Black Founders Blog

Spring is in the air, and so are conferences! This week the good people from Berkeley based Social Apps Lab at CITRUS present “Swinging and Flowing: Inclusion and Diversity in the Age of Big Data”.

Social Apps Lab, a UC Berkeley organization dedicated to exploration of urban issues through mobile media technology, is an interdisciplinary initiative supported by CITRIS (Center for Informational Technology Research in the Interest of Society), the Division of Social Sciences, and the Division of Arts and Humanities. The conference aims to ignite further awareness on the need for consumers of increasingly advanced social technology to shed passive participation. Engage!

Swinging and Flowing: Inclusion & Diversity in the Age of Big Data
Thursday April 26, 2012
9am-7pm
UC Berkeley Sutardja Dai Hall, Banato Auditorium
Register online or visit Social Apps Lab for more information

Tagged Developer Workshop at Tagged HQ

Black Founders has partnered with Tagged HQ to present a workshop series in San Francisco. Tagged, a social discovery network that fosters new connections as well as old, holds workshops on Thursdays on an array of topics focused on tech development. This week’s presentation focused on the Python coding language, discussed by Christopher Selma.

The goal of the workshop was “to make people aware that Python exists, that it’s convenient, and that it can get a lot done in a small amount of coding,” said Selma of the event.

Emily Baumgarten, Tagged Marketing Strategist, reports that Black Founders is the first outside partnership invited to the initially internal workshops. Though some weeks may remain private, most workshops will be open and welcome to the public.

The next upcoming workshop will be held on Thursday, April 5 2012 and will discuss Google Closure.

For more information on these workshops, visit http://blog.tagged.com/Workshops/Developer/grid

Black Founders Conference - Ideas are Worthless - NYC 2012

New York City, NY — On April 11, 2012, Black Founders will host the Ideas are Worthless Conference — an event to inspire, educate, and connect the burgeoning startup culture in New York City and address the digital gap in tech and the black community.

Black Founders, an organization based in San Francisco, aims to increase diversity in tech by creating visibility through networking and educational programs.

The Ideas Are Worthless conference is a forum to connect, educate, and inspire every attendee towards execution. Hosted by Black Founders and sponsored by Goodwin Procter LLP, the conference will bring together diverse perspectives on tech entrepreneurship while providing a platform for emerging companies, entrepreneurs, and investors to connect and take action.

The program panelists includes investors, CEOs, entrepreneurs, and engineers who will be sharing insights into startup fundraising, investment strategies, operations, new startup trends, and finding technical talent.

They keynote speech for the conference will be provided by Bob Dorf, co-author of the book “The Startup Owner’s Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company.” Bob Dorf is a serial entrepreneur and prolific author who has founded 6 companies, invested in 20+, and advised dozens more since receiving his last W-2 at the age of 22.

Other speakers and panel guests include Frank Denbow, lead organizer of Startup Weekend NYC events and curator of Startup Digest NYC; David Rose, serial entrepreneur and founder of the Gust software; and Hank Williams, Founder and CEO of Kloudco and former CEO of ClickRadio, one of the Internet’s first interactive radio services.

The conference will also include a Startup Clinic, allowing entrepreneurs to meet one-on-one with investors and established entrepreneurs to receive feedback on their startup and pitch. Sign-ups for the Startup Clinic will be held on the day on the event at registration.

Ideas are Worthless Event Details:
Wednesday April 11, 2012
Goodwin Procter LLP
620 8th Avenue, #27
New York, NY 10018
1:00pm-7:00pm

Registration is required. Full conference information is available at http://www.blackfoundersconference.com

When:

Thursday, April 21, 2011
6:00 PM

Where:

Molly Magee’s
241 Castro Street
Mountain View, CA

Join us for our event in Mountain View! Come and meet other founders and startup professionals. Bring your friends and colleagues, lets talk about our projects, and share knowledge about the startup community. Look forward to seeing you there!

More info:

http://www.meetup.com/BlackFounders/events/17236863/

Customer Development: The Second Decade with Bob Dorf – a close look at the "Four Steps to the Epiphany" and the Customer Development Process for Startups.

Thursday, April 28th, 2011 @ The Podio Store
224 6th St, San Francisco, CA
5:30p Reception
6:00p Presentation by Bob Dorf

RSVP below (powered by Podio.com)

The customer development process detailed in Steve Blank’s best-selling book, Four Steps to Epiphany is still a guiding light for the tech startup industry as it approaches its 10th birthday.

Customer Development: The Second Decade is in development, written by Steve Blank and his partner and co-author Bob Dorf, a known CRM strategist and serial entrepreneur and investor. This event, with guest Bob Dorf, will provide a look at what’s changed in Customer Development since the movement began a decade ago, and some of the many new rules and advancements that Steve, Bob and the ecosystem of thousands of entrepreneur, marketer and investor practitioners have developed over the past several years.

About Bob

The March 1999 Fortune magazine raved about The One to One Fieldbook,which Bob Dorf co-authored, saying, “if your company is launching a customer-focused strategy…it sets the agenda.” Bob has advised more than a score startups on customer development, including Steve Blank’s startup, Epiphany, as well as Broadvision, and Markettools, among others. Entrepreneurial from the age of 12, he personally founded six substantial startups, including – as he puts it – "two homeruns, two base hits, and two solid tax losses." Dorf+Stanton Communications, founded at age 22 in his living room, grew from a staff of two – Bob and a St. Bernard – to more than 150 before he sold it and retired (for about 3 months) at 40. An inveterate entrepreneur, his retirement is now planned for "the day before they put me in the box.

This event is organized by Black Founders, an organization dedicated to promoting diversity and inclusion in the startup community. This event is free and open to all.