Shannon Cuthrell

Durham’s Neuro+ Gets First-of-its-Kind Game for ADHD Treatment to Market

Posted by Shannon Cuthrell | Nov 17, 2015

Back when I first profiled Neuro+ for ExitEvent in July, I remember thinking it was incredibly refreshing to see a startup treating kids with ADHD in such a nuanced way—through gaming, so kids can train their attention by piloting their own dragons. And since September, the venture-backed Windows and Mac desktop application has been available to the public for $499 per year, a price including the neuroheadset which measures performance in the dragon-themed game by recording brain waves. The young startup’s team has a lot to celebrate. About 100 families are already using the product and mobile versions of the desktop...

Three student-lab ventures make pitches at UNC’s Reese News Lab

Posted by Shannon Cuthrell | Aug 11, 2015

A group of UNC Chapel Hill students passed up typical summer jobs in recent months to labor in the basement of the UNC’s journalism school developing entrepreneurial ideas to improve the North Carolina court system, digitize classroom debates and help Realtors sell more homes. They’re part of the three-year-old Reese News Lab, a School of Media and Journalism initiative to develop new business models for the modern media world. Only students “who are willing to run through walls, stand up and take another run when they get knocked down” are accepted into the program, says the lab’s executive director,John Clark. They are paid...

Courts, Realtors & Teachers Get a Boost With UNC Reese News Lab Startup Ideas

Posted by Shannon Cuthrell | Aug 7, 2015

A group of UNC Chapel Hill students passed up typical summer jobs in recent months to labor in the basement of the UNC’s journalism school developing entrepreneurial ideas to improve the North Carolina court system, digitize classroom debates and help Realtors sell more homes. They’re part of the three-year-old Reese News Lab, a School of Media and Journalism initiative to develop new business models for the modern media world. Only students “who are willing to run through walls, stand up and take another run when they get knocked down” are accepted into the program, says the lab’s executive director, John Clark. They are paid a stipend for...

UNC Grads’ Journo-Startup Takes Road Trip to Tell Untold Stories of Women

Posted by Shannon Cuthrell | Aug 6, 2015

Two things became apparent to a group of female UNC-Chapel Hill seniors before graduating—that they loved their work in UNC’s School of Media and Journalism and yet, there seemed to be an information gap in the media. Throughout their studies, there hadn’t been many females in the media who they really connected with, and traditional media certainly wasn’t covering stories that women of a variety of ages, races and socio-economic groups would want to read or hear about. So when it came time to find jobs in the field, they decided to create their own—they wanted to be sure they weren’t the...

Next Talent Pipeline Effort for Smashing Boxes Is Developer Apprenticeships

Posted by Shannon Cuthrell | Jul 29, 2015

The “quality over quantity” mantra is extending to hiring, as companies long for the best new employees. Experience is beginning to be measured more than time in a career, and hiring teams are moving away from judging candidates based on resumes. A Durham-based creative technology agency, bootstrapped out of American Underground in 2010, embraces this change and believes in hiring people rather than resumes. That strategy has helped Smashing Boxes grow to 52 software developers, designers, product directors, project managers and marketers. It also prompted the agency to bring Durham’s first code school, The Iron Yard, to town last year and why its workers spend significant time...

How InnovateNC Will Bring City Startup Resources to North Carolina’s Smaller Towns

Posted by Shannon Cuthrell | Jul 23, 2015

Almost two-thirds of North Carolina’s high-tech jobs are located in Wake, Durham and Mecklenburg counties. That means a lot of NC communities are left out of the state’s existing innovation economy—many of those have lost manufacturing jobs and would like a chance at a new start. To expand the innovative activity in new places around the state, The Institute for Emerging Issues (IEI) at NC State University launches a new program this fall—InnovateNC. It’s designed to do just what the name implies. Over the years, the non-partisan public policy organization has worked to integrate with the state’s entrepreneurial world, recognizing entrepreneurship is an...

ThinkHouse expands with Durham, Greensboro houses and 10 Raleigh Startup fellows

Posted by Shannon Cuthrell | Jul 21, 2015

What happens when you put 10 entrepreneurs together in a house located in the heart of Downtown Raleigh for nine months? Innovation. Company building. Learning. Collaboration. Fun. At least that’s what HQ Raleigh co-founders, Christopher Gergen, Jason Widen, Brooks Bell and Jesse Lipson hoped for when they created the ThinkHouse program back in 2013 with the mission to “surround young entrepreneurs with the tools, resources and community they need in order to help them scale their business venture,” says HQ Raleigh Director of Community Development Liz Tracy. Tracy says that she and the ThinkHouse leaders have learned a lot through the past two years of the program....

New Groundwork Labs After Hours Program Accommodates 'Nights & Weekends' Entrepreneurs

Posted by Shannon Cuthrell | Jul 20, 2015

Groundwork Labs Executive Director John Austin hates to leave people out, especially if their startup ideas are good ones. So the free Durham accelerator is offering local innovators something new this fall—flexibility. Groundwork Labs After Hours is a new program aimed toward entrepreneurs who are unable to commit to the full-time, three-month Groundwork Labs program. It happens in the evenings over a five-week period. The application deadline is this Sunday, July 26. Since 2012, the NC IDEA-funded program has built a reputation for helping entrepreneurs test their ideas and providing expert guidance before they journey into the market. More than 85 companies have been...

New Groundwork Labs After Hours Program Accommodates ‘Nights & Weekends’ Entrepreneurs

Posted by Shannon Cuthrell | Jul 20, 2015

Groundwork Labs Executive Director John Austin hates to leave people out, especially if their startup ideas are good ones. So the free Durham accelerator is offering local innovators something new this fall—flexibility. Groundwork Labs After Hours is a new program aimed toward entrepreneurs who are unable to commit to the full-time, three-month Groundwork Labs program. It happens in the evenings over a five-week period. The application deadline is this Sunday, July 26. Since 2012, the NC IDEA-funded program has built a reputation for helping entrepreneurs test their ideas and providing expert guidance before they journey into the market. More than 85 companies have been...

Posts by Shannon Cuthrell