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Boston Software Engineers - Big Data, Machine Learning, & Artificial Intelligence

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:32:14 +0000

When:

Monday, March 12, 2012 - 18:30

Location:

Microsoft NERD, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142

Organization:

Boston Software Engineers

Summary:

We at Boston Software Engineers (BSE) embrace the future and hope to accelerate technological development and innovation.

In this spirit of innovation, we are proud to announce our first high level engineering event at Microsoft NERD on Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Hadoop, and Big Data.

Food and Drinks are sponsored by Hopper a local startup that is utilizing machine learning and Big Data technologies to develop the next generation travel application.

Agenda

6:30pm - 7:00pm Networking and Refreshments

7:00pm - 7:30pm J. Singh on the Hadoop Ecosystem

7:30pm - 8:00pm Vikash Mansinghka on Machine Learning

8:30pm - 9:00pm Sebastien Rainville on Hopper

9:30pm - 10:00pm Networking and Refreshments

Speaker Overview

___________________________

Speaker 1: J. Singh

The Hadoop Ecosystem

Introduction

What Hadoop is, and what it's not
Origins and History
Hello Hadoop, how to get started.

The Hadoop Bestiary

Core: Hadoop Map Reduce and Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS)
Data Access: HBase, Pig and Hive
Algorithms: Mahout
Data Import: Flume, Sqoop and Nutch

The Hadoop Providers

Apache
Cloudera
Amazon

The Hadoop Alternatives

MapReduce from NoSQL Providers, MongoDB, CouchDB, Riak
Google App Engine

Biography

J. Singh is Founder of Early Stage IT and Adjunct Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. J. also holds a PhD. in Electrical Engineering with 30 years experience.

____________________________

Speaker 2: Vikash Mansinghka

Machine learning without the math - Using new AI techniques to make exploration, analysis and prediction easy and fun.

Making use of data is messy work. In theory, data scientists spend
their time dreaming up mathematically elegant models that just happen to accord well with the data, are transparently explainable once fit, can be efficiently used, and make accurate predictions. In practice, just getting the data into a modeling-ready form involves as many assumptions as a typical corporate revenue forecast and then the real battle begins.

I will describe CrossCat, a new machine learning system that mitigates this basic problem. CrossCat estimates the full joint distribution underlying high-dimensional datasets, including the noisy, incomplete tables that come from modern database systems. It also can efficiently simulate from any of its finite-dimensional conditional distributions on-line, without retraining, and solves problems of prediction, imputation, feature selection and classification competitively (versus a variety of probabilistic and non-probabilistic baselines).

This talk will cover CrossCat's API and two illustrative use cases. If
time permits, I will touch on the underlying technical advances that enabled us to engineer CrossCat, including probabilistic programming, nonparametric Bayesian models, and techniques for scaling up Markov chain iteration to distributed computing environments.

Biography

Vikash Mansinghka is a researcher at MIT, where he runs the
Probabilistic Computing Project, and is also a visiting fellow at
Harvard. He received an SB in Mathematics, and SB in Computer Science, an MEng in Computer Science, and a PhD in Computation, all from MIT. He held graduate fellowships from the National Science Foundation and MIT's Lincoln Laboratories. His PhD dissertation on natively probabilistic computation won the 2009 MIT George M. Sprowls award for best dissertation in computer science. He previously co-founded and led a venture-backed start-up selling software for Bayesian data analysis. He currently serves on DARPA's Information Science and Technology (ISAT) advisory board.

___________________________

Speaker 3: Sebastien Rainville

Turning Big Data / Machine Learning into a business

Sebastien is the Co-founder and Chief Engineer at Hopper, where he teaches machines to perform tasks so that people don't have to. He studied Electrical and Software Engineering and previously developed industrial automation software at F.L Smithe.

Sebastien will explain how utilizing NoSQL / Big Data technologies and Machine Learning Hopper was able to build an entirely new business.

Website:

http://www.softwareboston.org/events/50689532/

Boston Ruby Group - From Ruby to JavaScript

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:30:11 +0000

When:

Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - 18:30

Location:

Microsoft NERD, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142

Organization:

Boston Ruby Group

Summary:

This month we’ll have two presentations focused on rich client development.

Wyatt Greene - From Ruby to Javascript
A comparison of JavaScript’s syntax, tools and resources with Ruby. This presentation will help a Ruby programmer become an advanced JavaScript programmer in no time.

Mark Bates - Testing Rich Client Applications in Rails
An overview of how testing fits into your rich CoffeeScript application built on top of Rails.

Website:

http://bostonrb.org/presentations/month/March-2012

Music 2.0: Tools + Tech for Musicians, Marketers + Managers: The 2012 Edition

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:28:48 +0000

When:

Monday, March 19, 2012 - 18:00

Location:

Microsoft NERD, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142

Organization:

Music 2.0

Summary:

Boston + New England has an impressive number of companies creating tools and technologies to help promote and fund music projects.

We also have a vibrant and diverse music community.

Let's keep connecting the two for the benefit of both.

In 2010 + 2011, we held earlier Music 2.0 events. With 200+ attendees at each, they were terrific evenings, pulling together many of the music, tech, and event companies from Greater Boston.

For 2012, we are going to have more music-related companies present, quick updates from some companies that presented in years past, and more time to meet friends new and old (read: networking!) and a chance for companies that are hiring to press the flesh with folks who are job hunting.

Music 2.0: Tools + Tech for Musicians, Marketers, + Managers is Monday, March 19th at the Microsoft New England Research & Development Center at 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142 ( http://microsoftcambridge.com) from 6-9 PM.

This year's great sponsors include:

* Notch Brewing

* Microsoft New England Research & Development

This year's event is again free. We're looking for two sponsors at $500 each to come on board to help cover the costs for food and a bartender.

Presenters will include...

* Nancy Baym, author, "Personal Connections in the Digital Age," @nancybaym

* Dawn Carroll, Executive Director, Over My Shoulder Foundation

* Bob Cramer, Chairman & CEO, Nimbit

* David Day, Editor, Weekly Dig + co-creator, Together

* Ardie Farhadieh, Berklee College on Rethink Music

* Trish Fontanilla, Community Manager, Vsnap

* Kevin Hoskins of Rock Shop Boston + CQ Presents

* Moontoast

* D'lynne Plummer, Arts & Business Council of Greater Boston

* Veronica Pierni, COO, JamHub

* Leslie Poston, Magnitude Media on Google+

* Steve Theo of Rock Shop Boston + Pirate

* Eric Ziering, CEO, ZMX Music

* Jay B. Ziskrout, Founder + CEO, Dympol

* Ardie Farhadieh

...and more to be announced in the coming weeks.

We're also working with the good folks at the Together music festival, April 2-8, on some great cross-promotion and helping local music companies get their products or services get more exposure through the festival.

Music 2.0 is a terrific event for:

* musicians of every genre (rock, hip hop, jazz, folk, classical, electronic, opera, etc.)

* marketing folks from venues, arts organizations, etc.

* managers and agents

* investors

* members of the media

* promoters and presenters that work at venues, music organizations, etc.

The hashtag is #music2.

If you'd like to join us, you MUST RSVP here on this Eventbrite page as I need to have a list of attendees for the security desk at Microsoft's building.

This event is being produced by Charles McEnerney, Principal of Layers Marketing, Host + Producer of Well-Rounded Radio ( @wellroundedradi), Founder + Instigator of Musicians for Music 2.0 Venture Fund

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesmcenerney

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/charlesmcenerney

...with big help from Trish Fontanilla ( http://about.me/trishofthetrade + @trishofthetrade ) + Caitlin Miller ( @calizmil ).

Website:

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2870380385

Boston New Tech Meetup - March Event

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:27:28 +0000

When:

Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - 18:00

Location:

Microsoft NERD, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142

Organization:

Boston New Tech Meetup

Summary:

Boston New Tech Meetup for March. 15th edition!

Come see what's new and cool in the local startup scene! Presenters give 5 minutes of demo followed by 5 minutes of questions.

Lineup of presenters:

Bill Zimmer / Idea SuperCollider
Mike Arsenault / Rejoiner / @rejoinerapp
Cory Van Wallenstein / Dyn / @DynInc
Jim Foster / PointKnown / @pointknown
Mike Stone / GivingSomeThing / @GivingSomeThing
Sean Laurence / HelpScout / @helpscout
Adam Abrevaya / NUODB / @nuodb

See you there!

Website:

http://www.meetup.com/newtech-73/events/54047632/

MIT Enterprise Forum: New England Games SIG - Launching Great Games with Limited Marketing Spend

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:26:36 +0000

When:

Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - 18:00

Location:

Microsoft NERD, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142

Organization:

MIT Enterprise Forum

Summary:

In the game industry, we often hear about ‘AAA’ titles’ with elaborate marketing campaigns including everything from the biggest booths at E3 to widespread TV advertising. With the explosion of digital distribution, online games, mobile apps and social networks, developers without large marketing budgets can now bring their title directly to consumers to maximize the impact of their launch. While marketing on a budget has its challenges, it CAN be done! The MIT Enterprise Forum’s New England Games SIG has gathered some of our region’s most seasoned game marketing executives to share some of their secrets and to discuss what tactics have (and have not) worked for them in the past.

Moderated by Hank Howie, CEO of Beach Cooler Games, the panel will include Eitan Glinert, President of Fire Hose Games; Gene Mauro, President/COO of Entertainment Games, Inc.; Caroline Murphy, Director of Operations at Brass Monkey; Steve Curran, Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Pod Design; and Scott Triola, CEO of SparkBridge Interactive.

Come early or stay late to enjoy light appetizers / drinks and to network with your peers. The event will be held on Wednesday, March 21^st from 6pm – 9pmat the Microsoft NERD Center (One Memorial Drive, Cambridge).

6:00pm – 7:00pm: Networking & Light Appetizers, Refreshments

7:00pm – 8:15pm: Panel

8:15pm – 9:00pm: Post-Panel Networking

Event sponsored by Microsoft New England Research & Development Center; Morse, Barnes-Brown & Pendleton; Turbine; and Vivox.

Website:

http://gamemarketing.eventbrite.com

DrinksOnTap 11 - Demos, drinks and discussions about mobile development

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:24:54 +0000

When:

Monday, March 26, 2012 - 18:00

Location:

Microsoft NERD, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142

Organization:

DrinksOnTap

Summary:

DrinksOnTap is a social meetup for Boston area mobile developers (iPhone, Android and more). The event is organized monthly to brings together the best mobile developers and share what we've been working on over drinks.

We are always looking for amazing demos from companies in the Boston mobile community. If you're working on something that you want to show off we want to see it. Please join our group and come have some fun.

Website:

http://www.meetup.com/DrinksOnTap/events/48545282/

BostonTech - Learn about NoSQL!

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:23:55 +0000

When:

Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - 19:00

Location:

Microsoft NERD, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142

Organization:

BostonTech

Summary:

As modern applications have faced the demands of the mobile and social space, the limitations of the relational database model have surfaced. A new breed of database, commonly called NoSQL, has emerged in several different forms to meet these new challenges. From distributed key/value stores to document-oriented, these modern databases are providing developers with low-cost alternatives to achieving massive scale and flexibility. This talk will introduce NoSQL taxonomies and the popular databases in each category. NoSQL application development will be covered by exploring Couchbase Server and its client libraries (including Java and .NET).

About the Presenter:

John Zablocki is a Developer Advocate at Couchbase.

He is the organizer of Beantown ALT.NET and a former adjunct at Fairfield University. John holds an M.S. in Computer Science from Rensselaer Hartford. He has worked at startups throughout his career and is interested in the intersection of .NET and open source.

Online, John can be found at http://about.me/johnzablocki.

Offline, he can be found too infrequently around Boston, with his dog, daughter, and his Martin acoustic.

Boston Tech Event Schedule:

7:00 - 7:35: Free pizza and networking

Talking the Boston tech job market with experts from Workbridge Associates and Jobspring Partners

7:35 - 8:30: John's presentation on "NoSQL"

Website:

http://www.meetup.com/BostonTech/events/54070102/

Lean Startup Circle March Meetup

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:22:55 +0000

When:

Thursday, March 29, 2012 - 18:30

Location:

Microsoft NERD, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142

Organization:

Lean Startup Circle Boston

Summary:

March Lean Workshop

6:30pm - Early Bird Presentation: Customer Development 101

For those new to the concepts of Customer Development and The Lean Startup, we'll start the evening with a talk about the basics of customer development and lean startups at 6:30pm. Come to listen to the presentation, or hang out and network over pizza!

7:00pm - Lean UX

Josh Seiden, Founder Partner at Proof and Program Director at LUXr NYC

Lean Startup uses customer feedback as a vital component for guiding the growth of startup businesses. Lean Startup teams run continuous cycles of customer interaction to test what they know and inform decision making processes. A central element of this approach is the hypothesis. A team of entrepreneurs, UX designers, and agile developers armed with a clear hypothesis and a healthy portion of trust, has a unique opportunity for true cross-functional collaboration. Josh will talk about how teams can replace requirements with hypotheses, how this can be done in different business contexts, and how you can make an ongoing discipline of this practice.

Josh is a user experience designer and design leader with deep expertise in bringing design and strategy to entrepreneurial environments, whether for startup or the enterprise. He is a founding partner at Proof, the NYC-based product innovation studio. He is also the program director for LUXr's New York City practice, was on the leadership team at Cooper, former design manager at LiquidNet, and was a founding member and past President of the Interaction Design Association (IxDA).

Website:

http://www.meetup.com/Lean-Startup-Circle-Boston/events/23845421/

Office Hours with Kyle Alspach of Boston Business Journal

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:20:00 +0000

When:

Thursday, March 15, 2012 - 17:00

Location:

Venture Cafe, One Broadway, 4th fl., Cambridge, MA

Organization:

Boston Business Journal

Summary:

Stop by and meet Kyle Alspach (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/kyle-alspach/20/b17/536), the Startups & Venture Capital editor at the Boston Business Journal (http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/startups).

Share a bit about what you’re working on and learn about the BBJ's Startups & Venture Capital Daily, a blog and daily e-mail that covers Boston area tech startups and venture investors.

Website:

http://www.venturecafe.net/calendar/

Office Hours with Nick Pappas (Mass Technology Development Corporation)

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:19:08 +0000

When:

Thursday, March 15, 2012 - 16:00

Location:

Venture Cafe, One Broadway, 4th fl., Cambridge, MA

Organization:

Mass Technology Development Corporation

Organization Logo:

Summary:

Join a member of the Massachusetts Technology Development Corporation for Office Hours!

A partner from MTDC will be at a table in the cafe taking meetings on a first-come, first-serve basis. You can ask a cafe team member or just look for the table sign.

MTDC's goal is to meet potential funding candidates, whose companies are based in MA. If you would like to chat with the MTDC partners, you should come with a high level pitch deck. It should cover at least:

a.) The problem you are addressing

b.) The size of the market

c.) The team

d.) The product offering

e.) The exit strategy

Visit the MTDC website at http://mtdc.com/

Website:

http://www.venturecafe.net/calendar/

Venture Cafe in Session

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:17:45 +0000

When:

Thursday, March 15, 2012 - 15:00

Location:

Venture Cafe, One Broadway, 4th fl., Cambridge, MA

Organization:

Venture Cafe

Organization Logo:

Summary:

Come mix and mingle with fellow entrepreneurs! Find serendipitous connections, meet VCs for office hours and attend E&I-focused events. www.vencaf.com

Venture Cafe alpha is an invitational prototype, with invitations extended to the entrepreneurial, innovative and creative communities around Greater Boston. Cafe-goers are expected to participate in a manner consistent with the cafe's Credo. http://www.venturecafe.net/credo/credo

To support the Venture Café's mission to enable fresh and useful conversations and to act as a community hub, Venture Café reserves the right to dis-invite any individual that its management feels, in their sole judgment, detracts from achieving its mission.

Website:

http://www.venturecafe.net/calendar/

Boston Java Meetup Group - Enterprise Social Networking - Apache Rave

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:16:14 +0000

When:

Monday, March 19, 2012 - 18:30

Location:

Cambridge Innovation Center - 1 Broadway, Fourth Floor, Cambridge MA

Organization:

Boston Java Meetup Group

Summary:

Summary
Enterprise Social Networking - Apache Rave

Apache Rave is a new web and social mashup engine. It will provide an out-of-the-box as well as an extendible lightweight Java platform to host, serve and aggregate (Open)Social Gadgets and services through a highly customizable and Web 2.0 friendly front-end. Rave is targeted as engine for internet and intranet portals and as building block to provide context-aware personalization and collaboration features for multi-site/multi-channel (mobile) oriented and content driven websites and (social) network oriented services and platforms. For the OpenSocial container and services the (Java) Apache Shindig will be integrated. At a later stage further generalization is envisioned to also transparently support W3C Widgets using Apache Wookie. Apache Rave was initiated in 2010 at the previous ApacheCON in Atlanta and through subsequent discussions during the first European OpenSocial Event in Utrecht (The Netherlands), and thereafter created as a joint effort of several existing projects and individual participants. The Rave project thus provides an interesting case-study for bringing together multiple projects with already mature code bases. Rave members are also working together to reach out to other related Apache projects like Shindig and Wookie, to other potentially interested projects and developers both within and outside Apache, and most importantly to the many and diverse target communities.

Matt and Tony will do a round trip of the Apache Rave project. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own laptops to play with the open source code and have a working demo to experiment and hack around with, during and after the talk.

Bio Matt Franklin
Matt has been working with Java technologies as a Lead Software Engineer for The MITRE Corporation. Matt’s broad development experience in collaboration and knowledge sharing applications using both commercial and open source technologies has led to his involvement with the Apache Rave community. As an initial member of Apache Rave (incubating), Matt is looking to the open source community to deliver a user-facing platform for integrating collaboration, information management, mobile and socially-enabled solutions. Follow Matt on: http://twitter.com/mfranklin

Bio Tony Carlucci

Tony has been working on various Java technologies, specifically in the Portal and Web Service realms, at the MITRE corporation as a Senior Software Engineer. He became interested in the OpenSocial specification in 2008 and worked to incorporate it into his projects via Apache Shindig. He became an initial member of the Apache Rave (incubating) project after discovering the large community of developers who were all working on similar OpenSocial based projects.

Location

Havanna room on the the 5th floor.

Website:

http://www.meetup.com/boston-java/events/54222922/

MassTLC - Finding the Right Way to the Cloud: Measure, Manage and Monetize for Success

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:14:51 +0000

When:

Thursday, March 29, 2012 - 08:30

Location:

Acquia, 25 Corporate Drive, Burlington, MA 01803

Organization:

Mass Technology Leadership Council

Organization Logo:

Summary:

Finding the Right Way to the Cloud: Measure, Manage and Monetize for Success

March 29, 2012 8:30am - 10:30am

Acquia, Burlington, MA

Tweet it out! @MassTLC #CloudSuccess

Keynote:

Firas Raouf, Venture Partner, OpenView Venture Partners

Confirmed Speakers:

Greg Arnette, Founder and CTO, Sonian

Alec Belfin, VP of Business Development, InfoGin

Glen Gaudet, President & Founder, GaggleAMP

Bryan House, VP of Marketing, Acquia

Coach Wei, CEO, Yottaa, Inc.

Over the past few years, Cloud businesses are moving forward, transforming IT into a service and helping organizations gain customers and market share. But making the transition and moving to the Cloud to realize these benefits is more elusive than some may think. And then once your application is up and running, how do you manage it, measure it and most importantly, monetize the application?

Whether your company was born in the cloud or is now incorporating cloud into its overall IT strategy, measuring and managing the cloud throughout your organization are keys to success. From managing and scaling your cloud infrastructure to monitoring and optimizing customer engagement and its impact on your business, it all comes into play.

This session will take you beyond ideas into real life examples that look at the bottom line. Learn from SaaS executives and venture capitalists who will share their strategies and experiences to help put your business's success within reach.

At this session you will learn:

- Real world examples of applications being successfully managed, monitored and monetized
- Monitoring tools and techniques that work
- How successful companies are charging for their Cloud services both internally and externally
- How companies are monetizing data
- Tools and techniques for measuring and optimizing customer engagement

Website:

http://329cloud.eventbrite.com

The Boston MySQL Meetup Group - VoltDB

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:13:32 +0000

When:

Monday, March 12, 2012 - 19:00

Location:

MIT Building E51, Rm 345, Cambridge, MA 02139

Organization:

The Boston MySQL Meetup Group

Summary:

March's topic is about VoltDB, a relational database.

VoltDB will present a use-case based overview of what VoltDB is and the types of problems it helps to solve. We'll also discuss some newer VoltDB features, including the WAN replication beta functionality and command logging (a durable write-ahead log). This will be an interactive presentation and questions from the group are welcome.

This presentation will be given by VoltDB software developers Ryan Betts and Ning Shi.

Website:

http://www.meetup.com/mysqlbos/events/33318792/

Ultra Light Startups - Investor Feedback Forum and Pitch Showdown

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:12:31 +0000

When:

Thursday, March 22, 2012 - 18:30

Location:

Microsoft NERD, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142

Organization:

Ultra Light Startups

Summary:

You must purchase tickets on Eventbrite ($10 pitch/attend)

http://uls-boston.eventbrite.com/

Please join us for the March 22nd Ultra Light Startups Feedback Forum and Pitch Showdown event

- Startups should not miss their chance to "Pitch Your Company"
- Please review the Pitch FAQ's and reserve a Pitch ticket

Boston Investor Panel

David Beisel (@davidbeisel) Cofounder and Partner at NextView Ventures, focusing on working with founding entrepreneurs looking for additional capital and expertise to help build great digital media & internet companies. Also founder and organizer of the Web Innovators Group, an organization which holds quarterly events which bring together nearly a thousand people in the web and mobile entrepreneurial ecosystem. Serves on the Board of Directors at BlogHer, a women’s-focused blogging community and media network as well as an active blogger at GenuineVC.com.

Dayna Grayson (@daynagrayson) Principal at North Bridge Venture Partners, specializing in Digital Media. Her investment career follows operational success in product design and management.Dayna actively invests in companies seeking to change the way the Internet is used to deliver and monetize consumer services.

Brett Garrett (@brettgarrett) Principal at Bain Capital Ventures. Brett has been involved in a wide range of investments across multiple sectors and stages. Currently, Brett splits his time between Boston and New York City where he evaluates venture and growth opportunities in digital media and e-commerce and assists companies throughout the Bain Capital Ventures portfolio.

Matt Fates (@mattfates) Partner at Ascent Venture Partners with a focus on investments in early stage companies in the emerging sectors of information technology and investing only in the eastern U.S. His team leads Series A or Series B rounds of investment and seeks to build a meaningful relationships with management. Board member of a number of well recognized companies as well as serving as Overseer at the Boston Museum of Science driving the museum mission in science and technology.

Startup Pitches

Pitch applications now being accepted for March 22nd. 8-10 companies will be selected to pitch. Those who do not make this round of pitches will receive a full refund or may use their ticket for general admission. (Apply now, good luck!)

Agenda

6:30pm – Feedback Forum – 10 startups pitch to a Live In-Person Boston Investor panel; the panel provides feedback for each pitch
8:15pm – Pitch Showdown - audience voting via Twitter; winners announced and prizes awarded
8:30pm – Drinks at nearby location

Event Format

The Investor Feedback Forum and Pitch Showdown is designed to:

Help early stage startups refine their investor pitch
Provide helpful, actionable advice on each startups business model from active, early-stage tech startup investors
Demonstrate to the audience how investors evaluate startup pitches
Award prizes to the most viable startups, based on audience and panel voting.

- Top three winning startups will be awarded a $500 credit from Amazon Web Services
- Every startup pitching receives a complimentary one week pass to WorkBar Boston.
  (5 consecutive days, to be redeemed within 30 days of ULS event)
- Every startup pitching receives special access to the Ultra Light Founders club.
- First place winner of the pitch showdown will receive a $1000 credit worth of legal services from our Boston exclusive legal sponsor Mintz Levin
- ***NEWPRIZE*** - First place winner will receive a fast tracked in-person interview for consideration in the DreamIt Ventures Summer 2012 Accelerator Class.

At the Investor Feedback Forum, the panel and the startup pitches are integrated into a single session. Startups pitch to a panel of early-stage technology investors. Each startup gives a pitch and brief demonstration of his/her product. The panel and audience ask follow-up questions after each pitch. The panel gives constructive feedback to each startup pitching. At the end of the series of pitches, the audience votes for their favorite pitches via Twitter. The winners are announced and prizes are awarded. Then we go for drinks nearby.

Website:

http://www.meetup.com/uls-boston/events/55315962/

TCN - Breakfast Roundtable: Pitching the Plan

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:10:48 +0000

When:

Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - 07:30

Location:

Emerging Enterprise Center at Foley Hoag, 1000 Winter St. Suite 4000, Waltham, MA.

Organization:

The Capital Network

Organization Logo:

Summary:

Early stage ventures seeking investment need to know how to target, locate, approach and close with venture capitalists, angels and strategic investors. Through an interactive panel discussion with leading New England entrepreneurs, attendees will learn how to maximize their chances of identifying the right investors and securing the capital they need to grow their business. Attendees learn how to create an "Elevator Pitch" and what to include in their "Investment Deck".

Panelists:

Janet Kosloff - Co-founder & CEO, InCrowd

David Greenwald – Co-founder & Managing Director, Relay Technology Management

Mina Hsiang – General Catalyst

Barry Coffman - Launchpad Venture Group

Moderator:

Chris Cuddy - Launchpad Venture Group

Website:

http://bit.ly/wIN8pS

Boston JavaScript - Choosing CoffeeScript

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:09:29 +0000

When:

Thursday, March 29, 2012 - 18:30

Location:

SignedOn, 373 Washington Street, Boston, MA

Organization:

The Boston JavaScript Meetup

Summary:

Should you use CoffeeScript in your web application?

CoffeeScript is a programming language that compiles into JavaScript and has been steadily rising in popularity since its release two years ago.

Adam Buggia is an Engineering Director at Localytics where he implements front-end functionality using CoffeeScript. Adam will highlight some of the advantages of using CoffeeScript and take you through the decision process to use CoffeeScript in their mobile analytics dashboard.

After the presentation | demonstration, we will go around the room introducing ourselves and asking the group for advice | opinions on any JavaScript-related issues members are facing.

This meeting is being hosted by SignedOn, located on Floor 4 at 373 Washington St, Down-Town Crossing, MA. A one minute walk from State T station. You can use the map on http://signedon.com/ to see where the closest parking spots are.

About Coffee Script

CoffeeScript is a little language that compiles into JavaScript. Underneath all those awkward braces and semicolons, JavaScript has always had a gorgeous object model at its heart. CoffeeScript is an attempt to expose the good parts of JavaScript in a simple way.

http://coffeescript.org/

Check out some of the apps and sites that Coffee script being used in today:

CloudApp

CloudApp allows you to share images, links, music, videosand files.

http://getcloudapp.com/

WebGLCraft

WebGL implementation of Minecraft written in Coffeescript.

http://danielribeiro.github.com/WebGLCraft/

Posterous

A blogging platform. Used CoffeeScript to create its revamped "Spaces" front-end.

https://posterous.com/

EtherCalc

Massively multiplayer online spreadsheet. (CoffeeScript + Zappa.js)

http://www.ethercalc.org/start

Website:

http://www.meetup.com/javascript-2/events/55375282/

Cambridge Semantic Web Monthly Meetup

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:08:20 +0000

When:

Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - 18:00

Location:

MIT Stata Center, 32 Vassar St., Cambridge, MA 02139

Organization:

Cambridge Semantic Web Group

Summary:

Agenda:

**********************************

6:00-6:15 Introduction/News

6:15-6:55 Drupal 7 and schema.org for a more structured Web Stéphane Corlosquet, Software engineer and Drupal developer at MIND Informatics Schema.org is a joint initiative from the major search engines to build a collection of schemas that webmasters can use to markup their HTML pages. Search engines including Bing, Google, Yahoo! and Yandex rely on this markup to improve the display of search results, making it easier for people to find the right web pages. Drupal 7 makes it easy to markup pages withschema.org, allowing to quickly build pages with structured data that can be understood by Google and displayed as Rich Snippets.
Bio: http://openspring.net/scor

6:55-7:25pm

Oliver Ruebenacker (http://www.oliver.curiousworld.org/)

Turning biological knowledge into mathematical models, automated

Living organisms are so enormously complex that we need computer simulations to understand the biochemical details. An increasing part of the biochemical details is becoming known, and an increasing part of that knowledge is becoming available on the web in machine-readable formats, especially in the form of the RDF/OWL-based community standard Biological Pathways Exchange (BioPAX). For example, the web portal Pathway Commons aggregates biochemical knowledge from nine popular databases and allows query and export to BioPAX comprising about 1,700 pathways from 414 organisms, including about 440,000 interactions involving 86,000 substances. This data is fully linked with open controlled terminologies such as gene ontology (e.g. anatomical features) and free online databases such as ChEBI (chemicals), KEGG (genes a.o.),UniProt (proteins) and PubMed (publications).

A significant recent break-through for computer simulations of biological organisms has been the development of Systems Biology Pathway Exchange (SBPAX) a BioPAX extension for the inclusion of quantitative data and systems biology terms, especially the Systems Biology Ontology (SBO). Two pathway databases with significant quantitative data - Signaling Gateway Molecule Pages (SGMP) and System for the Analysis of Biochemical Pathways - Reaction Kinetics (SABIO-RK) - have prototypes that can export to SBPAX, and the Virtual Cell has a prototype that can import SBPAX to build and annotate models. This makes it possible to increasingly automate model building.

Website:

http://www.meetup.com/The-Cambridge-Semantic-Web-Meetup-Group/events/47777482/

eXtreme Tuesday Club - Boston Monthly Meetup

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:07:23 +0000

When:

Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - 18:30

Location:

Cambridge Brewing Company, 1 Kendall Sq., Cambridge, MA

Organization:

eXtreme Tuesday Club

Summary:

We're moving the meetings back to Tuesdays, and changing the name back.

Website:

http://www.meetup.com/xp-28/events/55435822/

Boston Web Performance Group - Speaker: Devon Hillard - Apache Web Performance

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:06:07 +0000

When:

Thursday, March 15, 2012 - 18:30

Location:

Wayfair Offices, 177 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA

Organization:

Boston Web Performance Group

Summary:

Apache Web Performance - Leveraging Apache to make your site FLY!

Apache is the most popular web server in the world, yet its default configuration can't handle high traffic. Learn how to setup Apache for high performance sites and leverage many of its available modules to deliver a faster web experience for your users. Discover how Apache can max out a 1 Gbps NIC and how to serve over 140,000 pages per minute with a small Apache cluster. Get happier users, more conversions, and save money with a properly setup Apache web server.

Devon Hillard has been developing, architecting, and hosting high traffic web applications for 14 years. Some of the sites he has been involved with include: ATT.com, Cingular.com, PeopleChoiceAwards.com, Payless.com, Scotts.com, JCrew.com, VermontCountryStore.com, 10MinuteMail.com, and many more. He is currently a co-founder of Spark::red an ATG Managed Hosting provider, delivering high performance hosting for the Fortune 1000 who use the Oracle/ATG eCommerce platform.

Map: http://goo.gl/zWMqz
Street View: http://goo.gl/Yjs3U

Schedule:

6:30-7:15 Eat pizza and meet other members
7:15-8:15 Presentation
8:15-9:00 Q&A, general socializing and more pizza eating

Website:

http://www.meetup.com/Web-Performance-Boston/events/52427902/

Boston Post Mortem - Audio for Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure – Boston AES

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:01:50 +0000

When:

Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - 19:00

Location:

The Skellig, Waltham

Organization:

Boston Post Mortem

Summary:

This month’s Boston Post Mortem is Wednesday, March 21st at 7pm at The Skellig in Waltham.

Our Boston Post Mortem for March is a special joint meeting between us and the Boston Audio Engineering Society. Boston AES is the local chapter of the only professional society devoted exclusively to audio technology, and since we partnered with them a few years ago we’ve been looking forward to doing so again. This meeting functions as both their monthly meeting and ours!

As such, our talk this month will be an audio focused one:

Making the game “Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure” was a really wild ride. A skeleton crew, developing a AAA IP without any support from the behemoth EA Tiburon, a sports games studio that green lighted it against incredible odds. The resulting Audio for this game generated incredibly positive feedback from the reviewer and fan community and was an exercise in unorthodox thinking and a bit of a truly unique experience which Gene Rozenberg would like to share nearly three years later.

Speaker bio: Gene M. Rozenberg is a professional composer and audio designer with over 15 years of industry experience. He enjoys all aspects of audio design and music composition for the game industry and is currently employed by 38 Studios, LLC. as a Senior Composer/Audio Designer.

Logistics:
Wednesday, March 21st 7pm @ The Skellig, Waltham

Website:

http://www.bostonpostmortem.org

House Passes “On Ramp” Bill to Ease IPO Process for Growing Startups

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 17:52:46 +0000

Article Source:

http://bostinno.com/2012/03/08/house-passes-on-ramp-bill-to-ease-ipo-process-for...

Teaser:

Startups seem to be one of the rare subjects for which there is still bipartisanship support in Congress. Just like crowdfunding, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives with support from both parties in November, the House today passed the “on ramp IPO” bill, legislation designed to ease startups’ path...

Angels Favored Healthcare & Internet, With Bigger Rounds in 2011

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 17:43:01 +0000

Article Source:

http://www.xconomy.com/national/2012/03/08/angels-favored-healthcare-internet-wi...

Teaser:

Each time new private investing data comes out, it seems like it’s another chance for California to show its dominance. That’s the case with the Halo Report, but this particular report also reveals some interesting trends in angel investing. Put together by the Angel Resource Institute, Silicon Valley Bank...

Ping4 raises $1.1M in funding

Keith Cline — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:09:36 +0000

Date:

03/09/2012 (All day)

Teaser:

As per SEC filings, Ping4 in Hollis, NH has raised $1.1M in funding. Ping4 is a new mobile messaging platform that pushes real-time alerts and rich content to your smartphone based on your location, preferences, or proximity to your favorite stores.

Source URL:

http://1.usa.gov/wTE2Vv

Company Website:

http://ping4.com

Logo:

Marketing Communications Specialist

ksmith0391 — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:26:52 +0000

Company Name:

VFA, Inc.

Job Description:

POSITION SUMMARY:

The Marketing Communications Specialist is a junior/mid-level individual contributor / professional that works under minimal supervision to coordinate and execute numerous marketing events such as trade shows, webinars and customer events. The incumbent coordinates public relations (“PR”) activities and manages the company’s speaking opportunities calendar. They oversee the company’s collateral system and contribute to the development of new collateral. They manage the company's social media presence. The Marketing Communications Specialist may also be assigned additional project work or responsibilities on a periodic basis.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:

Manage all VFA events in a busy annual schedule, including numerous trade shows, seminars, webinars, and customer events, with attention to detail in all aspects of event production
Coordinate the activities of corporate PR program and external PR services, including coordinating the press release pipeline and the approval process, drafting press releases and byline articles
Manage the speaking opportunities calendar, including drafting abstracts, meeting submission deadlines, and assisting speakers with presentation development.
Manage collateral system as well as the development of new collateral, including writing case studies, editing white papers, and laying out the final design
Manage the company's social media presence, including developing content and gathering metrics.
Operate under minimal guidance and supervision from the Director of Marketing Communications with extensive creativity and latitude for independent actions

QUALIFICATIONS

BA/BS Degree in Communications or Marketing is preferred plus 3-5 years of event marketing and public relations experience
Strong communications skills with specific emphasis on writing and editorial abilities
Strong organizational skills, and a demonstrated ability to work within and exceed in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment is required.
Expert in the use of MS Office, particularly PowerPoint, and in Adobe InDesign and PhotoShop.
Experience with other applications or software products such as collateral management systems and marketing automation systems. Experience with Salesforce.com or similar CRM application is a plus.
Experience with social media is a plus.
Demonstrated experience working directly with customers (both internal and external)
Ability to work independently to resolve issues and keep track of multiple projects in process are essential

Logo:

Application Email:

resumes@vfa.com

Location:

Boston, MA (Summer Street)