This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of Gary's Guide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Hi folks,

The Worldwide Investor Network (WIN) is organizing a first-of-its-kind two-day event on November 13 and 14, bringing together global ecosystem in which 10 top overseas accelerator graduates and exceptional startups will be engaging and pitching the New York venture community. If interested in applying, here's the link (the deadline is October 18). And for any local entrepreneurs who want to attend, use the promo code "win2012" for 30 percent off (valid until October 31).

The good folks at Taap.it are providing startup founders with free iPhone 5 cases custom engraved with their names and those of their startups. Nice! Interested? Go sign up here.

The NYC Next Idea business plan competition, now in its fourth year, is open for applications. Cash prize is $35,000, and the deadline for registration is November 9. Ideas pitched last year included smart vending machines in NYC taxis, intelligent clothes-sizing applications, and real-time marketing analytics platforms.

If you're a fan of robots, you don't wanna miss two awesome upcoming events -- The Future is Robotics + Software this Thursday (it's going to be all about robot operating systems and flying robots) and the Software Engineers Job Fair next Tuesday (which is going to have robots on patrol taking pictures!).

This Friday, October 19, is the agency edition of Walkabout NYC, where you get to go around and check out some of New York's top digital agencies such as Fueled (kickass offices!), Carrot Creative, Area 17, Campfire, Mint Digital, Attention and others. It's free, but spots are limited so make sure to RSVP soon.

It's also Social Week, and a bunch of events are part of it including PivotCon, NY Beta, BlogHer, Mobile Gaming Summit and Glimpse.

And now let's see whats going down in the Alley this week...

Reinventing Engineering Education in the 21st Century
Panelists include Jason Goodman (founder and CEO, 3rd Ward Brooklyn), Debra Sterling (founder and CEO, GoldieBlox), Max Whitney (NYC Resistor) and moderated by Daniel Pianko (partner, University Ventures).
Monday (Oct. 15), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Floor

Entrepreneurs Roundtable 52
With Akihiko Okamoto (CEO of Recruit Incubation Partners)
Tuesday (Oct. 16), 6 p.m. @ NYU Stern Room 2-60, 44 West 4th Street

EdTech Titans of Industry
A discussion with Jose Ferreira (CEO, Knewton), Greg Gunn (entrepreneur in residence, City Light Capital and cofounder, Wireless Generation), Harold Levy (MD, Palm Ventures) and Laurie Racine (founder and MD, Startl).
Tuesday (Oct. 16), 6 p.m. @ Knewton, 100 5th Avenue

Future of Fashion Emerging Startup Series #3
Presenting companies include Perch, D'Marie, ClothesHorse and HandShake. Panelists include Christina Mercando (VP of product, Hunch / eBay) and Veronika Sonsev (CEO and founder, InSparq and cofounder, Women in Wireless)
Tuesday (Oct 16), 7 p.m. @ Projective Space - L.E.S. , 72 Allen Street, 3rd Floor

October Grow Hack Meetup
Detailed growth hacking case study and demo from Patrick Ambron (cofounder and CEO, Brandyourself.com).
Tuesday (Oct 16), 7 p.m. @ AlleyNYC, 500 7th Ave, 17th Floor

Google StreetView Behind the Scenes
A look at some of the challenges and a peek at the Google Street View project from behind the scenes with Luc Vincent (engineering director, Google).
Wednesday (Oct. 17), 5:30 p.m. @ Google NYC, 111 8th Avenue

October NY Enterprise Technology Meetup
Demos by SevOne, AnyPresence, EidoSearch, GoodData, and StoryDesk.
Wednesday (Oct. 17), 6:30 p.m. @ Cooley, 1114 Avenue of the Americas

Queens Tech Meetup 4
Featuring Dean Daniel Huttenlocher (founding dean, CornellNYC) and Greg Pass (founding entrepreneurial officer, CornellNYC and former CTO, Twitter). CornellNYC is a $2 billion project to build an engineering campus on Roosevelt Island and expected to create up to 120,000 tech jobs. Meet two of the guys driving the bus.
Wednesday (Oct. 17), 7 p.m. @ See Exhibition Space, 25-25 44th Drive, Long Island City

The Business of Food E-Commerce
Demos by Ordrin, Blue Apron, Chop Chop Go and Farmigo.
Wednesday (Oct. 17), 7 p.m. @ 4food, 286 Madison Avenue

TimesOpen 2012: Bigger Data and Smarter Scaling
Speakers include Andrew Montalenti (CTO, Parse.ly), James Boehmer (manager search technology, New York Times) and Allan Beaufour (CTO, Chartbeat).
Wednesday (Oct. 17), 7 p.m. @ The New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, 15th Floor

Glimpse: the Social Discovery Conference
Panelists include Greg Tseng (Tagged), Brett Martin (Sonar), Jared Hecht (GroupMe), Brian Schechter (HowAboutWe), Anna Thomas (LooseCubes) and others.
Thursday (Oct. 18), 6 p.m. @ Bloomberg Headquarters, 731 Lexington Avenue

MeetMoi + Social Exposure Media Present: The Venetian Masquerade Ball
A seductive celebration of the fall, new beginnings and new people. Venetian inspired cocktails, gift bags and an alluring surprise.
Thursday (Oct. 18), 8 p.m. @ Parlor New York, 286 Spring Street

Mobile Gaming Summit 2012 NY
With Chieh Huang (Zynga), Nihal Mehta (Eniac Ventures), Adam Ludwin (RRE), Alex Betancur (JumpRamp Games) and others.
Friday (Oct. 19), 9 a.m. @ Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place

Ladies Who Code Conference
Keynotes include Molly Holzschlag (Open Web Evangelist), Vanessa Hurst (Developers for Good), Emma Persky (Google), Tracy Pesin (Bit.ly) and others.
Saturday (Oct 20), 10 a.m. @ Bloomberg, 731 Lexington Avenue

More events on the horizon...

Future of Web Design (FOWD) NYC on Oct 22 @ New World Stages
New York Software Engineers (NYSE) Job Fair on Oct 23 @ AlleyNYC
Apple vs. Samsung: What The Case Means to Software Development and UX Design on Oct 23 @ Morgan Stanley
Legal Essentials for Startups: Organizing the Entity on Oct 25 @ Anchin
Protect Your Code | IP Law + Founders Experiences on Oct 25 @ AlleyNYC
All Things D: Dive Into Mobile on Oct 29 @ The Ritz-Carlton Battery Park
#Startupfix at Culturefix - Oct 30 on Oct 30 @ Culturefix
Daniweb Presents: Publishers meet Advertisers Cocktail Mixer on Nov 07 @ Highland Park
Funding The Best In Global Innovation on Nov 13 @ SNR Denton
AngelHack Fall 2012 New York City on Nov 17 @ The AlleyNYC

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)