Originally envisioned by veteran tech entrepreneur Cem Erdem in the fall of 2010 and formally launched with co founder Casey Allen in spring of 2011, Project Skyway provides cash, mentorship, office space and visibility for select emerging tech startups.

The first cycle, which ran last fall, yielded five grads: Naiku, Nitch, TelemetryWeb, CribFrog and Cor2.  Of the group, Naiku has seen the most success thus far; the others are moving forward, although Cor2 appears to have outright deceased.  It remains to be seen if this class of four startups — YumZing, QuadROI, Political Harmony, and HypeSpark — will have what it takes to win over the hearts and minds of investors on May 30th from 10 – noon at New Century Theater in downtown Minneapolis.

Event registration is an open to investors and supporters from the Minnesota tech community, as is the after party from 5-9pm that evening at Vic’s on Main St.

“Our Skywalkers have worked amazingly hard over the last 11 weeks and Cem and I couldn’t be prouder of them. Demo Day is their moment in the spotlight where they can showcase how they’re changing the world to a room of some of the most important people in our ecosystem. That entire day is all about the next wave of Minnesota doers,” says Allen.

“I think it’s safe to call it a conference at this stage,” remarked Sean Larson, who co-organized the all day affair with Dan Atkins, amongst others from the MinneAnalytics Forum — a sister org of Twin Cities Area SAS Users Group that counts over 2,00o local members.

“By a factor of two, or even three to one, this is the largest and most diverse crowd we’ve seen at any of our events over the past ten years.  We opened registration and couldn’t believe the volume that was coming through in batches,” Atkins says with great enthusiasm.

“There has to be at least 150 different companies represented here, from the startups to the Fortune 500′s, and many of them have come from out of state.”

Genomics, retail, geography, sports, money, crime, healthcare, education, media, politics, energy, HR, retail — no field went without consideration — just as no aspect of modern life shall be immune from the volume, velocity, and variability of associated data. Overall, roughly 25 speakers, including a keynote from former Best Buy CTO & GeekSquad founder Robert Stephens, will have shared their unique wisdom with the mixed-bag crowd.

From curious undergrads to veteran PhD professors, co-founders to CEO’s, it’s clear that both the academic and business world are well represented here today.

“Data analytics, business intelligence software, and the nebulous world of ‘big data’ aren’t just for the math majors anymore,” Atkins says.  “We’re seeing the idea people meet the statisticians, alongside the executives and the programmer.  It’s all together now.”

“We need to enlighten the local business community as to what analytics can do with the right technology,” Larson adds. “This is the future.”

The next MinneAnalytics Forum/TCASUG meetup is tentatively scheduled to be at US Bank in Richfield (Meridian Crossings) on June 26th, from 8 – 4.

In this interview filmed during the U of M Office for Technology Commercialization Investor Forum last week, tech entrepreneur Will England talks about Drive Power — the convergence of mobile, data, and SaaS for the automotive industry.

Other interviews from the event include:

• Steve Johnson, Early Learning Labs

• Chris Duncan, VitalSims

• Jaideep Srivastava, Ninja Metrics

In this interview from last weeks OTC Investor Forum, Entrepreneur Steve Johnson talks about the past, present, and future of Early Learning Labs.  Spun-out of the University of Minnesota this past March, the startup is merging proprietary research-based assessment tools for kids with modern web and mobile technology.

In this interview from the recent U of M Venture Forum, we hear from CEO Chris Duncan about VitalSims — a startup commercialized through the University of Minnesota OTC that provides learning simulations to the healthcare industry using web and mobile technology.

In this interview at the University of Minnesota’s recent Venture Center/OTC Investor Forum, Founder and CTO Jaideep Srivastava discusses Ninja Metrics — a startup commercialized early last year to focus on the analytics of large scale social systems.

Bill Hellriegel and Jeff McDonald from the Minnesota Supercomputing Institute talk about the High-Performance Computing resources made available both internally and externally to the private sector, including: consulting, workshops, CPU hours & storage.

In this interview filmed during last weeks MHTA Spring Conference, we chat with Tamara Gillard, Executive Director at Minnesota Computers for Schools (MCFS). The Stillwater-based nonprofit organization has a unique model that takes in used modern computers from local corporations (e-waste) and enables inmates at Stillwater correctional facility to refurbish them (skills training) before ultimately redistributing them to nearby school districts at a large discount (financial savings).

In this interview from the Minnesota High Tech Association Spring Conference on Tuesday, we discuss Minnesota’s burgeoning Robotics scene with Andrew Borene & Scott Singer:

• ReconRobotics

• Xollai

• PaR Systems

• Robotics Alley

• Global Robotics Innovation Park (GRIP)

We sat down with Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA) President Margaret Anderson Kelliher (aka MAK) at today’s Spring Conference to discuss what she alluded to earlier and officially announced today: MHTA is moving into the Grain Exchange Building this summer.