After weeks of organizing, emailing, and hoping that the first NOLA Meetup would go off without a hitch, it did. Last night, around 100 members of the meetup showed to listen to the two keynote speakers: Jeff Silverman of Laconia Ventures and Mike de Boer of General Electric. The crowd was buzzing, the speakers were short enough to fully enjoy their words, and the Miller Lite draft beer was flowing. Silicon Bayou News and the NOLA Meetup organizers would like to think everyone that came out last night. If you couldn’t make it, we hope to see you next month!
In his speech, Jeff Silverman mentioned that he would love to come down to New Orleans (he lives in New York) and invest in companies down here. Catch up with him in a Q&A post Ariana Heintzen did yesterday.
Mike de Boer addresses the crowd at NOLA Meetup.
de Boer also had a lot to say about the New Orleans tech community. We can officially welcome the GE Capital Technology Center to the city. In the coming years, there will be 300 new jobs brought to the city. Currently there are 40 job openings here already and by 2015 GE will invest about $40M into this city.
The event even had a live tweet board posted following the hashtag #NOLAmeetup. Here are a few of the comments throughout last night and this morning:
If you have any more thoughts, questions, or concerns, leave your comments below or tweet to @NOLAmeetup. We hope to see everyone at the next meetup on October 16th at the same location and time. For more information visit meetup.com/NOLAmeetup.