Innovation Works needs your help in maintaining funding for promising technology companies. A current bill in the state Senate would cut funding 60% for the Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority, the body that funds Innovation Works and its counterpart centers across the state (known collectively as the Ben Franklin Technology Partners or BFTP).
So, what can you do? We are asking all our readers to do the following before June 8, 2009:
2. Activate your own network of contacts who care about maintaining funding for start-up entrepreneurs. Send the URL (http://tinyurl.com/my4nu4) to others to write a letter, use Facebook or Twitter to create awareness about the need to reach legislators, post blog comments, whatever you can do to reach more people who can subsequently reach out to their legislators.
3. Give us your ideas and feedback about how to reach more people to communicate about this critical issue.
“We recognize it’s a difficult environment for the Legislature, but the 60 percent cut proposed… will have far-reaching effects. To really help drive the economy, in many ways we need (sustained funding levels) now more than ever (for) creating jobs, attracting investment and retaining key talent to our region for our future success.” – Rich Lunak, CEO of Innovation Works.
This isn’t about funding Innovation Works. It’s about funding entrepreneurs and growing technology companies. Please help us continue to support and assist our region’s promising start-ups and other innovative companies.
For the fourth part of our ongoing AlphaLabinterviewseries, we are pleased to present three interviews with the team behind the recently launched iTwixie.
iTwixie is developing the ultimate online hangout for ‘tween’ girls. Today’s parents, educators and caregivers worry about how marketers approach their 8-14 year-old girls. iTwixie will inspire and unite ‘tween girls on a site that’s safe, age-appropriate and fun.
In this first team interview, Jia talks with iTwixie developer, Cynthia Closkey about how they developed their social network, why it’s like delicious and nutritious cereal, and the support AlphaLab provided them. Stay tuned more iTwixie interviews soon!
For the third part of our ongoing AlphaLabinterviewseries, we present a long free-form interview with the founders of InnomiNet about their recently launched BitBlinder network.
Marketers, corporations, criminals, and governments all monitor your online activities. Some even use filters to completely block your access to information. BitBlinder is software that gives you back your online freedom. BitBlinder aims to preserve your privacy and keep your IP address safe from them. It also allows you to avoid most restrictions and filters on you Internet access. BitBlinder supports both BitTorrent and normal web traffic. Go download it for free right now at bitblinder.com!
“Technologies ranging from electronics, controls and software to wireless capabilities and digital mapping could ultimately change how people drive and use their vehicles,” said Larry Burns, GM vice president of R&D and Strategic Planning. “The work we’re doing with Carnegie Mellon could ultimately make this a reality.”
Bueda optimizes online ad placement in rich media and user-generated content via its innovative semantic matching engine. Leveraging research from Carnegie Mellon University’s Language Technologies Institute, Bueda combines user-generated tags, existing ontologies, and semantic analysis in order to match ads with the most relevant multi-media content: Images, Video, Text and other web-accessible content.
In this wide-ranging interview, Jia talks with Vasco about the future of online searching, crowdsourcing through games, the meaning of the Portuguese word bueda, and of course, ontologies! For fun, see if you can count the number of times the word ontology is used during this interview.
