They will be right in front of us when Silicon North Stars hosts their inaugural Minneapolis Demo Day at CoCo’s downtown venue August 3rd.
16 Twin Cities 9th grade students will form teams and pitch their unique business ideas for solving a relevant social problem using technology in front of a live community audience.
Via ABC 6 News
“Some high schoolers from Rochester are trying to make Minnesota roads safer by targeting one of the leading causes of distracted driving: texting. According to the CDC, 11 teens die every day from texting while driving. What started as a group of friends wanting to make a difference has transpired into a winning tool to help reduce distracted driving. The team of five girls created an app called “Via.”
Via News Release
“Best Buy is growing its network of after-school tech programs for teens by adding four new locations in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. That makes for 15 Best Buy Teen Tech Centers across the United States. The free centers are open year-round and give underserved teens hands-on access to the latest technology.”
By Dee DePass, Star Tribune
“Stratasys Ltd. employees ran a marathon of sorts this week as they dashed to dozens of Twin Cities schools to introduce 3,500 students to the wonderment of 3-D printing.
The effort was the company’s first large-scale effort to instantly reach out to thousands of students about STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). It culminated on Friday with 93 students visiting the company’s Eden Prairie headquarters in a partnership with the national black sorority Delta Sigma Theta.”
The Iron Yard is winding down operations in Golden Valley this month, according to CEO Peter Barth.
Opened in January 2016, The Iron Yard became one of the few local aveneues for an immersive 12-week ‘coding school’ focused around front-end & back-end education for students to enter the workforce as junior programmers.
A final demo day next Wednesday will mark the end their run here, three cohorts and 19 students later.
Via News Release
“St. Paul, Minn. – Macalester has received a grant from the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation to support summer internship opportunities for students interested in early stage startups in the Twin Cities.
The project, entitled “Into Action: Entrepreneurship at Macalester College,” will be overseen by Kate Ryan Reiling ’00, Entrepreneur in Residence, and Michael Porter, Director of the Internship Program.”
By Gretchen Zampogna, Plymouth Magazine
“The share of women in the United States computing industry is less than 25 percent and shrinking. But Plymouth resident Kris Haagenson, a technology integration specialist for Robbinsdale Area Schools, is doing her part to counteract that trend.
Last year, Haagenson attended a Code.org training focused on getting girls into computer science. The training got her excited about introducing girls to coding — but “time is your enemy” in schools, Haagenson says. So she had a brainstorm: use recess time.”
Startup Weekend Twin Cities Youth came through Minnesota earlier this month for another round of fresh creation.
From pitch to prototype — young coders, designers and business-minded students from high school and college came together for the weekend and formed on 11 teams. The event was organized by Bharat Pulgam, Bobby Isbell, Jack Olmanson, Josh Chang, and Ben Grosse. TECHdotMN captured the final pitches below:
Via News Release
“MinneAnalytics is proud to to announce the recipients of two scholarships created for Minnesota’s next generation of data scientists and analytics professionals. The 2016 Scholars for Big Data, Analytics and Data Science are Bailey Perry of University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and Daniel Peters of University of Minnesota, Duluth.”
Hack The Heat — a 24 hour hackathon coming up this Saturday, 12 noon at The Commons in Excelsior, is a first of its kind for students ages 12-18.
Organized by friends Luke Igel & Will Walcher, the inaugural event was born out of the desire to host a local hackathon geared towards students like themselves during the the dog days of summer.
Within a few months of conception, they had secured the name, space, sponsors, and enough participation to get things off the ground; the event has about 25 registered so far with a lineup of mentors and judges involved.