Portland startups, open source, and tech news, jobs, and events #pdx
It’s been a good week for the Startup PDX Challenge, a program launched by the Portland Development Commission to help incubate and accelerate early stage companies in town—an effort which has been further refined with them focusing on diverse founding teams. Portland Mayor Charlie Hales’ budget has some money earmarked to enhance the PDC’s efforts. And they have an alum who just launched a beta, NoAppFee.com. Read More
Portland’s tech startup industry is often closely intertwined with a number of other startups in town. Food carts. Coffeeshops. Bike shops. Restaurants. And of course, brewpubs. But the next time you’re looking for somewhere to host your tech meetup, you might want to consider The Oregon Public House. Read More
We’ve all been there. You just need a few minutes of wifi and coffee before your next meeting. Or you’re looking for somewhere to hunker down for a while so you can focus. But you walk into your favorite spot and it’s completely slammed. Line out the door. Nowhere to sit. Don’t we have technology for this? Read More
Portland is no stranger to a hackathons. Hack this. Hack that. Hack the other thing. Portland does it. From cranking code to soldering boards to rethinking civic data. Hacking is part of our collaborative and collegial nature as a community. And it’s a way that we explore technology with others. But usually not with a ton of other folks. Read More
We can always use more voices talking about tech, making it more approachable, and helping folks feel welcome and involved. And when those publications are startups in their own right? All the better. That’s why I’m happy to see local community builder and developer Audrey Eschright taking to Indiegogo to underwrite the development of a new tech publication called The Recompiler. Read More
When looking at the world of apps, many folks would think that the last thing the world needs is another photosharing app. But those folks might be wrong. Take a look at PIE alum Fleck, who is well on its way to proving that there are very real opportunities—by taking on the crowded photosharing app market with a product that focuses on the quality of content. Read More
As we become more and more dependent on technology, we have become increasingly worried about single points of failure. That issue where one particular component of your technology stack can hiccup and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. So we have redundancy. And fail over. And load balancing. But there remains one incredibly critical single point for most everyone: our Internet connections. Read More
It’s an interesting time in education. Models are changing. New ways of learning are being developed. And technology is impacting the learning environment as never before. So if you had the opportunity to start from scratch with a new building designed to educate high school girls—and it was smack dab in the core of Portland—what would you do? That’s the very question St. Mary’s Academy is asking. And you’re invited to join in the conversation. Read More
While there are any number of things that make scaling a startup difficult, finding executive talent that can help transition the company through changes can be one of the most challenging. And it’s often something for which Portland gets dinged—that lack of seasoned executive talent. That’s why it’s nice to see Portland’s Vadio securing some impressive leadership and some more funding. Read More
If you haven’t had the chance to hear Saul Colt speak, you’re missing out. I honestly can’t say enough nice things about the guy. And his incredibly creative way of viewing the world enables him to create really interesting ways of engaging with communities—on a shoestring. Which makes his special brand of thinking perfect for startups. Read More