November Events – Entrepreneurship Week

In November MIT Enterprise Forum DFW teamed up with other area organizations to support the various activities related to Kaufman Foundation. Here are the details. Also check out our related blog posts.

Dallas Startup Weekend

Dates: Friday Nov 20- Sunday Nov 22, 2009.
Location: Infomart, 1950 Stemmon Freeway, Dallas 75207

As contributor to the Global Entrepreneurship Week, MIT Enterprise Forum is proud to support the first Startup Weekend in Dallas, scheduled for Nov 20-22. If you ever wondered about the startup scene in DFW or wanted to make connections with the entrepreneurs, this is the event for you.

Check out the video from Startup Weekend Dallas

Other November Events:

MIT Enterprise Forum DFW is supporting UTA, the local partner with Kauffman Foundation to participate in the week of “Unleashing Ideas” event.Nov 17 – Free event on Branding for Entrepreneurs. See details in this brochure.

Nov 18 – The Texas governor’s office is sponsoring a free, one-day event on November 18, 2009 organized by the Small Business Development Center for Enterprise Excellence headquartered at UTA’s ARRI campus. Details are here.

Dallas Startup Weekend Off to Exciting Start

Posted by Babar Bhatti

First ever startup weekend in Dallas kicked off yesterday evening. Over 50 energetic and enthusiastic folks got together at Infomart over pizza and drinks, eager to pitch their ideas and to network. I think this is a great time for Dallas Fort Worth to build on the momentum that some of the successful local entrepreneurs have provided.  I enjoyed spending time with Marc, Gabriella, Steve, Ryan, Eddy, Alex and meeting Blake, Seth, John P, Jake, Jordan and  many others who were there.

There was a presentation by John P of Woopra, followed by 90 seconds pitches for ideas. The 25 or so ideas got interesting comments and responses by the crowd. Overall it was fun and interesting. Voting for the top ideas began around 9pm with each participant getting 2 dollar bills to stuff in the envelope of their favorite idea.

As you can see here, the brainstorming has already started. Let’s see how thing progress over the weekend!

Interview With the Founder of the X Prize, Dr. Peter Diamandis

In this inspiring video Peter Zak of MIT Enterprise Forum interviews the founder of the X Prize, Dr. Peter Diamandis. Let us know what you think about this.

Winning Strategies: Talk by Dr. Schmalensee, Former Dean of MIT Sloan School of Management

Authors globe series brings another exciting talk: Winning Strategies: Secrets behind dynamic companies like Google, Amazon & eBay, by Dr. RICHARD SCHMALENSEE, former Dean of MIT Sloan School of Management. This is based on Dr. Schmalensee’s book Catalyst Code. Here’s what Bill Gates said about Catalyst Code: Catalyst Code is an important book for anyone interested in understanding how breakthrough businesses can be built in today’s economy.

The virtual event is on Monday, October 26th 12-1pm US EDT. Register here.

Learn in this interactive MasterClass how to:

Implement six strategic steps to become a dynamic catalyst company
Generate value by creating relationships among your different groups of customers
Create profitable and flexible business models by assembling audiences, cutting costs and connecting other companies

About the author:

Richard Schmalensee is the Howard W. Johnson Professor of Economics and Management at MIT and the Director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research. He served as the Dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management from 1998 through 2007.

He, along with colleague David Evans, developed a new area in the field of economics and business strategy that explores the design of business models that unleash the hidden value associated by getting multiple customer groups together on the same platform. He shares his findings in the Harvard Business School book with David called “Catalyst Code: The Strategies Behind the World’s Most Dynamic Companies”. He is a member of the National Commission on Energy Policy and a Director of the global Venture Capital firm IDG. He has served as a consultant to both corporations and government agencies.

Alcatel-Lucent Seeks Innovators: TechQuest Program by MTBC

Have you heard about Metroplex Technology Business Council’s TechQuest program where MTBC matches Innovation Seekers with Innovation Providers? Here’s the information from MTBC web site.

Through TechQuest, small tech companies, university researchers, and industry technologists, the Innovation Providers, have an opportunity to present their technology-based ideas and business plans to a major company, an Innovation Seeker, from the Dallas/Ft.Worth area.  Those connections may result in technology licensing, funding, a customer/supplier relationship or a strategic partnership.

Innovation Providers are not required to be MTBC members nor do they need to have a location in DFW.

Here’s the information about the latest TechQuest program from Alcatel-Lucent. More information about the process is provided towards the end.

Problem Statement
The bandwidth of mobile uplinks and downlinks as well as data latency parameters promise to be much improved over currently available 3G services with the advent of LTE and 4G wireless broadband technologies. ALU is seeking applications and services that will benefit from this improved connectivity especially in these key areas:

• Public Safety
• Media and Entertainment
• eHealthcare
• eLearning

Background Information:
Long Term Evolution (LTE) and Fourth Generation wireless networks (4G) will provide much higher data rates for mobile devices and applications than existing solutions. The LTE specification is defined and telecommunications equipment vendors are already executing contracts with carriers to deploy LTE gear. The definition of 4G is a bit more nebulous as standards are still being defined; however 4G has objectives of 100Mbits/s bandwidth between any two points in the world (although much higher rates have been lab tested) and support of IPv6.

More information on LTE specifications can be found at http://www.3gpp.org/article/lte.

To submit an application for the Alcatel-Lucent TechQuest, click here.

More About TechQuest

Process - Click here to learn more.

Current Innovation Seeker – Click here to find out the current TechQuest Innovation Seeker company.

Previous Innovation Seekers – You can still apply to previous TechQuests.  To learn more, click here.

Disclaimer – Important notice regarding participating in TechQuest.  Click here to learn more.

Energy Entrepreneurship and Innovation

This was a global broadcast from MIT Enterprise Fourm. The event was held in Boston, May 2009. download podcast

Energy Entrepreneurship and Innovation:
Today’s Challenges, Tomorrow’s  Opportunities

DFW Chapter is organizing a program on this topic as well – see more and register for it here.