The Louisiana StartupBus has completed its inaugural journey and was a huge success said Terry Jones, Managing Director of RIO, the Regional Innovation Organization, and also the Conductor of the bus. One of its teams, Scoringo – Stuart Adams, Natalie Noel, Jarvis Brown, Jeff Pellegrin, Andrew Bursavich and Tommy Talley, was one of just eight teams to make the finals from the roughly 60 teams vying for a spot. The team’s startup idea was for a skill based, interactive gaming platform that will initially be focused on sporing events. It allows users to compete directly against the game and their friends. Scoringo team leader Stuart Adams said “Representing Louisiana’s talent in the StartupBus finals at SXSW was an honor… We intend to fully pursue the idea as a team and are sure to use some of the knowledge and connections we attained during the StartupBus competition.”
StartupBus Louisiana was made possible through the generosity of many organizations including Louisiana State University and The Cook Hotel, the Louisiana Technology Park, the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, Lamar Advertising, Raising Cane’s, Opportunity Machine, Hotel Indigo, the Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, Greater New Orleans, Inc., Idea Village, Kean Miller, the Varsity Theater, Cohabitat, Launch Pad, and StackMob. The Louisiana StartupBus was also sponsored and organized by the Regional Innovation Organization (RIO).
Several additional highlights of the week included the 6 east coast StartupBuses pulling into Baton Rouge for a meetup and overnight stay and a stop in San Antonio at RackSpace where the buspreneurs got to practice pitch to some of the top names in the startup world. “It was a tremendous opportunity for our entrepreneurs to challenge themselves in a way they’d never experienced before, meet other very talented entrepreneurs from around the country and form new relationships that will last for many years. These buspreneurs are now part of a 500-member strong network that reaches across the country,” Jones says.
The Buspreneurs on board were: Alyson Kilday, Andrew Bursavich, Ben Jacobson, Benjamin Reece, Bryan Arturo, Curtis Heroman, Corey Smith, Crawford Comeaux, Collin Wallace, Evan Smith, Glenn Penton, Jarvis Brown, Joe Ellis, Jeff Pellegrin, Jonathan Ferrante, Logan Leger, Lou Kosak, Markus Steck, Maxwell Gaudin, Misha Leybovich, Natalie Gillis, Natalie Noel, Nick Jones, Priya Jhingan, Rip Rittell, Stuart Adams, and Tommy Talley.