Congratulations to TutorOnline and Capptu.com, two web based platforms built to create efficiency in online education and stock image purchasing.
These two companies are well suited as Mexico’s SmartCamp winners for their smart approaches to an ever growing need for imagery in marketing and on-the-spot education!
What’s their story? TutorOnline is an online tutoring platform where any student can have access to a private tutor through our virtual classroom; anytime, anywhere.
Global Industry Analysis, market research firm, projects that by 2018 the global market for tutorials will reach $102.8 B USD, more than 30% will be coming from emerging markets. TutorOnline aims to be the leading online tutoring in Mexico and Latin America.
Capptu.com is a crowdsourced web platform designed to create a community of stock images that allows amateur and professional photographers to have their photos available for sale in a marketplace where potential buyers can acquire licenses. Purchasers can also convene competitions to order “on-demand” photos for any given particular purpose.
Capptu uses SoftLayer as their main server which gives support to all our back-end platform functioning.
Thanks again Capptu and TutorOnline for participating! Follow their stories @TutorOnlineMx and @Capptu.
For a complete look at application deadlines and public SmartCamp events, click here: http://www.smartcamp2015.com/cities/. Stay tuned for more SmartCamp stories in your city.
Los Angeles held their SmartCamp event September 9th at accelerator partner Amplify.La in Venice Beach and what great talent they saw!
Despite the amazing turnout and number of competitors, it was clear that this city needed to choose not one SmartCamp winner, but two.
Congratulations to Yosko and BizTexter, two innovative startups who are leading the way in taking a new approach to healthcare coordination and business communications.
Who are these game changing young companies? Yosko is a mobile care coordination platform for hospitals aimed at reducing the amount of errors during patient hand-offs, and BizTexter provides an intelligently automated text message customer service and follow-up marketing system for businesses. It is an affordable and easy to deploy app/cloud hybrid mini-CRM hosted on IBM Softlayer and integrated with Bluemix API’s.
How do they work? Yosko is based on three important pillars which reflect the everyday hospital workflow: 1) seamless access to the existing hospital electronic system, 2) structured hand-off modules and 3) instant team communication. Yosko boasts a signature user interface with every functionality optimized for maximum efficiency.
BizTexter is an app which uses artificial intelligence for answering frequently asked questions and handling most of the triage questions coming from customers. The app does a great job answering questions like: Are you open? What is your address? Having any specials deals right now?
We were pleased to see the Los Angeles SmartCamp pack a full house at Amplify.La, when asked what he thought of the event, here’s what one of the judges had to say, “Your Finalists are all solid. Being an accelerator, we see many, many pitches of course. The six we saw here today are all top notch, among the best we usually see.”
Here’s what an audience member had to say, “I had no idea IBM was doing all these great things – I though you sold hardware. I’m part developer, part business consultant and move from idea to idea very fast – I can see Bluemix as a great way for me to try my ideas quickly.”
Congratulations again to Yosko and BizTexter. Follow their stories on Twitter at @YOSKO and @BIZTEXTER.
For a complete look at application deadlines and public SmartCamp events, click here: http://www.smartcamp2015.com/cities/. Stay tuned for more SmartCamp stories in your city.
While flying to Dallas, I sat beside a serial entrepreneur! He shared some interesting points with me that were impactful in his quest for entrepreneur success — of which he has had at least 3 successful exits!
Two Latin American startups changing the way brands and bands interact with their fans! These change moments will help to transform an entire industry!
Have you ever stood in line to hear your favorite local band? From my experience, that seems to be a universal thing to have to do to hear your favorite band perform. But what if you could just watch them live from your living room couch? What if you could participate to more personal performance delivered through an app?
That’s exactly what Netshow.me does! Winner and Judge’s choice of our SmartCamp Latin America Regional Finals, Netshow.me is a live-media channel for online marketing, promotion and performing! Their solution can literally strengthening the relationship between broadcasters and performers with their fan base! Live streaming broadcasts can give bands total freedom and autonomy to perform whenever and wherever they want. Very cool! Follow them on Twitter @Netshowme.
The People’s Choice award went to Store Level, a provider of real time in-store execution monitoring using crowd sourcing and mobile technology. Store Level’s mobile app allows consumers to execute social media-type missions based on the brands’ needs.
In exchange for their work, they can receive cash rewards! Think about the possibilities! Using Store Level, you could actually get paid helping out the brands you enjoy most! Simultaneously, brands can analyze the results directly from their cloud-based dashboard. Talk about a mobile workforce!
Congrats to our two winners, and we look forward to seeing Netshow.me at the SmartCamp Global Finals!
Helpful links:
Netshow.me -> https://netshow.me/
Store Level -> http://storelevel.com/
Have you noticed the new energy around Entrepreneurship?
For instance, Shark Tank is one of the most popular family shows. Families are teaching their kids about the potential and the feasibility of changing the world.
We now have Restaurant Start-up and even Walmart is running a “entrepreneur” event to gather new products for its US stores.
And more women are also joining the trend …. did you know that nearly 20% of angels invested in women-led businesses — the percentage grew more than 40% from the previous year, according to the Center of Venture Research.
Why is this the case?
1. There is more access to capital and it costs less to start a business. With new technologies like cloud, the cost to begin a start up is less, and areas like social enable businesses to market like the large companies for less.
2. There is more “hope” now in the economy that in the past few years. Yes, CNBC says we are in the period of overjoy, there are signs that our economy is improving — it’s a good time to start a business.
3. Corporate America isn’t fulfilling the “need to show value” and to “change the world.” To attract and retain the best employees, companies should be more proactive and willing to invest in their workers’ future. Many believe they have to create their own company to get that culture.
4. Mentoring abounds. I see IBM offering business and technology mentoring. Virgin is focused on mentoring in the UK and the list goes on. Mentoring provides confidence to get started!
5. Support is pervasive. Unlike in the past, support for start-ups exists in networking groups, meetups, and beyond. For example, for women entrepreneurs, some groups are National Association of Women Business Owners, Women’s Toolbox, PBWC, WITI, and Women 2.0.
I love this time of Entrepreneur Energy and know 2014 will truly be the Year of the Entrepreneur!
I had the pleasure of doing an influence roundtable up in Boston with key people who influence the Entrepreneur and Start-Up Space in the Greater Boston area.
Mass innovation nights are so innovative that I wanted to share how this effort helps shape the ecosystem in this region that focuses on Healthcare, Energy, and Bio innovations.
Join me as I discuss with IBM Smartcamp finalists Shopa, Geekie and OnFarm the latest trends in the startup space right now that in particular are Keys at SXSW!
Once upon a time, Silicon Valley was the only place in the world where entrepreneurship seemed to happen through spontaneous combustion. So cities and countries all over tried to copy it–with only modest success.
Well, something strange is happening in the early years of the 21st century. Startup fever is on the move, both within the United States and globally.
The spirit of global entrepreneurship will be on display Feb. 6 in San Francisco, where the IBM SmartCamp program will present its fourth annual Entrepreneur of the Year award. The contestants, boiled down from 1200 applicants, qualified for the finals via a series of regional contests last year. They hail from Brazil, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the Middle East, Australia and Malaysia—as well as a couple of unlikely spots in the United States, Camden, N.J., and Fresno, Calif.
To watch a live stream video of the day’s activities, visit here starting at 9 a.m. US Pacific Time. To participate in a peoples’ choice vote, click here.
This year, IBM SmartCamps are being held as part of IBM’s inaugural Global Entrepreneur Week. All week IBM has been celebrating the great work startups do through a series of events around the globe offering startups and entrepreneurs the tools and expertise needed to innovate, transform and grow using key technologies such as cloud, big data analytics, mobile and cognitive computing.
This globalization of entrepreneurship has been building for a number of years, but now it’s so obvious it hits you upside the head. A signal of the shift came last year when MoDe, a mobile phone top-off payment service founded in Kenya, won the IBM SmartCamp Finals in New York City.
Sure, Silicon Valley and now San Fran are still an incredible engine of innovation and entrepreneurship. But, there are plenty of other tech boomtowns now. According to data from the CrunchBase directory, New York City created 1,438 startups in the past five years; San Francisco, 1,448; London, 1,075; and cities including Berlin, Bangalore, Istanbul, Moscow and New Delhi are revving their own startup engines.
Here’s an example of Entrepreneur Day in Tel Aviv!
While Nairobi, Kenya, only registers in a small way on the directory, dozens of startups like MoDe have emerged there in the past few years—many of them aided by tech startup incubators and entrepreneurship hubs.
One of the IBM SmartCamp finalists, Reengen, which makes an energy-use dashboard for the owners and occupants of buildings, got a helping hand from Girisim Fabrikasi, a tech startup accelerator in its hometown of Istanbul, Turkey.
While incubators are helpful, there are other vital ingredients in a healthy startup ecosystem—among them venture capital, the cooperation of governments and universities, and, often, a stimulating urban culture and support from already established businesses.
It doesn’t hurt that the barriers to entry are collapsing. Startups are aided by the availability of open source software, inexpensive cloud computing services and government tax breaks. In addition, development platforms like Google’s Android and Apple’s IOS power the app economy.
IBM is deeply committed to supporting startups in bringing new technology and customer solutions to market through mentorship, partnership, matchmaking and free access to IBM technology. Most recently, IBM has entered the platform space, with its Watson Developers’ Cloud, which is designed to enable startups to build applications on top of IBM Watson—the technology that beat two grand-champions on the TV quiz show Jeopardy!
To help get startups up and running on the developers’ cloud, IBM is offering support to the entrepreneur and venture communities through workshops and seminars on topics such as development skills, as well as networking opportunities. IBM has also dedicating a $100 million investment to support the seeding and growth of startups and businesses building apps in the IBM Watson Developers Cloud.
It’s amazing what a startup can do when it gets a helping hand from bigger companies. Streetline, a San Francisco-based firm that won the Entrepreneur of the Year award two years ago, subsequently became an IBM business partner. It now ranks as the largest smart parking solutions provider in the world. It has recorded more than 170 million parking events in the US, Germany and the UK. Another example is Sproxil, which provides a consumer verification service through mobile devices. Since participating in IBM’s Global Entrepreneur program, Sproxil has expanded to 10 industries to help consumers protect themselves from fake or stolen goods and helps brand owners maintain supply chain oversight. Sproxil was also named the best HealthCare startup up by Fast Company for 2013 and the #7 in the overall top startup category.
Who’s next for explosive growth? This year’s SmartCamp finalists include Temando, of Australia; TMC, of Malaysia; Shopa, of the United Kingdom; Reengen, of Turkey; Nova Lumos, of the Middle East; Geekie, of Brazil, and Coriell and OnFarm, of the United States. Fix on those names for a minute. For one or more of them, this could be the start of something big.
