By Adrianne Jeffries 1/20/12 8:29am

Warmth and Fuzziness

amit

The Internet Saves Lives: Amit Gupta Found a Bone Marrow Donor

Amit Gupta, co-founder of Jelly NYC, a coworking group, and Photojojo, a site about photography with DIY tips, project ideas and gear, was diagnosed with leukemia a few months ago. It was all-hands-on-deck suddenly as Mr. Gupta wrote a blog post about needing a bone marrow transplant donor: the odds of someone from South Asian descent finding a match were only 1 in 20,000, and Mr. Gupta didn’t have much time. So he made a website: http://amitguptaneedsyou.com/. Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 11/17/11 8:54am

Startup Weekend Edmonton. (flickr.com/mastermaq)

Startup News: Save Amit, and Hm, Not Too Many Launches Last Week

CONQUER THE WORLD. Startup Weekend just closed a partnership with the Kauffman Foundation; now it’s announced a two-year agreement with Google. “Google is supporting Startup Weekend through a global sponsorship, which will not only allow for the expansion of current operations, but also enable the global roll-out of pre-Startup Weekend Google developer workshops and vertical specific initiatives in areas such as education and health.”

SAVE AMIT. Seth Godin, Michael Galpert, and Jakob Lodwick have pledged $10,000 each for the first person whose marrow matches that of Amit Gupta, recently diagnosed with leukemia. Party and cheek swabbing session on Friday at New Work City. Read More

By Adrianne Jeffries 10/26/11 7:15am

forrst

Startup News: Skillshare Creep! Forrst Recruiting! And Happy Birthday Wanderfly

SKILLSHARE EVERYWHERE. Skillshare had two big announcements yesterday: 1) the democratized education platform is available in “every major city” in the U.S. now, and 2) CEO Mike Karnjanaprakhorn has been named one of 12 TED fellows in 2012.

FORRST RANGERS. The developer community Forrst has started posting jobs. Bring it on, Stack Overflow.

SAVE AMIT. The campaign for Amit Gupta continues! Upcoming: bone marrow drive in Delhi and swabbing party in Somerville and much, much more.

DREAM TEAM. New Work City is joining forces with the hackers of NYC Resistor to cross-promote events. Synergy!

XX INNOVATION LUNCH. “I’m super psyched for my lunch this Friday,” Charlie O’Donnell wrote in his newsletter this week.  ”Marissa Campise from Venrock and Sarah Tavel from Bessemer are co-hosting a lunch with me for up and coming women entrepreneurs to get a chance to meet venture investors.” Read More

By Guest Post 10/12/11 11:13am

Hyperlocal

Mr. Gupta

Where NY Tech’s Culture Comes From (and Why We Owe Amit Gupta Our Bone Marrow)

This is a guest post from Nate Westheimer. Nate is an engineer, entrepreneur, and angel investor. Currently, Nate serves as Executive Director of the NY Tech Meetup, Advisor to Flybridge Capital Partners, and Founder/Advisor to Ohours.org. He blogs at innonate.com.

***

As the NY Tech scene has gained momentum over the past few years, I find myself talking to a lot of journalists who are trying to understand what’s going on here and how we arrived at this point.

In these interviews, I always highlight NY Tech’s unique culture, and in so doing I point out that this culture is both native to New York itself, but also cultivated and defined by folks in the tech community 5 to 10 years ago, before this Great Boom showed up in Gap ads and magazine covers.

In my opinion, the culture we have here has been defined by three people: Read More

By Gary Sharma 10/10/11 6:00am

On The Calendar

garysguide

Goooood Morning, Silicon Alley! Gary Sharma’s Picks for the Week of Oct. 10: The Insanely Great Edition

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder of GarysGuide, mentor at ER Accelerator 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.

End of an Era
So much has been written about Steve Jobs since he sadly passed away last week and so much more will be written over the days, weeks, months and years to come. Visionary. Genius. Perfectionist. Disruptor. The Crazy One. He’s mentioned in the same breath as Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Walt Disney. Like so many of u, I loved his products, listened to his ‘stevenotes’, stood in line for (ok, pre-ordered) the latest Apple gadget and in general was mesmerized by the reality-distortion field. Heck, even my red tie owes a debt of inspirational gratitude to the infamous black mock turtleneck.

But to all of us startup folks, he was something more–an entrepreneurial role model who inspired ‘n taught us countless lessons that we took to heart as we went about building our startups. Real CEOs ship. Marketing is important. Think long term. Think different. Don’t compromise. ‘A’ players always hire ‘A’ players. Design matters. Pay attention to tiny details. But most importantly, don’t waste time living someone else’s life and always focus on building something “Insanely Great.” Cuz as Steve would say: “We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here?”

Amit Gupta
Before there were all these amazing coworking and incubator spaces all over town, there was Jelly. It was founded by Amit Gupta, undoubtedly one of the nicest and most amazing people you’ll ever know and a big part of the NY tech community. Amit was recently diagnosed with leukemia and urgently needs to find someone who can donate bone marrow to help him in his fight. So help spread the word.

You want deals? I’ll give u deals!
Move over spa treatments, pole dancing classes and teeth whitening clinics. Here are 4 deals that you’ll actually find useful. BOOM!

Ok now, lets see what is going down this week in the amazing, amazing world of Nu Yawk Tek… Read More