Busy time in the ATL. A brief roundup starting with three big happenings on Tuesday alone.
Georgia Technology Summit
Everybody that was anybody showed up for the biggest and best Georgia Technology Summit. The past two years
I have written posts about the GTS entitlled "The Good, The Bad, &
The Ugly." This year I am just going to say good. TAG listens to
constructive feedback and is always working to improve. Paul Stamatiou has a great summary. He even put on a suit to go to the show.
Shotput Ventures Open House
While the dichotomy with the Georgia Technology Summit is striking, the Shotput Ventures
open house was also a huge success. Much younger, happening crowd.
They start accepting applications on Friday. Paul again has a stellar writeup (somebody remind me to throw down some more serious Skribit objectives on him).
TwitPay Moves Money
Twitpay
went live on Tuesday. Twitpay is a simple way to send payments in 140
characters or less. The service is powered by Amazon Payments which
called the service "innovative". Michael Ivey announced this on twitter and then followed up with a longer blog post. Both Michael and Don Brown are excited. So am I and the rest of the team.
The most frequently asked question we received is "when can I use
real money." The answer is now. Twitpay is the most secure,
trustworthy, and dare I say unlike some others, regulatory compliant
social payment platform. Twitpay is an Atlanta Startup Weekend
company. I am an advisor. Good to see it out the door. It will be
interesting to see where it goes.
Meet The VC
The next version of Meet the VC takes place on March 11 and features John Glushik of Intersouth Partners. If you have any intentions of raising capital this year you need to be on hand to get John's insights. Register to attend.
Southeast Venture Conference
While Meet the VC will be a great show it is just a warm up for SEVC which cranks up a bit later in the day. Produced by TechJournal South
SEVC will
highlight the most promising emerging tech firms in the South. The
opening keynote is by Tim Draper of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Big VC
hob nob.
StartupChicks
A bit on the other end of the spectrum is StartupChicks. A StartupChick is a female entrepreneur who is interested in creating,
building, growing an innovative business that creates value for its
customers, employees, shareholders and ideally, the world-at-large. They are having their launch party
on March 18. I am not exactly a qualified member. However, I totally
support their aim to connect and inspire entrepreneurial women.
Young Entrepreneurs Society
The Young Entrepreneurs Society is a group of Georgia Tech students focused on providing the resources and access needed to be successful entrepreneurs. I went and spoke to the group on Monday. They have great energy and are attracting some attention. You can find the founder Ajai on twitter and he recently wrote about the backstory on the group. If you are an entrepreneurial student this is a great group to find some like thinking people.