Today is the Georgia Technology Summit. The technology summit brings together about 1,000 C-level executives, entrepreneurs, academia, and more to celebrate Georiga’s global leadership in technology innovation. From the keynote speakers to the top 40 most innovative companies in Georgia to the introduction ceremonies of the newly selected member of the prestigious Technology Hall of Fame its one of Georgia’s premier technology events.
I covered the event in 2007, and 2008. Paul Stamatiou had a great writeup in 2009.
Today
I am going to try live blogging with quick updates on keynotes and top 10 presenting
companies with a quick evaluation of their companies and pitches.
8:33. Conference kicked off with an entertaining presentation by author and futurist Tom Koulopoulos. Says the biggest word in the past and looking forward is “connections.”
8:37. Only half the people in the room use twitter. Wonder how that compares to the Startup* crowd.
8:42. Innovators double down in a bad economy. Uses launch of iPod in 2001 and more recently Flip.
8:47. Technology is what you did not grow up with.
8:58. Koulopoulos wrapping up. Taking Q & A. Challenging the audience to mentor.
9:05. A filibuster question that is a very, very long story.
9:15. Accelereyes, the 2009 TAG/GRA Business Launch winner is being introduced. Apps for this year’s contest close April 6.
9:18. John of Accelereyes giving his presentation. Company is making great progress. Their product Jacket, uses the power of GPUs to deliver maximum FLOPS per dollar. Wish he would have told more of their story, They are going places. ATDC company.
9:24. MedShape the first top ten to present. Medical device company that makes extremely flexible implants. Morphix is leading product. Differentiation is device continues to get strong after implanted. Just won Medical Design Excellence Awards. Cleared by FDA. 50 in patient cases. ATDC company. The presentation text was too small.
9:30. AirSage. Collects and analyzes wireless carrier data. The slides hurt, font way to small. They have big deals with Sprint and Verizon. Nine patents. Forecasting revenue of $4 million in 2010.
9:34. Idology. SaaS identity verification solutions. Like John Dancu. He could have done a better job with both the presentation and slides.
9:37. 20 minute break.
10:03. FivexFive. Marketing analytics company. Have $2.5 million in revenue. The analytics maximizes revenue via recommendations. Product sales predictions. I heard moans on the unique slide due to screenshot size. GridMap is the product and it is a self learning algorithm.
10:07. Wavee. Penny auction app. Looking to hit $2.5 million in revenue this year. Nervous. Held his own. ATDC company.
10:10 Cardlytics. Strong start. Good slides. This company has a rock star team out of Capital One and great product. They place offers within the transactions that are presented within your online back account. Simple experience. Complex product. Getting 540x click rate of a standard banner ad. Good market traction. Best of the day so far. ATDC company.
10:16 Tino Mantella, president of TAG delivering state of the industry report. Software and IT services continue to lead in job growth, industries that dominate in Georgia. Good growth in telecom as well. Software, telecommunications, financial technologies, and telecom are industries TAG is focused on growing. Georgia ranks third in the nation in financial technologies. Georgia also ranks third in the security industry. Average Georgia VC deal size is moving up, into the $8 million range, but only 44 deals, the least since at least 1994. Ouch! TAG’s goal is to make Georgia a top five state for technology. Their road to success includes promoting companies, stimulating investment, focusing on key technologies, fostering connections within the tech community, and cultivating economic development. The complete report can be downloaded here.
10:37. Clearleap. That is not Braxton Jarret. It is not ClearLeap.
10:30. Hi-Rez Studios. Great job handling a technical glitch by the presenter. Just launched Global Agenda, a hybrid game design, action plus massively multiplayer online in a single virtual universe. Single shard. Have 50k users playing in the game. Great job of explaining the innovativeness of the product.
10:43. The real Clearleap. Still not Braxton. He has a board meeting today. I have been working with them for a while. They are killing it. Have deals with most of the major cable companies. Not a bad stand in but it is not Braxton. Tons of white space on slides. Still the fonts are too small and can not be read. Strong close. Bringing the power of the Internet to TV.
10:47. Healthcare Solutions. They doing something with workers comp that streamlines some process that I do not understand. Customers include insurance carriers, third party admins, and managed care organizations.
10:51. Music Intelligence Solutions. Strong opening. Strong hook. Product is hit song science, the FICO credit score of the music industry. Tells the story well. Interesting. Getting lots of attention. Good job.
10:55. Carlos Dominguez of Cisco being introduced.
10:57. Searching for an outlet. Going to have to go quiet for 15.
11:14. Dominquez made up a word (I did that). His is nowist: Someone who embraces change, understands what is available, and experiments with it. Love it. Raised my hand if asked “who likes change?”
11:30. Gettlng a little Cisco telepresence pitchy.
11:34 Dominguez: “How many user Twitter? Not that many. For those that are not using it sign up and try it. It is an incredible information source. It is how news will be delivered in the future. If you do not understand it you can not leverage it.” @carlosdominguez
12:00. Break to set room for lunch. Bert Ellis up next. He has Mike McQuary in tow.
12:37. Giving out awards. Breakthrough technology: MedShape. Coolest: Hi-Rez Studos. Most likely too create jobs: Healthcare Solutions. Best presentation: Clearleap. Best display: Music Intelligence Solutions. Most likely to succeed: HealthCare Solutions, Idology, MedShape (3 way tie.)
12:44. Bert Ellis of drives into the ballroom in a Wheego. Ellis, McQuary, & Stanley have invested in over 25 companies. He is going to talk about a few of them. Wheego has sold over 300 electronic cars in six months. Claim to have sold more electric cars than any company (disclaimer: I am a Wheego investor). How talking about Titan Broadcast Management, this is Bert’s sweet spot. He knows this stuff cold. Bert takes a big swipe at Cisco, he uses Skype for teleconferencing.
12:56. Ellis: “A television station is nothing more than a big iPod.”
1:00. Ellis talking about Vitrue. Invested in Vitrue because of Reggie Bradford. Calling Vitrue a social media management tool.
1:01. Ellis moving on to Alt Ego out of Santa Monica. Alt ego enables players to wander across games and keep the attribute’s of their avator. Cool.
1:04 Talking about TigerText, impermanent text messaging. Tag is “cover your tracks.” Nice. Available in the Apple app store.
1:08. Ellis: “If you are not risking failure yo
u are not taking big enough chances.”
1:10. Ellis: “Whenever you can sell.”
1:11. Bert leaves the stage
Great show. Off to participate in the Startup Council.