The Silicon Bayou has been buzzing with tech and entrepreneurial news. Here are the most popular stories published on Silicon Bayou News in the past seven days:
Tulane Startups Win Top Prizes at 14th Annual Business Model Competition
The culmination of the now regional Tulane Business Model Competition hosted finalists InVision Biomedical, Tympanogen and Million Dollar Scholar, all vying for the grand prize of $25,000 and an opportunity to enter the International Business Model Competition as a semi finalist. Second place at the Tulane Business Model Competition, along with a check for $10,000, was awarded to InVision Biomedical. The team of engineers and physicians at Tympanogen took home the grand prize of $25,000 and entrance into the International Business Model Competition as a semi finalist, which is headquartered at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. For more information, click here.
Hackathon to Tackle Open Source Projects Raises Excitement in New Orleans Technology Community
The New Orleans Open Source Hackathon (Open Source NOLA), as with all hackathons, is calling for developers, designers, technical writers, even open source fans for the event scheduled May 9th through 10th, 2014 at Launch Pad, information that Open Source NOLA founder Bryan Joseph was excited to recently announce. Although the event will be taking place in New Orleans, Joseph hopes to get the local community as well as the hackathon regulars in Baton Rouge and Lafayette to participate. He expects the majority of participants to be developers and designers but would love to see writers as well. “A lot of open source projects need documentation either created or edited and proofread,” explains Joseph. “There is so much more to do in open source besides programming that I’m hoping to get as many people involved as possible.”
VC-Backed Specialty Coffee Brand Revelator Plans to Invest in Southeast, Opening NOLA Shop This Spring
New Orleans will soon be home to a brand new specialty coffee shop Revelator Coffee. Founder Josh Owen recognizes that the cost of living down here is really attractive to transplants who are used to the readily available speciality coffee in other regions in the United States such as the west coast and Northeast. “Our target customer is people moving from outside the city,” he explained. The cost of operating a business is also appealing. The shop will be opening its doors either in May or June of this year at 637 Tchoupitoulas Street in the Warehouse District.
NolaCon Joins New Orleans Information Security Conference Circuit
A new Information Security and hacker conference, NolaCon, has been announced, adding to the popular conference circuit in New Orleans. The event expects to gather hundreds of Information Security professionals and enthusiasts from around the globe in one place. The conference, scheduled for June 19th – 22nd, 2014, will include sessions and workshops to discuss some of the most pressing security issues and other related news.
The Craft Beer Revolution: Why Top Brewers Have More in Common Than Just Beer
As part of The Brooklyn Brewery Mash, the country’s largest traveling food and arts festival, the brewery’s co-founder Steve Hindy will visit 11 cities in addition to stopping by the city that is fully embracing the craft brewing movement, New Orleans. Alongside Kirk Coco, CEO of New Orleans Lager and Ale Brewing Co., and David Blossman, President of Abita Brewing Company, he shared many of the circumstances and ambitions that allowed the craft brewing revolution to take off, all of which make for an interesting and entrepreneurial tale.
Get Excited: BSides NOLA is Back in Town Next Month!
Vico Marziale’s latest guest post was written to get the word out about the rapidly approaching 2nd Annual BSidesNOLA conference. BSidesNOLA is a local one day conference focused on computer security and digital forensics. It is structured so that the morning will start with a keynote and the day will then split into three tracks. Each of the talks in the tracks will be 60 minutes and cover topics such as malware analysis, network breach detection and response, security assessments of web applications, and higher level topics such as running incident response and offensive security teams. This year’s conference will take place on Saturday, May 17th from 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM at the Hilton Garden Inn.
French Quarter Fest Main Stage Highlights New Orleans Growing Technology Sector
The annual French Quarter Festival attracted more than 700,000 attendees for a record-breaking year. The celebration of food, music and people culminates each spring with a weekend-long extravaganza. Attendance peaked on Saturday with a single-day record of 303,000, which is due in part to the weather along with the hundreds of organizations who support the festival. For the first time, a coalition of Greater New Orleans technology companies sponsored the new ‘Big River Stage’ at the festival, one of twenty other stages. The coalition was launched in February 2014 to build awareness of this rapidly growing industry and its workforce opportunities available now in the region.
Shreveport to Host ‘Most Amazing Entrepreneurial Competition on the Planet’
From the makers of the Louisiana Film Prize comes the first Louisiana Startup Prize, a project that will combine entrepreneurial education with the intensity of a competition. Gregory Kallenberg has teamed with John Grindley from Cohab Shreveport to announce the competition that will help develop better entrepreneurs, connect them with investors and help create an entrepreneurial culture in northwest Louisiana. The Startup Prize finale will take place September 18th through 20th where participating startups will present to the board of directors. The board will have an opportunity to invest in the final projects.
CPXi, a Digital Ad Company with Offices in New Orleans, Raises $30 Million
Global digital media holding company CPXi announced that it has closed a $30 million funding round, said to be a mix of debt and equity, from the Business Development Corporation of America. Prior to the recent news, CPXi had raised no outside capital since launching in 2000. Back in June 2013, CPXi announced it would open an office in New Orleans that will be primarily a media buying office, including online advertisements, social search, and display. The company experienced significant year over year growth with increasing revenue. 2013 reports show $123 million in revenue, which includes a Q4 acquisition, up from $75 million in 2012.