The 2018 Silicon Bayou 100 is the annual list of the 100 most influential and active people in tech and entrepreneurship in Louisiana over the last year. The list is compiled by the community through an anonymous nomination process.
Over the next week we will be sharing the bios of each of the 100 in alphabetical order. View the full Silicon Bayou 100 here and meet group 8 below.
Matthew Findley
inXile Entertainment president Matthew first made the Silicon Bayou 100 in 2017 for his role in the New Orleans tech scene. The video game student first announced towards the end of 2015 it would be opening an office in the Big Easy. The company specializes in the development of interactive entertainment software for all popular game systems. On LinkedIn.
Maya Ramos
Maya is the Assistant Director at Electric Girls who is working to improve science, math, engineering, and math education for girls in the Greater New Orleans area. She is currently teaching customized Arduino projects and programming to girls ages 9-14 every Saturday morning, and spends a majority of her free time researching the projects and how to improve them. On LinkedIn.
Michael Hecht
After working with small businesses in New York City and directing business recovery services for Louisiana Economic Development, Michael Hecht has made his mark locally by running the steamship Greater New Orleans, Inc. GNO, Inc. is a regional economic development alliance serving the 10-parish region of Southeast Louisiana and has been integral in bringing attention the digital media scene in New Orleans. On LinkedIn. On Twitter.
Mike Eckert
Mike was a member of the launch team of The Weather Channel and served as its President and CEO for 14 years. Mike is now involved in the New Orleans startup community. He was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence for The Idea Village beginning in summer 2013, and is currently the vice chairman of the board of directors of Angel Capital Association, and the chairman of the NO/LA Angel Network. On LinkedIn.
Molly Hegarty
Molly is the founder and CEO of RDnote, a platform that provides clinical decision support to capture nutrition- related diagnoses. She is a licensed nutritionist and passionate about combining nutrition and technology. In 2017, the company launched a clinical data product that later showed a 213% increase in the documentation, correlating to a $1.6 million impact on the hospital in Louisiana. On LinkedIn.
Natalie Noel
Natalie is a Louisiana native with an MBA from LSU’s executive program. The year after graduation, she founded Tech Advocate Group in Baton Rouge, a digital marketing, sales, CRM, and web design company. Their focus is on the current climate of technology, and the way businesses can use it. On LinkedIn.
Neel Sus
Neel Sus is the founder and CEO of Susco Solutions, a local tech firm that exists to help people lead more fulfilling lives by creating intuitive software for high-growth, people-centric businesses and organizations. He was a founding member of local tech meetup net2no, a charter member of the GNO Inc. NextGen Council and a past president of the American Association of Indian Professionals. Neel has won multiple awards since Susco’s inception, including Innovator of the Year at New Orleans CityBusiness and Gambit’s 40 Under 40.
Patrick Comer
Patrick is the CEO of Lucid (formerly Federated Sample), a market research technology firm based in New Orleans that focuses on bringing efficiency and automation to online sampling via their primary product, Fulcrum. After starting out as one man at a desk in Launch Pad, the company now has another office in London a rapidly growing staff. On LinkedIn. On Twitter.
Peggy Babin
Peggy is the Managing Director of Valmiki Capital Management, which runs the subsidiary Valmiki 504 in New Orleans. The office focuses on Venture Capital and Private Equity investments into local Gulf Coast companies as well as offering opportunities for local investors to the global Valmiki investment portfolios. Prior to Valmiki, Peggy was an associate dean at the A. B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University for 17 years. On LinkedIn.
Pete Prados
Pete is currently the COO of a novel medical device company called Prep Tech, a NOBIC client recently chosen as one of the top four finalists at Innovation Louisiana 2018. As Director of INNOV8 Acadiana, Pete co-founded Acadiana Angels, an active investment group located in Lafayette, LA where he resides. Connect on LinkedIn.