Dave Mattingly 10:35 am on October 13, 2015

Startup Weekend

Louisville’s seventh Startup Weekend was October 9-11, 2015. The event gives participants the chance to pitch ideas to each other, form teams, research their topic, speak with customers, create a thing (a gadget, an app, a website, a process, etc.), and present their findings before a panel of judges. Eight teams made it to the Sunday evening judging rounds.

This was the first time that the first, second, and third-place teams were all led by women.

Third place went to artiFACTS, led by artist/photographer/designer/coder Lea Ingold. The artiFACTS phone app will make it faster and easier to ship artwork or other valuables that need their conditions to be photographed and documented vigorously along the way.

Second place went to Bodyguard, led by Berea College student Raunak Thakur. Bodyguard is a phone app that will silently alert campus police and up to five friends in case of danger. It can optionally sound an alert and flash the camera light.

First place went to Foodinary, led by high school student Abigail Griggs.

I’ll say that again — led by high school student Abigail Griggs.

Foodinary is a phone app that will explain the ingredients on food labels in plain language, including how it is likely to affect our bodies. Each user could set up a list of food allergies, dietary restrictions, religious prohibitions, and other “food no-nos” to get alerted before eating something they shouldn’t.

Future enhancements to Foodinary could include logging nutrition intake, searching for foods that will affect our bodies in the particular way we want, image recognition for prepared food (“This looks looks like a plate of fettuccine alfredo, is that correct?”), user feedback and community interaction, and more.

I love being a part of Startup Weekend. It’s a chance to meet new people, hear new ideas, unite for a common cause, explore new processes and technologies, spend time with excited entrepreneurs, learn from experienced business mentors — in short — to get out of our own comfort zones.

To find out more about events like this, check out:
• Louisville Startup Weekend
• Lean Startup Circle
• Open Coffee

There are a number of coworking spaces and business incubators:
• iHub
• The Park at Shelby
• Velocity
• Mid-America Science Park (Sellersburg)
• XlerateHealth
• MetaCyte
• ChefSpace

Read through the marvelous summaries from these experts:
• Greg Langdon’s summary of Louisville Startup Resources
• Vik Chada’s Mind Map of Louisville Startup Resources

And find an association or two to meet people in your field.
Some of the groups I’m involved in are:
• Technology Association of Louisville Kentucky (TALK)
• SQL Louisville
• Civic Data Alliance
• .NET Meetup
• Society for Technical Communication
• Louisville Digital Association
• Keep Louisville Weird
• Improv Comedy Workshop
• Louisville Mastermind
• No Rules Networking
…and plenty more. Find your own ways to get involved.

Startup Weekend Louisville, #SWLou

Dave Mattingly 4:17 pm on October 7, 2015

Louisville Technology

The Lane Report put out a great article about Louisville technology, in which Susan Gosselin covered many aspects of the local tech scene:
• TechFest, Louisville’s recent conference combining biotech, hardware, software, and emerging tech
• TALK, Louisville’s technology council
• Google Fiber announcing Louisville as its fourth city
• The Louisville Digital Association
• TechTown, the makerspace + creative studio for kids
• government support (Economic Development, KY Innovation Network, grant matching)
• makers (LVL1)
• coders (Code Louisville, Cocoaheads)
• accelerators/incubators (iHub)
• local tech companies (Silica Nexus, RedeApp, Deyta, Stonestreet One, Indatus, and more)
• events (Startup Weekend, CIO Practicum, XR Festival)

She covers even more in her article, but it would take a hundred times as much space to mention our other cool tech companies, opportunities, events, and talent in Louisville. Healthcare/biotech, robotics, STEM, security, innovation, manufacturing, data, and many other elements come together to make the tech sector an “exploding area of development.”

If you want to keep up with what I’m doing regarding technology in the city, keep an eye on my calendar, and follow me on Twitter.

Dave Mattingly 10:53 am on October 6, 2015

TALK Tour

Next Tuesday, TALK will be taking a group of people to visit Advanced Solutions Inc, for a presentation about their BioAssemblyBot.

The BioAssemblyBot is a 3D-printer for human skin and organs. These are designed and produced right here in Louisville, and sold to hospitals and clinics around the world.

Here’s a short video of it in action.

It amazes me that so many cool technologies are invented every day, and that not only does the general public not hear about them all, even those of us who are in technology for a living can’t keep up either. And even more astounding is how many of these inventions and breakthroughs happen in our own backyards.

If you’re in the Louisville area, and would like to join us for the tour, sign up here. And, of course, follow TALK on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to keep abreast of other events.

Event Details
Tuesday, October 13
5:00 – 5:30 Networking and Snacks
5:30 – 6:30 BioAssemblyBot
6:30 – 7:00 Networking and Snacks
Advanced Solutions Inc (website)
1901 Nelson Miller Pkwy, Louisville, KY 40223 (map)
Register here

Dave Mattingly 3:48 pm on October 1, 2015

Career Planning

This morning, I spoke for the ladies at Dress For Success about finding and getting the right career.

Desiree Thayer, who sits with me on the board of TALK (the Technology Association of Louisville Kentucky), invited me. Besides being a techie and business leader, Desiree is also the singer for Front Porch Prophets and founder of the recording label Earthtone Analog Recording Company.

My own career has been an odd one, including space shuttling, virtualizing, radioing, graphic designing, writing, publishing, preaching, teaching, programming, databasing, conferencing, scrumming, gaming, hacking, and more. My degree in engineering math and computer science was counterbalanced by minors in psychology and philosophy; I like using both halves of my brain.

Here’s the career advice cheat sheet that I gave to my students, and a sample of my own resume.

In short:
• know yourself
• know your community
• know your company
• know how to approach

Dave Mattingly 2:44 pm on October 1, 2015

DerbyCon

Last weekend was DerbyCon, Louisville’s hacker conference. (There’s also the Louisville Metro InfoSec Conference, that takes place the day after, but it’s more aimed a little more at the business community / general public, instead of being a “by hackers, for hackers” thing like DerbyCon.)

As always, there were amazingly cool sessions and events. There were tracks for red team/black hat, blue team/white hat, tracks for hardware/physical, software/online, and social engineering/people hacking. There was an all-weekend Capture the Flag contest, a silent auction to raise money for charity, dances, parties, and more. Sponsors lined the hallways, and the traditional “lockpick village” was set up, so hackers could try their skill at getting past dozens of kinds of security devices.

It’s always great to see friends and colleagues, and to fanboy gush with all the speakers that I stalk. I mean, admire.

Sadly, I had a nasty cough for most of it, and wasn’t able to attend the full time each day, but I was there for as long as my body could handle.

On the software side of things, I learned about OSINT, RITA, and doxxing.
On the social side, I learned about pwning people, managing people, and reading people.
On the machinery side, I learned about our power grid, industrial machinery, and medical devices.

Personally, the most valuable session was about helping law enforcement catch criminals through online research, by @DennisKuntz. At my last job, I used databases to detect and prevent fraud. Right after 9/11, I worked for Homeland Security’s bioterrorism division. It’s cool to use tech to stop the bad guys.

As a nice surprise, I attended the Believer’s Breakfast and met many fellow Christians who are hackers of various sorts, and learned about #CrossCon, the Sunday morning Bible study at DerbyCon.

DerbyCon

Dave Mattingly 7:47 am on September 24, 2015

Mini Maker Faire

This weekend was Louisville’s Mini Maker Faire. I volunteered at the event by helping exhibitors set up that morning, and helping here and there throughout the day.

I also helped man the tent for TALK, the Technology Association of Louisville Kentucky. We were in a giant tent, and shared the space with ARTxFM and Soular Gig, and with Vogt Award Winners Inscope Medical, Sunstrand, TriBlue Engineering, and Stinger Equipment.

Our tables at TALK were focused on the Rad Science Skateboard Build, one of the events from last month’s TechFest. In the event, local high school kids who signed up started with a piece of wood, and by the end of the two day workshop had created their own skateboard that they got to keep. The equipment, supplies, and training for the even came from Jim Martin of Marwood Veneer, and was a fantastic success. We’re working with other local organizations to host a series of Skateboard Build events, probably once a quarter.