TECHdotMN: News about Minnesota Startups

Via News Release

“February 15, 2012 (St. Paul, Minn.) — A new campaign aims to brings together St. Paul’s diverse communities through online forums where neighbors can stay informed, get connected and build community.

BeNeighbors.org, launched by E-Democracy, is setting out to reach 10,000 neighborhood forum participants in St. Paul over the next three years, bringing the total percentage of households engaging with E-Democracy’s many online forums to 10 percent citywide. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is providing $625,000 in support.”

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As the appetite for 3D printing continues to grow throughout Minnesota, three Technology Literacy Coordinators from CTEP AmeriCorps — Ani Goodenberger, Maria Paschke, and Brian Smith — want to get the DIY tools of today into the hands of tomorrow’s engineers.

After a recent afternoon brainstorming session held in the heart of St. Paul’s diverse Rondo neighborhood, the trio launched ‘Modeling the Future’ to bring their idea closer to reality.

Their project aims to offer youth in the Twin Cities a chance to learn 3D printing from the ground up by building a 3D printer from scratch, teaching STEM skills in assembly, circuit boards, and hardware.

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Via News Release

“CaringBridge recently appointed Leigh Bailey and Karen Hohertz-Jacobs to its board of directors. CaringBridge is a Minnesota-based nonprofit providing personal and private websites that connect people experiencing a health challenge to family and friends, making each health journey easier. CaringBridge seeks board members who can provide leadership, valued advice and governance of its program.”

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During your daily Internet activities you will pass over thousands of hidden coded lines — HTML, JavaScript, CSS, you name it. If you are a developer, you know what it looks like and how to use it, but you might have overlooked an important detail: not all visitors are created equal.

Many of us are purely visual, but there is a subset of Internet users that do not use website pages conventionally. That’s why St. Paul’s Wehrman Collaborative, or WeCo, was formed.

WeCo works with government, private and public companies, and nonprofits to improve online design from the code up, making sites much more accessible to many different kinds of complimentary technologies, including screen readers for the visually impaired, speech recognition and eye tracker systems for people with limited hand use, and many other devices.

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Ultralingua has been developing language-translation software and mobile apps since ’97, but they still consider themselves a startup at heart. Maybe it has something to do with their wanderlust for the future,  close ties to young entrepreneurs in academia, and desire to make a difference in the world.

Founder and Carleton College professor Jeff Ondich launched the company after developing a small electronic French-English dictionary and saw the larger language gap as a challenge he could tackle.  As technology has evolved since  and mobile devices become globally accessible for the first time, this Minneapolis company is doing it’s part to have a positive impact on the less fortunate.

In January, when the 2010 Haiti earthquake killed 220,000 people and injured another 300,000, Ultralingua responded by providing a free Haitian Medical Reference Guide to help the cause. The app included a Haitian Creole-English medical dictionary, audio phrasebook, and anthropological reference guide enabling doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to communicate with Haitian-Creole speaking patients.  Accessed by via iPod touch by relief workers who were on the ground, the app had life-saving value.

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Forbes Magazine has published its first-ever ‘Impact 30′  list of global social entrepreneurs and Genesys Works founder Rafael Alvarez was recognized for “tackling the world’s most intractable problems.”

His earned-income nonprofit creation provides students from economically disadvantaged high schools with professional internships and mentoring opportunities within the IT division of various corporations.

“This recognition is really a tribute to all of those involved at Genesys Works…Thank you for being there and for seeing the vision of how we can fundamentally change the tracks of life for so many young people across our country,” Alvarez said.

Started in 2001 and based in Houston, TX, Genesys Works has trained hundreds of students to date — many from the Twin Cities — where the org’s only sister location is led by  “reformed venture capitalist” (Crescendo) Jeff Tollefson.

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By KELLY JO McDONNELL, Star Tribune

“What do Stillwater prison and a K-12 Minnesota school have in common? One has inmates doing hard time, and the other is dealing with hard times from budget cuts. But there is other common ground.

The Minnesota Computers for Schools (MCFS) program is a non-profit organization that trains Stillwater Correctional Facility inmates to refurbish computers donated by local businesses. The computers are then shipped to K-12 schools across the state for a nominal fee.”

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By Ann Treacy, Blandin on Broadband

“In March of 2010, Jessica found herself without a working computer at home, and in danger of falling behind in her school work as a result.

Fortunately, thanks to a new project in the Brainerd area to provide refurbished used computers to income eligible families at a very low cost, Jessica now has a working computer at home, and thanks to a reduced internet access fee provided through Consolidated Telephone (CTC), she is also able to do on-line research from the comfort of her own home.”

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WaterFilters.net began on founder and CEO Jamin Arvig’s family room couch nearly ten years ago and has since become recognized nationwide as one of the fasting growing private e-commerce companies three years running by Inc. Magazine.

As such, the now 30-person operation moved on from “floral patterns and dust bunnies” to a state-of-the-art 30,000-square-foot warehouse in Zumbrota, Minn. to support 566 percent, 3-year growth that pushed annual revenues up over the $10-million mark.

WaterFilters.net may be a for-profit company, but the water runs deeper in this corporate culture.

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