.”

Resignation Media, which runs theCHIVE.com, announced it’s moving its corporate headquarters to Austin from Los Angeles.

The company plans to move by the end of August and is renovating a 12,000 square foot building downtown, that once served as the Shoreline Grill. Resignation Media plans to spend $8 million during the next five years to transform the building into its new headquarters and hire more than 40 employees.

“With the growth Resignation Media has seen in the last five years, we needed to find a location that could support the expansion of our brand. After a nationwide search, Austin’s pro-business climate, decent cost of living, tax structure and dedication to its growing technology community are what drew us to the city,” Leo Resig, co-founder and CEO of Resignation Media, said in a news release. “The Austin Chamber of Commerce was a great resource as we explored the idea of relocating to Austin and know the city will be a great fit for the company.”

The company is also ramping up its e-commerce site, TheChivery.com this fall and plans its own microbrewery, Resignationa Brewery, with KCCO Beer later this year. And Chive Films plan to produce a feature film in Austin, starting in 2014.

Brothers John and Leo Resig created Resignation Media in 2008. They now own several websites including theCHIVE.com, theBERRY.com, theTHROTTLE.com, theBRIGADE.com and the e-commerce site, TheChivery.com.

A fast-growing online banking company, Q2ebanking announced Wednesday plans to hire 60 new employees and expand into a new headquarters and downtown.
The Austin-based company is moving into an 85,000 square foot space and three floors in the new Aspen Lake One business center. The space can accommodate up to 500 people. The company has 350 employees currently and plans to add 60 more by the end of the year.
“At Q2, we value a culture of communication, openness and collaboration. Our new location not only allows for continued growth, but also encourages the kind of environment we feel is vital to the success of our company,” Matt Flake, the company’s CEO, said in a news statement. “We’re proud to be headquartered in Austin, Texas—a place where so many people want to live, and to have built a company culture that employees truly love. We’re known for our innovative software and building stellar relationships with customers, and our success is possible because of our focus on creating an environment where employees love what they do.”
Earlier this year, Q2 completed a $20 million Series C funding round led by Battery Ventures along with existing investors Adams Street Partners and C&B Capital.
Q2, which caters to community and regional banks, credit unions and savings and loans, has more than 70 customers with assets exceeding $1 billion.

By SUSAN LAHEY
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

Texas State University’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) is launching a free or lower-cost program to help startup and mid-stage tech companies, offering mentoring, education and helping them collaborate with key elements of the Austin startup ecosystem.
The new program, called Spectrum, allows companies to engage at any point, from ideation on, and to exit the program whenever they feel they’re ready. The SBDC already had a program to help entrepreneurs, but Spectrum will be focused on tech companies in areas green energy, biotech, gaming, hardware and software and mobile applications. It will partner with the University of Texas’ IC2 Global Commercialization Group and the Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center.
Dr. Jeanette Hill, founder of Spot On Sciences, spoke at the Spectrum launch about her experience with mentors at the SBDC. Hill, who has a background in pharmaceutical research and has created products before, still was overwhelmed at the idea of starting her own company.
“I had no idea how to start and run a startup business,” she said. “At my first meeting with my SBDC advisor we started writing on a white board, took pictures of all the ideas we’d come up with, wiped that off, started writing again…three whiteboards later we had a plan.”
The advisor, she said, pointed out she was going to want to shorten the name she had chosen Spot On Bioscience. “He said ‘You’re going to need to sign contracts and you’re going to use initials.’ I’m so glad we’re not known as the S.O.B. company,” Hill said. “They helped me do a video about how to use the device and they are my biggest cheering section when I do pitches. They’ve also given me training. I didn’t want to learn how to use Quickbooks, but I need to.”
Dick Johnson, SBDC certified business advisor and certified technology commercialization advisor, explained that the mentorship part of the program would help companies decide if they were a good fit for the marketplace and identify strengths and weaknesses. This would include an assessment of a company’s IP, where it currently is in the life of the business and its team. Other organizations contributing to mentoring and education will include IC2’s Global Commercialization Group which will share its Innovation Readiness self-directed program created for entrepreneurs in developing nations, and the Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center. Ron Lehman, state director of the TMAC explained how that organization can help companies go from ideation to prototype to manufacture, assisting with finding funding and vendors. The mentorship program is free.
Johnson said Spectrum will not compete with Austin’s incubation and acceleration programs but supplement them. Of the hundreds of companies that apply to local incubators and accelerators, only a few are chosen. Spectrum can help entrepreneurs prepare to apply and provide assistance for the ones that do not get in.
The program also includes an education component with classes and workshops at various times and places. The effort will be to provide a smorgasbord of options for tech entrepreneurs. Some of the classes are free, others offered at a rate far below competitors.
Peg Richmond, SBDC certified business advisor, said Spectrum wants to take “a deeper dive into the subject matters. We don’t want to stay at a high level. We want the content to be entrepreneur driven.”
Early courses, which they’re calling “information transfer” will include courses on funding, team building and IP considerations.
The third piece of Spectrum’s program includes collaboration with players in the existing ecosystem, including government agencies.
“The government has a lot of money in its’ pockets,” Johnson said. “It’s also very interested in job creation, because that’s what pays taxes.” States, chambers of commerce and others are interested in attracting high-paying jobs into the area.
Entrepreneurs need to understand and build the infrastructure necessary to support their ventures.
“A lot of entrepreneurs spend a lot of time and energy going from event to resource to event,” Johnson said. “We can help people make smart connections, the right resource at the right time.”
“We want Spectrum and our team of advisors to be that go-to information source. ‘What’s the best way for me to navigate and work in the Austin community to foster the growth of the Austin community?’” Johnson said.
Spectrum’s logo, which looks remarkably like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon album cover, shows a rainbow entering a prism and coming out as beams of light. The meaning behind it, explained SBDC director Joe Harper, was that people could come in to the program at all phases of development and have multiple exit points, depending on their needs.
Spectrum is looking for more partners who can offer training, mentoring, venues and other support.

By SUSAN LAHEY
Reporter with Silicon Hills News

The culture of a business is partly planned, partly organic and partly pure accident or serendipity, according to the speakers at Extraordinary Culture/Extraordinary Business at Mass Relevance Monday night.
Matt Chasen, founder of uShip, Sam Decker, co-founder and CEO of Mass Relevance, Liz Elam, curator of Link CoWorking and Dean Kakridas, founder of Fovnders@ATX were on the panel, led by Paul O’Brien, founder of Cospace.
A big piece of determining culture is who and how an organization hires, the entrepreneurs agreed.
‘A big piece is hiring and aligning to your core values,” said Decker. “Do you have anything publicly that states what those values are? If you don’t connect to those values, you shouldn’t be here. You need to make that visible so that people can bounce off or attract to that culture.”
At Link, Elam said, they offer all prospective new members a free day to work at Link to see how they like it. But it’s also so Link can see how they fit.
“While they think they’re checking out the space, we’re checking them out,” she said. “Do they open a cabinet that’s marked ‘Private Do Not Open?’ If they open it, they have a problem with boundaries. If you put up your hoodie and put on a headset and sit there and code all the time, this is not your space.”
In early stages, however, that kind of selective hiring is easier as Matt Chasen pointed out. It took the company eight years to get up to 70 employees. Then they brought on 70 people in the last six months.
“Your culture should be self sustaining,” Chasen said. “If you’re doing it right, the organism with reject people who don’t fit and accept those who do. When you go on a crazy hiring tear you’ve got to have something in place to moderate your hiring. We had people who had been there two months hiring new people.”
They use the company’s own referral network a lot, he said, tapping into some rich “veins of talent” wherein employees bring their friends and “they’re all great.”
Chasen said, in response to a question about the influence of executives on culture that he was surprised at the influence he has.
“It’s really been interesting, as we’ve grown I’ve noticed things I never would have expected in terms of the influence I have on people. The way you act gives them permission to act like that, and that’s bad!” he joked. “No, don’t do that. Our personality is reflected in the culture, good and bad.”
Kakidras said he thinks of the CEO as the “Chief Energy Officer.” He’s responsible for the energy in the place and it’s key for him to get up every 90 minutes or so from his work, walk around and test the temperature.
The way a space is laid out and the working conditions set have a lot of influence on culture as well. Having a ‘democratic’ layout in terms of all employees being on the same level, having everyone work in an open space rather than in offices, and creating communal areas for work and socialization plays a huge part in culture.
Decker called the Mass Relevance space a “reverse mullet: party in the front, business in the back.” With a huge communal kitchen where lunch is prepared by a chef, (an idea he admits he stole from Chasen). He wanted to create a space that facilitated serendipitous reactions.
“Someone suggested we get a chef,” Decker said. “We were young, we had money. We thought, ‘Okay, we’ll do that. That’s kinda cool. Then these serendipitous conversations would happen and we decided we’d make it full time. People are working and eating, these cross functional interactions are happening. No bad seed or issue can go unsurfaced in that environment.”
Elam said that, were she to redesign Link, it would have a much bigger kitchen. Where the food is, she said “is where the magic happens.”
But while Decker planned the chef and communal kitchen, Chasen said that was an accident at uShip.
“We were just hungry at lunch,” he said. They originally brought in sandwich materials, then realized it was inefficient for them to be making their own sandwiches.
“When we got our first sandwich assembler person, everyone just loved it and we just kept raising the bar,” Chasen said. “When we actually had our first really true chef he had extension cords wired together in this kitchen in a warehouse in South Congress, which was preposterous. It really became this thing that snowballed on its own. It was a natural thing that happened, you can’t really direct that stuff.”

OpenIncubate, a new accelerator program focused on startups creating open source software and hardware, launched this week.
The program is backed by Austin Ventures in Austin, Battery Ventures in Boston and The Valley Fund in Menlo Park, Calif.
OpenIncubate is currently accepting applications.
“Our aim is to make 6-8 seed investments in the coming 12-18 months and work closely with young, early stage teams,” Alex Benik, a partner at Battery Ventures, wrote in a blog post.
The venture capital firms created the program in response to key shifts in the technology industry including “the emergence of open networking and the software-defined data center, and the growing prominence of open source initiatives such as Open Compute,” according to the OpenIncubate site.
The program offers seed funding, office space and mentorship to the teams that it selects to participate in the accelerator.
“Qualifying companies or teams of entrepreneurs must be product-oriented (versus services), and must utilize open source frameworks aimed at building on and refining the concept of the software-defined data centers in areas of innovation including hardware, software, and networking,” according to OpenIncubate.

The Texas State Small Business Development Center will kick off its new Spectrum Technology Assistance Program on July 23rd.
The program will take place at the Texas State University Round Rock Campus from 1 p.m. until 4 p.m. It’s free to attend, but registration is required.
Texas State is collaborating with the IC² Institute at the University of Texas at Austin to bring its Innovation Readiness Series to the Austin technology community.
The program focuses on commercialization and growth in startup and mid-stage technology companies. The program will cover tools and education resources and groups available in the Central Texas region.
The July kick off meeting will provide an overview of the local technology industry. It will also include networking with “technology innovators, investors, assistance providers and those involved in the technology community,” according to a news release.
“I’m relatively new to the Austin area, but it’s been my goal to be involved in this market for some time,” said Joe Harper, Texas State SBDC Center Director. “The vibrancy of the entrepreneurial community and the innovations that happen in this market around technology far surpass many other places in the U.S. Key to our participation in this market is providing leadership along with other stakeholders in the Austin technology ecosystem, bringing together the best possible environment for technology companies to lay a successful foundation and grow to greatness.”