See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted by email from dodeja’s posterous

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted by email from dodeja’s posterous

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted by email from dodeja’s posterous

Follow these instructions I found on the internet

Launch word
Go to Word —>Preferences
Click on “General”
Uncheck “WYSIWYG font and style menus”
Uncheck “Show Project Gallery At Startup”
Quit Word
Reopen Word

Evolution
The concept of Startup Weekend began as a team of 68 designers, developers, business developers, project managers and marketing/PR folks working on a single project last July (2007) in Boulder, Colorado. Today Startup Weekend has become more open-ended with smaller teams are working on multiple projects.

The Startups
Micah Elliott, a developer who I met at Startup Weekend put together a great blog post about the Friday activity. There were originally 10-12 ideas which the group collectively narrowed down to 5 startup ideas. Many people found out that startups/services similar to their ideas already existed in some form so they decided to join other groups. Micah has covered the 5 ideas quite well so I won’t cover them until my next post which will be going up after this weekend.

My Idea
Like many people, I am pretty passionate about music. I enjoy electronic music and like to DJ/mix when I get some free time. I can listen to Dance, House, Electro, Trance or Progressive music for hours at a time. In the electronic music community DJ sets are very popular. DJs broadcast live sets about 1 - 2 hours long on a weekly basis. In my personal experience, I have yet to find a service where you can listen to these archived sets online with a simple yet elegant user experience. So my idea is basically a web service that archives DJ sets from popular artists like Tiesto, Armin Van Buren, David Guetta, and Above and Beyond to name a few. Another important feature behind the usage model is that users will be able to choose individual tracks within a set and listen to just those tracks without buffering the entire set (usually ~120 Mbs). In technical terms, the user can scrub to any point within a set (flash player). I won’t spoil it too much for those of you who are curious, you’ll find out soon enough. We are planning to launch a working version of the service by tomorrow night.

The Team

The main reason this weekend has been a such an amazing experience for me is because of our small six-person team. I will talk more about our team in the next few weeks. Thanks to:
Varun Thota - My neighbor/PSU business student - Business Development
Darius Monsef - Marketing and Business Development- Co-founder of Colourlovers.com
Chris Williams - PHP Ninja - Co-founder of Colourlovers.com
Stephen Braitsch - Designer/Flash Developer
Justin Thiele - PR/Marketing/Brand Strategist

The Startup - Mugasha - Music, Gathering and Sharing For All

Stay Tuned…

- Akshay

Portland StartupDrinks

- Akshay

Vision
“To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology heroes.”
Dean Kamen, Founder

Mission
Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication and leadership.

What is FIRST Robotics Competition(FRC)?
The FIRST Robotics Competition challenges teams of young people and their mentors to solve a common problem in a six-week timeframe using a standard “kit of parts” and a common set of rules. Teams build robots from the parts and enter them in competitions designed by Dean Kamen, Dr. Woodie Flowers, and a committee of engineers and other professionals. (from USFIRST.org)

Why should you care?
You should care because this program works. It works because it has had huge impact on education and specifically it has impacted thousands of high schoolers. I think programs like FIRST challenges students and it is a program that connects students with mentors. It creates competition and promotes gracious professionalism. This term gracious professionalism was coined by MIT Professor Dr. Woodie Flower.
“Gracious Professionalism is part of the ethos of FIRST. It’s a way of doing things that encourages high-quality work, emphasizes the value of others, and respects individuals and the community.”

How can you get involved?
Just by attending one of the 30+ regional competitions around the nation you can experience FIRST.
Unfortunately all the regional competitions are over for this season. Although the Championship event is this weekend in Atlanta at the Georgia Dome April 17 - 19
2008 FIRST Championship

Sites to check out
I am an alumni of Monta Vista Robotics Team 115
FIRST Website

I have been eager to take part in one of these events such as Bar Camp or Startup Weekend for quite some time now. Portland Startup Weekend will be a great opportunity for this. If you are interested in taking part as developer, designer, hacker, PR/marketing, cook etc… goto the website and buy your tickets before they sell out. I plan on purchasing a ticket as a User Interface Designer.

Speaking of startups, I am also attending Startup School 2008, which will be held on April 19th at Stanford. My application got accepted last weekend so I am pretty excited about attending. Startup school is another excuse for me to go back to California and visit my friends and girlfriend in Berkeley.

On a side note WebVisions 2008 will be held on May 22-23 right before Portland Startup Weekend (May 23-25 2008)