June 24 - Well over 250 people attended the June 23 Start Up Connection. The large crowd was made up of start-up technology entrepreneurs, laid-off corporate executives looking for their next assignment, angel investors looking for interesting early-stage deals, and representatives of organizations that support the St. Louis start-up community. Nasser Arshadi, Vice-Provost of Research at UMSL welcomed everyone to the state-of-the-art incubation facility run by UMSL, called IT Enterprises, which is located strategically between the main campus and the airport.
A highlight of the afternoon was a panel discussion moderated by Dave Nicklaus, business editor of the Post-Dispatch. Panel members included Vicki Gonzalez, CEO of the Nidus Center; Jean Roberson, CFO of Appistry; Eddie Davis, President of the Center for the Advancement of African-American Business (CAAAB) and National Minority Business Champion of the Year; Bob Calcatera, Director of the Start Up Midwest Bio Seed Fund, and Thomas Braun, IT Systems Architect. Dave Nicklaus' article about the event, including his reflections on the current state of our start-up community are at: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/business/columnists.nsf/davidnicklaus/story/1FF8AFB76321D2D0862575E200060F3A?OpenDocument .
Chris O'Leary, well-know author of "Elevator Pitch Essentials" let a workshop and competition on elevator pitch creation and delivery. The winners received cash prizes totaling $1000. The winners were Jay Berendzen, Tom Niermann, and Phil Langhorst.
Other events included an Innovation Cafe, a Talent Outreach and lots of networking.
Elia Powers, of The St. Louis Beacon was at the event, and posted a very good blog about our event, including a photo of Chris O'Leary kicking off the elevator pitch workshop: http://www.stlbeacon.org/the_feed/talking_jobs_trading_business_cards_making_pitches
Besides ITEN, important sponsors of the event included the Nidus Center for Scientific Research, RCGA's St. Louis Works organization, the IT Coalition and Innovate St. Louis.
