New Orleans Tech » Up & Coming

French Market Vendors Receive A Gift Of Google Ad Dollars From Micro Lender

Chaz — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Blueprint Investment Fund is a 501(c)(3), non profit economic development corporation who serve Low-income, disadvantaged, minority and women entrepreneurs with financial and technical resources. The mission of the blueprint investment fund is to alleviate poverty, chronic unemployment, and economic inequality in America's urban and rural centers. Blueprint investment funding accomplish this mission by providing private equity investment and micro lending services to entrepreneurs and small businesses. Blueprint received then subsequently disbursed a grant from Google in the amount of $500,000 in advertising dollars to nine French Market vendors. Each vendor was awarded up to $50,000 in advertising. For those of you who do not know, Google advertising dollars is a form of currency used to buy a variety of services such as advertisements from simple text ads to display and mobile advertising.

The requirements for selecting a vendor were based on (1) the need of the business (2) its current web presence, (3) ability to handle increased sales, (4) is the business a full-time operation and (5) is the product being sold made by the business. Blueprint executive director Lawrence Williams said “Each one was selected on their ability to have mass appeal and how well a managed advertising campaign could increase their sales.” Blueprint estimates the advertising campaign could bring in an additional $40,000 to $50,000 in additional revenues for the vendors. Charles Robinson of French Quarter Candles is a French Market vendor and a recipient of the award. “Someone who is in a competitive market like home decor, it’d be hard for Charles to sell $50,000 per year without advertising,” Williams said. “And he could handle that increase in sales.”

NOLAbound program showcases New Orleans as an emerging center for entrepreneurship, innovation

NOLA Tech Writer — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 14:30:08 +0000

On Nov. 17, NOLAbound launched its campaign to give 25 qualified professionals the opportunity to experience, document and share their unfiltered impressions of New Orleans and its post-Katrina renaissance. It will focus on the entrepreneurial movement within four sectors: arts-based businesses, biosciences, digital media and sustainable industries. Organizers are calling on America’s most innovative minds to apply on benolabound.com. The application deadline is Dec. 16.

The participants will represent communities from across the country. They will also receive an all-expenses-paid program to assess the city as a model of new business progress and thinking. The NOLAbound program will coincide with the 4th Annual New Orleans Entrepreneur Week in March 2012.

“We are pretty excited about the program,” said Curry W. Smith, the spokesperson for NOLAbound. “We are targeting people who are highly connected on social media networks and with a broad reaching network.”

Smith refers to these people as the emerging “creative class.” The goal of NOLAbound is to prove that New Orleans is indeed one of the best places to live, work and play. Recently, New Orleans was named America’s “#1 Brain Magnet” by Forbes magazine and the “Coolest Startup City in America” by Inc.com.

“Our goal is to showcase New Orleans as a model for other American cities by giving participants unfiltered access to everything we have to offer,” Smith said. “In the face of hardship, New Orleans has reinvented itself. Ideally, the program will spread the word about a very compelling place to live, work and play—while the participants enhance their professional networks and careers.”

NOLAbound is a joint project of the Downtown Development District, Greater New Orleans, Inc. and The Idea Village. It is a collaborative effort with Zoey Devall, Curry W. Smith and Cameron Yancey who are managing NOLAbound for the three organizations.

“We met about a year ago and talked about how could we encourage others to experience New Orleans,” Smith said. “Especially people who have a misconception of New Orleans just being a party town, to visit for Mardi Gras or that it is a great place to visit, but wouldn’t want to live there.”

On the other hand, Smith said he continues to hear from visiting professionals that they are surprised and impressed by the entrepreneurial spirit that has developed in New Orleans in recent years.

“NOLAbound is our unique way of showing the rest of the world how innovative New Orleans has become. By selecting 25 individuals to witness our progress for themselves, we are asking them to help us reach thousands more with the true story of the ‘new’ New Orleans,” he said.

All participants will be asked to share their observations and insights into New Orleans and its entrepreneurial community through the NOLAbound website and using their own social media networks.

“They will tour the city. They will attend panel discussions with business and community leaders. They will have one-on-one meetings with entrepreneurs. We will make sure to show off the city’s culture, music and food. During their free time, we want them to explore the city and we will encourage them to tweet, blog, Facebook and write about New Orleans,” Smith said.

The entire five-day program will be filmed and a documentary will premiere in October 2012. Smith said the participants will find plenty of good news to report their audiences about the city during the visit.

“New Orleans has grown greatly in the tech industry,” he said. “We want to pick applicants who will be able to relate to a wide audience. It would be a great success story to have people come move, live and expand their business here.”

For more information on NOLAbound, including selection criteria for interested applicants, please visit benolabound.com. NOLAbound can also be found on Twitter @benolabound and on facebook.com/benolabound.com.

NOLABOUND: THE RUNDOWN

The NOLAbound program will take place from March 14 to March 18, 2012.

The call for applications will run for one month at until Dec. 16 at benolabound.com.
25 participants will be selected within four industry sectors: arts-based businesses, biosciences, digital media, and sustainable industries.
The participants will be announced in January 2012.
Participants will receive free airfare, ground transportation, meals and room and board.
Participants will have access to certain New Orleans Entrepreneur Week events, meet with leaders in the city’s growing arts, biosciences, digital and sustainable sectors, be granted VIP access to select activities in the city and will be encouraged to experience the unique neighborhoods, people and culture of New Orleans.
Their experiences will be captured as part of a documentary feature film highlighting the emergence of New Orleans as an entrepreneurial hub.
Participants will be asked to share their activities in New Orleans and their impressions of the city through the NOLAbound website, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube, and on their own blogs.
NOLAbound Twitter followers will vote for the one participant they feel is the best able to communicate their impressions of the city and its business environment.
One winner will be selected from the Twitter votes. The votes will be tabulated and the winner will return to New Orleans for an all-expenses-paid trip for the documentary’s world premiere in October 2012.

SkillSwitchNOLA.com: A Barter System Based on Skills

rmandal — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 09:35:35 +0000

Making contacts and finding work is about as easy (or as difficult) as turning on your computer and meeting people online you may never see in real life. It revolves around a lot of work, for a lot of “no’s,” empty friendships, and ultimately, money. Several websites, like Craigslist, exist to support this kind of shallow interaction where money, as the bottom line, is all that matters. However, Andrew Rowland, Co-Founder of Pure Simplicity Designs, looked for a different avenue to take, in which the bottom line didn’t have to be money.

The Aim

Skill Switch NOLA caters to simplicity and strives to take money out of the equation, at least at first. A person can offer a skill they have in exchange for a skill someone else may have. It is a favor for favor barter system that also offers a chance at collaborative skill sharing. Andrew hopes that as more people take part and continue to introduce new skills, the site will build a supportive community. “Money is not our goal,” he also explained, “…more importantly, we want users at Skill Switch NOLA to learn something new or share what they know.”

Getting Started

Thanks to an easy and streamlined design, starting a profile and offering a skill, or browsing through other offers, is quick and painless. It takes less than five minutes to set up an account, and less than that to offer a skill in return for another skill. That being said, at the step in which you offer your services, its best to be as specific as possible and to place as many tags as you can. After that, it’s a matter of being patient and browsing through other profiles to see if there is anything interesting going on.

The (Hopeful) End Result

It’s a tall order, but a great start. With the ease of use within the website, the only missing element is more people. The idea with the website is to build a new type of community, and to make it thrive. And it's going to take more than just creating an account; people are going to have to start talking about it. So is there a skill you have that you’re just dying to offer to people? Do you need help or advice from someone who has a better knowledge base on the subject matter? Then check out the website and start up a profile! It’s free, unique and has the potential for creating a community that stands far apart from the rest.

Check it out: www.skillswitchnola.com

Nosh Trucks Into Nola

Shercole — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 02:46:31 +0000

A great new application with the City of New Orleans in mind is the recently created, Nosh. Nosh made its first big appearance in New Orleans this weekend at Street Fare Derby, allowing attendees to "nosh" their favorite food trucks. Nosh is a free iPhone and Android application that allows users to rate menu items from restaurants and share with friends. This application started in July based out of San Francisco, but expanded to include cities all around the country including New Orleans. Nosh was created by Firespotter Labs, which focus is to create web and mobile applications with some disruptive depth.

What I like the most about this application is the focus on pictures and simple star rating. You can instantly upload a picture and give a five-star rating. One of the things people pay the most attention to in reviews is the pictures and just how hungry it makes them. It doesn’t hurt New Orleans has some of the most amazing and beautiful food ever; this is a great place to share Nosh!

Features
Website: It’s a great social networking tool. Allows users to add friends from your contacts and social media networks as well as make new friends from the site. You can check out the great food nearby or all over the country as its being uploaded. It’s not only a great tool for our local community, but when visiting out of town, you can also search for restaurants and their menus via Nosh.

Foursquare Integration: Nosh allows users to check-in and share photos and recommendations of their dishes with friends on Foursquare.

Home Nosh: Nosh allows you to add new places classified as “private” to showcase your skills in the kitchen, without showing your address.

Nosh Website Widget: Website owners can share their nosh'd dishes through embedding the widget on your website.

Overall, I find this application useful to check out the menus and see a picture and quick rating. Great for quick reviews of restaurants before visiting. It’s also great for those who just love food photography; you can find many great user generated photos. I experienced minimal issues on my Android phone, outside of GPS/Network issues uploading; which isn’t from the actual application. I definitely recommend you check out this app and showcase some of the great New Orleans food at your favorite restaurants and your own kitchen.

NOLA Media Firm Launches New Content Management System: PhireCMS

Christopher Boudy, Sr. — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 13:39:08 +0000

Do a search for “content management systems” and they’ll be a plethora of options for you to choose. From proprietary systems to open-source softer, content management systems or CMS’s is used to manage the content on websites. It usually consist of a web based system with a GUI (graphic user interface) interface that allows you to add information using a WYSISYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. Users don’t have to knowledge of HTML, FTP or web design principals because CMS’ focus more on content rather than design and coding. A popular example is WordPress, which started off as a blogging platform and is now evolving in a CMS.

Moc 10 Media, LLC, a New Orleans design firm that does web media, traditional media, and web based programming has launched a new CMS: PhireCMS. The company’s owner, Nick Sagona told us why they decided to come out with their own content management system. “Over the few years, I’ve seen my fair share of publishing platforms, namely WordPress, Expression Engine, ModX but a lot of times one would something pretty well and another would do something else pretty well but we always had to jump back and forth to find the right fit. Our goal was to create something that was extremely easy to use and integrate features tighter under a single system” said Mr. Sagona. The company started building the CMS a year ago for use with their own clients and saw the potential that it could have for others.

PhireCMS Intro Screen (See More at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/neworleanstech/sets/72157625193400271/)

The company opted to make the system open source because the market for CMS’ is very competitive. Web developers have plenty of open source options to choose from and with established names like Drupal, WordPress, and Plone it’ll be an uphill battle for PhireCMS to get developers to jump on board when creating plug-ins, themes, or other modules. But there are a couple of key features that make the CMS stand out. “Some of the key features of PhireCMS are the multiple site management which allows you to mange various websites on a single install, assigning user permissions to different sites, mobile presentations are built in, and users can access the system from their mobile device to perform small edits” said Mr. Sagona.

We were able to demo the CMS from the company website and found it extremely easy to use. The interface was very simple to navigate and allowed a user to jump in and out of pages, assets, or extensions. A couple themes have already been designed and ten plug-ins have been developed.

Feel free to download PhireCMS, test a demo of the system, and take a look at their themes and plug-ins to extend its functionality.

2nd Annual Netty Awards Open For Nominations

Christopher Boudy, Sr. — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 15:37:54 +0000

Net2NO, the New Orleans Chapter of NetSquared has opened up nominates for their 2nd annual “Netty Awards”. They Netty Awards were created a year ago as a way to highlight the achievement of its members. This year the awards are opened to members and non-members. Some of the more prestigious awards are the Mr. Ray Nicholas Memorial Award and the newly created Entrevator of the Year Award.

Net2NO

Nominations are now open and will close on November 9th. After that, the group will be announcing the final nominees and begin the voting process to determine the winners.

2010 Netty Award Nomination Form

Net2NO, the New Orleans Chapter of NetSqaured has opened up nominates for their 2^nd annual “Netty Awards”.

What are the Netty awards?

Nominations are open now and will close on November 9^th. After that the group will be announcing the final nominees and begin the voting process to determine the winners. The Netty’s are open to members in the group and also people outside the group.

Why open to people outside the group?

Ladies Man Award: Nominate the male Net2NO member who is a big hit with the ladies

The Entrevator of the Year Netty Award: This is the single highest honor we can bestow. Awarded to the male/female who through innovation or entrepreneurial enterprise has helped the community to move forward, socially and economically.

Community Awards

The Dot Netty Award

Net2NO, the New Orleans Chapter of NetSqaured has opened up nominates for their 2nd annual “Netty Awards”.

What are the Netty awards?

Nominations are open now and will close on November 9th. After that the group will be announcing the final nominees and begin the voting process to determine the winners. The Netty’s are open to members in the group and also people outside the group.

Why open to people outside the group?

: Nominate the best local community website.

The Dot Org Netty Award: Nominate the best local non-profit organization website

The Social Netty Award: Nominate the best social good/cause based organization doing great things in our community

The B-Case Netty Award: Nominate the male/female individual do-gooder who is seemingly single handedly changing our community for the better

The Beekeper Netty Award: The infamous "community organizer." This person doesn't single handedly do it all, but through motivation and cultivation brings the best out of all of those around them... like a beekeeper cultivates sweet sweet honey from their bees.

We’ll have more information once the voting process opens up but be sure to attend the Netty’s at December 7^th Net2NO meetup.

UNO Vies For $30 Millions, Receives More Than $800K For Tech Projects

Christopher Boudy, Sr. — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:15:18 +0000

Last month the University of New Orleans reported that they were a part of a select group that would be awards a $30 million navy contract. The award will be split between the University of New Orleans, Clemson University, Old Dominion University, Pennsylvania State University, the University of South Alabama, the University of South Carolina and Virginia Tech. It’ll come from SPAWAR Systems Center Atlantic, which has a office in UNO’s Research and Technology Park. UNO faculty and staff will compete for task orders in the areas of engineering, science, and technology. Technology projects will include things such as cyber security, information assurance, wireless and computer networks, sensors, and command and control systems.

From that $30 million, the UNO department of Computer Science has recently been awarded three contracts worth more than $800,00. The contracts became effective on September 1^st are good for one year. Specially the CS department will focus on the areas of autonomic computing and security essentials, platform independent secure mobile computer, and web mash-up and semantic frameworks. Currently UNO professors Shengru Tu, Daniel Bilar, Golden Richard III and Mahdi Abdelguerfi are working on the following projects.


Shengru Tu	Daniel Bilar	Golden Richard III	Mahdi Abdelguerfi

UNO breaks down the details of what each project will entail in an updated press release:

Autonomic Computing and Security Essentials: Autonomic computing has evolved as a discipline to create software applications that self-manage in order to handle increasingly complex systems more effectively. The primary focus of autonomic computing is to build intelligence into systems that identifies events, activates algorithms and delivers capabilities. This project will pursue research on establishing unified models, performing proactive monitoring and enforcing smart security for autonomic systems.

Platform Independent Secure Mobile Computing: Mobile computing technology offers access to information anytime and anywhere. But current security policies often limit the integration of personal mobile devices (such as smartphones) with business processes. Sensitive information being stored on these devices can often be lost, stolen or hacked. This project involves extensive forensic evaluation of modern smartphones to understand the inherent risks and the introduction of security features to alleviate the concerns about storing sensitive data.

Web Mash-Up and Semantic Frameworks: Web mash-up refers to repurposing existing data resources and web services for new uses. A semantic framework is required in order to match a business’ requirements with a service’s capabilities. This project seeks to integrate and coordinate web services and data resources using semantic models.

Local Programmers Participate In Rails Rumble 2010 Contest

Shercole — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 19:21:16 +0000

Rails Rumble is a 48 hour web application development contest where teams from around the country compete to come up with a winning app using the Ruby on Rails platform. For three years now, the competition has been fierce with things such as:

Tasty Planner (2007 Winner): A recipe sharing website.
MeetInBetween.us (2008 Winner): App that calculates common meeting points for groups of people and allowing users to pinpoint locations such as cafes and restaurants.
Koombea (2009 Winner): An online profile aggregator service that makes it easy for users to create social landing pages.

Rails Rumble 2010 Contest

Teams usually consist of designers, coders, and server admins who can stay awake for 48 hours pecking away at their keyboards. Don’t think this is just some fly by night contest either because the rules are very strict. All applications must be developed using Ruby on Rails or another Rack-based Ruby web framework. Contestants have exactly 48 hours to work their coding wizardry and can only have between one to four members. Each team gets a free Git repository and a private Linode VSP to use in deploying their applications. The app can make use of any non-paid or publicly available third party web services, it must be open source, and must respect users privacy. The judges are will look for completeness, how well the user interface is designed, originality, and usefulness.

New Orleans has its own team that will be in the fight consisting of James Thompson, Joe Ellis, Simon Dorfman, and George Mauer. The team will meet up on Friday evening with the main development work taking place on Saturday and Sunday. Their plan? Find A Mind, which will create dynamic feeds based on interests in a given local area. A tool similar to how Facebook pages or twitter feeds operate but focused directly on your personal interest in your own local area. The group says that this app is not another Meetup.com, if anything it’s a compliment to Meetup. One of the downsides of Meetup is that someone has to create, organize, and manage a group of like minded people whereas Find A Mind seems to be a little more free flowing. The group also has plans to monetize their idea once they get it off the ground.

Feel free to stop by Gumbo Labs to see the guys in action or follow their progress.

LocalSource.it: A New Orleans Technology Directory

Christopher Boudy, Sr. — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:21:59 +0000

Skilled freelancers and tech companies are needed by many different companies and organizations. Groups such as schools, hospitals, non-profits, and start-ups all need technology services such as web design, networking, software development and marketing. A 2008 survey conducted by the Louisiana Technology Council and the Louisiana Economic Development concluded that there are more than 37,000 technology workers in the New Orleans area, many with post secondary education. Along with this the city has seen an influx of creative class individuals and entrepreneurs coming in droves over the past couple of years. These are people that have migrated to New Orleans to create small business tailored around creative and technology skill sets (e.g. video production, game development, web design, social media consulting).

But one question remains: Where do I go to find skilled technology freelancers or IT companies to provide specific services that my organization might need? Local developer Matthew Tritico and designer Joseph Ellis are hoping to solve this problem with a new online directory that will make it easy for people to find tech services they need in the New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lafayette area. The website, localsource.it, lists technology services such as software development, graphic design, web design, SEO/social media marketing, networking, database design, audio or video authoring and more.

LocalSource.it Homepage

What’s In It For The Public

If you’re a company or organization that is looking for IT services you have the ability to filter between freelancers or a companies. You can also select what area of expertise or skill set you are looking for with an option of surrounding cities. The website will produce a list based on your criteria and from there you can view the freelancer or companies profile to see what they have to offer, what they are good at, and who else they have worked with. You can also contact individuals through the website to setup an initial or get a quote.

What’s In It For the Service Provider

For the freelancers and companies the website provides something that is not currently available anywhere in the city: A free way to market your skills, services, and get exposure in a pool among others. Individuals can use OpenID to quickly sign up for an account and have the option of listing their profile, biography, contact information, and services they provide. An added bonus is that once you have worked with a client they can leave a testimony of how good (or bad) the project went.

LocalSource Company Page

While we did notice some shortcoming with the directory, the developers told us the site is now in beta mode, new features will be rolling out very soon, and they are always looking for ways to improve. This directory has a lot of potential for a number of reasons: It’s easy to use, free, and it’s the first searchable directory that combines local freelancers, start-ups, and tech companies in New Orleans.

Pixels For Food Aims To Help Feed Families

Christopher Boudy, Sr. — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 03:26:30 +0000

Technology has always led a helping hand into many offline activities that we may not even notice. Online message boards have helped spread information similar to the old style cork board with the push pin it in. Texting from cellphones has provided ways for us to send money in times of natural disasters. Even our way of mobilizing people for a cause has changed with volunteers giving time, money, and resources from all across the world for a unified cause. Technology is also being used in a local project called Pixels For Food, to help feed families that are in need.

Billy Brown, VISTA Online Community Developer at the Community Center of St. Bernard created http://pixelsforfood.org so that people could have a way to donate to a giving catalog which feeds families. Mr. Brown is apart of an organization called the Digital Arts Service Corps. Similar to AmeriCorps, the DSAC places technology-centric individuals in a year long service position somewhere in the country to help a non-profit with their technology needs. His tasks was to experiment with the centers social media presence, help with an end-of-year fund raising campaign, and create an online giving catalog. "An online giving catalog is basically a different way of giving a donation. Heifer International made it famous when they allowed donors to "buy" a cow, chicken, or pig for a rural village" says Brown.

Pixels For Food

After dipping his toe in the Twitterverse, his next step was to create a giving catalog, similar to the one that Heifer Intentional created. With help from local tech group, GNO Code, the two parties set out to create the catalog in hopes to make it easy for people to donate food which would in feed families. The website is a simple one-pager with 8-bit style graphics of food items such as strawberries, cereal, and brown rice. Each item has a number of bags or cans it will provide along with the price. Donors can simply drag and drop the items they want into a virtual grocery bag and the site will display what you are donating and the amount. From there you can checkout. For even the novice of web users, the process if very simple.

Each month, the site will change which organization the donations are going to. This month's charity is Feeding America, which has more than 200 food banks and provides food to more then 37 million low-income families. Hopefully this project and others like it will make it simple to donate to more worthy causes. Currently this is still an on going project and Mr. Brown is working on getting the final parts of the checkout together but welcomes help from outside parties who want to contribute.