Allyson Sutton

The third annual NC DataPalooza Demo Day is next Monday at the Red Hat Annex, and it promises to be the biggest finale to date in this event series. 15 teams developed open-data startup concepts since forming at either the May kickoff or DataPalooza’s partner event, CityCamp NC, and three of those teams will compete for a $5,000 cash prize and a $500 bonus from mapping software company ESRI in just a few days.    The three finalists, chosen by a team of judges during a private pitch event in August, include Open511, an app that sends automated road closure data to services like Google...

This transparency, and the commitments many organizations have made to increase diversity, is a step in the right direction. And while it will be a long-term process, we’re aiming to use the Innovate Raleigh Summit as a platform to continue the conversation and build upon the work that groups like e51, SOAR, Triangle Startup Weekend: Trailblazers and others have started locally.    For two, it’s about community. As we work towards our mission of making Raleigh a top-five center for innovation, we’re constantly reflecting on the elements required for a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem: open community culture, education, resources, capital, and corporate engagement. These elements...

With NC DataPalooza coming up this weekend, I wanted to catch up with last year’s winners to hear their take on the event and find out how things have progressed since September.  Carter Vickery, senior GIS analyst with Wake County GIS, and Aaron Terry, business relationship manager at Blue Cross Blue Shield NC, teamed up (along with others pictured above) at the kickoff event in May 2014, and worked through the summer developing a solution called Stone Soup.   ———————————— Me (Allyson Sutton): You two, like most participants at NC DataPalooza, Startup Weekends, and other competitions in the area, have full-time jobs—so why did you decide...

With NC DataPalooza coming up this weekend, I wanted to catch up with last year’s winners to hear their take on the event and find out how things have progressed since September.  Carter Vickery, senior GIS analyst with Wake County GIS, and Aaron Terry, business relationship manager at Blue Cross Blue Shield NC, teamed up (along with others pictured above) at the kickoff event in May 2014, and worked through the summer developing a solution called Stone Soup.   ———————————— Me (Allyson Sutton): You two, like most participants at NC DataPalooza, Startup Weekends, and other competitions in the area, have full-time jobs—so why did you decide...

By mid-week, most people in the Triangle’s startup scene have probably already forgotten what they did on Sunday. But I haven’t.    I’m still excited about the four hours I spent judging BattleHack, a free 24-hour hackathon sponsored by PayPal and Braintree.dev this past Sunday.   Braintree is an online payment platform for startups, acquired by PayPal for $800 million in 2013. Braintree.dev is focused on developer relations, and BattleHack is an effort to bring together communities of developers and get them coding solutions that integrate PayPal, Venmo or technology from other partners.    Corporate ties aside, what they’re doing is...

By mid-week, most people in the Triangle’s startup scene have probably already forgotten what they did on Sunday. But I haven’t.    I’m still excited about the four hours I spent judging BattleHack, a free 24-hour hackathon sponsored by PayPal and Braintree.dev this past Sunday.   Braintree is an online payment platform for startups, acquired by PayPal for $800 million in 2013. Braintree.dev is focused on developer relations, and BattleHack is an effort to bring together communities of developers and get them coding solutions that integrate PayPal, Venmo or technology from other partners.    Corporate ties aside, what they’re doing is...

The Triangle isn’t want for startup pitch events and competitions.  Casual pitch opportunities like 1 Million Cups and Triangle TechBreakfast happen regularly, and local entrepreneurs have a chance to receive funding through competitive programs like The Startup Factory and the Citrix-Red Hat Accelerator. Our local universities are also home to their own entrepreneurial competitions—the Carolina Challenge, the NCSU Lulu eGames, and the Duke Start-Up Challenge provide student ventures a means for exposure, feedback, and funding.    Those competitions are great. I judged the Carolina Challenge last year and was blown away by the world-changing ideas presented in the social...

I’ve seen Innovate Raleigh evolve since I started working at HQ Raleigh in late 2012 and, as my role with the organization has grown from participant to Task Force chair, I’ve had a lot of questions.  What problems are we trying to solve and where are we headed? Is Innovate Raleigh building a movement or has it already accomplished what it first set out to do a few years ago? Do people know what we’re doing? Do people still care?    These are the questions that keep me up at night. Maybe I need a hobby.    But my hope is that,...