Show notes from TECHdotMN TV Episode 1: Robots!
Lawson’s Approva acquisition vs. St. Paul’s future
Best Buy’s third party marketplace
ReconRobotics / MHTA Robotics Alley event on November 17th
MSP MakerBot blog | Foundry Group’s investment | Stratasys 3D Printing Challenge
This is the first installment of an eight week experiment…ideas + feedback welcome!
Via News Release
“EDINA, MN, Sept. 8, 2011 — ReconRobotics, Inc., world leader in tactical micro-robot systems, in partnership with the Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA) will host the first Robotics Alley event at the Carlson School of Management on Thursday, November 17th, 2011 beginning at 1:00pm.
The event will bring together 250 business and government leaders to discuss the global market growth in the robotics industry, and learn how companies from various fields in the Upper Midwest are leveraging robotics technology and generating job growth.”
Via MHTA
“The Minnesota Tekne Awards honor companies, innovations and individuals that positively impact Minnesota’s technology-based economy. The Tekne Awards began in 2000, and are presented by the Minnesota High Tech Association.
Applying for a Tekne can bring extensive visibility to an organization and provide great opportunities to celebrate and showcase products and innovations within the Minnesota technology community.”
Internet entrepreneur Duane Crandall experienced two consecutive failed ventures before finding his sweet-spot with SaaS email marketing and analytics business Knowledge Marketing.
Hear the journey of how almost ran out of cash early on with Knowledge Marketing but eventually worked through it to build a $5 million company with 28 employees, serving corporate clients such as HP, Great Clips, and TCF Bank. Learn why he’s leery of taking VC money and something every web entrepreneur should realize before they start thinking they’re the next big thing.
Previous Executable interviews include: Matt Meents, CEO of Reside & Phil Soran, CEO at Compellent.
*Special thanks to Stemmler Productions for the video editing services.
Reside Co-founder and CEO Matt Meents got his entrepreneurial start by promising a custom application to a real estate company that he quickly learned he could never deliver on as promised.
Hear the journey of how almost ran out of cash early on in his venture but eventually worked through it, raised money, and has since grown his enterprise cloud consulting company to 40 employees.
Learn how he worked through that ugly period when sales plateaued and how one book changed it all for him by telling him that he was his own bottleneck.
Previous Executable: Phil Soran, CEO, Compellent
*Special thanks to Stemmler Productions for the video production services.
As a sister organization of the Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA), the Minnesota High Tech Foundation (MHTF) was created in 1985 to promote and support Minnesota’s technology-based economy through education in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
To fulfill the mission of strengthening Minnesota’s future technology workforce and encourage high standards in education, scholarships are available for students in STEM disciplines. At this years Tekne Awards, nearly 1,000 watched as nine beneficiaries each received $2,000 MHTF scholarships to assist their pursuits of STEM knowledge.
Applications for the next round of general $2,000 STEM scholarships have closed, but thanks to a generous donation by Thomson Reuters, the Minnesota High Tech Foundation is offering one final $10,000 scholarship specifically for undergraduate Computer Science majors.
Via News Release,
“More than a dozen companies and organizations, along with three individual leaders, were honored with a 2010 Tekne Award from the Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA) during last night’s ceremony at the Minneapolis Convention Center.
The 12 Tekne Award categories recognize the best and brightest in innovation, development, commercialization and management of technology in Minnesota. Industry awards included separate categories for small and growing businesses (with annual revenues under $50 million) and established businesses (with annual revenues of over $50 million).”
Hear how Phil Soran, current Founder and CEO of Compellent, walked away from his job at IBM selling storage systems to launch his first startup Xiotech.
Together with friends, Phil managed to convince early investors to back the venture (with no product) and build Xiotech for 5 years before selling the company to Seagate in 1999 $360m. In this interview, Phil discusses how he convinced those first investors, acquired the first customer and talks about the experience of selling to a big company — which would set the stage for his second startup and MHTA member company Compellent.
*Special thanks to Stemmler Productions for the video production services
The Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA), which serves 300+ high tech member companies statewide, has been searching for a new president since the departure of nine-year president and CEO Kate Rubin in June. Last week, the organization announced their future leader: technology and jobs advocate Margaret Anderson Kelliher, who will finish her term as Speaker of the House in December. Although her work with the MHTA officially begins in January, she’s already meeting with board and community members to set the direction for her tenure. We spoke with her about the state of Minnesota’s high tech industry, startups, women in technology and
STEM education.
Here are some excerpts from that interview:
Via News Release,
“The following questions for the three major-party candidates were jointly prepared by the BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota, LifeScience Alley, Minnesota High Tech Association and MN Nano — for educational purposes only; there will not be an endorsement forthcoming.
Issues were presented for candidate consideration in four categories: economic development, workforce/education, infrastructure and business environment. This is additional information as you consider which candidate(s) are best-suited to provide public-sector leadership to retain and grow Minnesota’s science and technology industries.”
It might be educational for the other entrepreneurs in the community to know this isn't YC and the s...
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