Cynthia Germanotta, a cofounder of the Born This Way Foundation (also known as Lady Gaga's mom), was a judge for the event, and encouraged kids to build apps that will help promote online cooperation and being better digital citizens. (No cyberbullying, kiddos.)

"Youth live online so it's important for them to understand how to use it wisely and productively and for good," Ms. Germanotta told Betabeat. "The earlier you can make that happen the better."

The MacArthur Foundation's Connie Yowell said that the hackathon is a one-day kickoff event to help launch the foundation's overarching digital media and learning competition.

"Our goal today is both to launch the broader set of activities to have a core set of people in New York who really get this work and to begin to create the first set of apps and curriculum of programs that we can put on the Family Online Safety Institute platform for good sites so people can see that these are thing to try to also develop and create," she said.

At the end of the hackathon, the winners were awarded prizes totaling $48,000. Winners included Congregate, a tool to help kids 13 and over learn and participate in democracy, and Cyberstoop, a community that helps teens locate businesses that offer free wifi and technology tools.

"Coming out of this we will be inviting libraries and museums and other nonpofits to host other events around the country and htis is what we're doing with the Born This Way Foundation so that youth can have the opportunity to create programs like this too," Ms. Yowell added.

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

Happy Community Manager Appreciation Day to all ye community managers out there! You guys 'n gals are on the front lines engaging with customers every day, putting out fires, making your customers smile, fostering conversation. Community is important and you guys are making it happen. Stay awesome! :) To celebrate, bitly is organizing a breakfast this Friday and later this month is the Community Manager UNconference.

My buddy Eyal and the good folks at WIN are organizing a must-attend conference later this month on February 21: Funding the Best in Global Innovation. There'll be a rockstar lineup of speakers including David Pakman (Venrock), Brian Cohen (NY Angels), Kirill Sheynkman (RTP Ventures), John Frankel (ff Ventures), David Kidder (Clickable), Esther Dyson (angel investor) and more. GarysGuide readers get a special 30 percent off, using the code "ecosystem." WIN, for the record, is on a mission to create a top-notch global ecosystem connecting the New York venture community with leading international tech startups.

The Lawrence Field Center for Entrepreneurship at Baruch College, the CUNY Institute for Virtual Enterprise (IVE) and IBM are hosting the inaugural SmartPitch Challenge to celebrate New York City as a center for innovation and new business development. Nice! The challenge kicks-off this Friday on February 1, and it's open to current students at New York colleges and universities.

Don't forget, the much-anticipated Lemonade Heroes Yacht Party is this Wednesday. The attendee list is shaping up to be pretty amazing, and of course I'll be there rocking the red carpet in my red tie ;-) Hope to see y'all there. (FYI, the boat will be docked. So, tempting as it sounds to take her out to sea and head for the Caribbean, it's prolly not gonna happen.)

Random Nugget: "Innovation is hard because 'solving problems people didn't know they had' and 'building something no one needs' look identical at first." - Aaron Levie (founder and CEO, Box).

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

MIT Clean Energy Prize NYC Kickoff
The world's premier student competition for early-stage clean tech ventures, with over $300K in prizes.
Monday (Jan. 28), 6 p.m. @ Morrison & Foerster, 1290 Avenue of the Americas

Data Privacy & Protection Day Town Hall & Breakfast
With Deborah Marrone (FTC), Milan Patel (Special Agent, FBI), Clark Russell (Asst. Attorney General, Internet Bureau, New York), Craig Spiezle (Exec. Director, Online Trust Alliance) and others.
Tuesday (Jan. 29), 8 a.m. @ Baruch College - William and Anita Newman Conference Center, 151 E. 25th Street, 7th Fl.

Mobile Payments Roundtable
With Jay Bhattacharya (Zipmark), Alex Taub (Dwolla), Yitz Mendlowitz (Paay), Jeff McGregor (Dash), Micah Bergdale (Bytemark), David Olk (ShopKeep), Neil Platt (Fiserv), Jim Schinella (Manilla) and others.
Tuesday (Jan. 29), 8:30 a.m. @ Frankfurt Kurnit, 488 Madison Avenue

Brooklyn Tech Meetup
With Victoria Brown (CEO, BigThink), GetGlue and Behance.
Tuesday (Jan. 29), 7 p.m. @ Feil Hall at Brooklyn Law School, 205 State Street, 22nd Fl., Brooklyn

Fashion+TechNY Meetup with AngelHack & Hearst Media
With Liza Kindred (Third Wave Fashion), David Goldberg (FreshNeck), Jill Sherman (Modalyst), Melissa Fudor (inSparq), Michael Rosom (Eye On Response), Sabine Seymour (Moondial) and Vale Kerbage (Leechee NY).
Tuesday (Jan. 29), 7 p.m. @ Hearst Interactive Media, 300 West 57th Street

Lemonade Heroes Yacht Party featuring a chance to Audition for a TV Series!
A night of dancing, mixing & mingling. On a yacht. With a chance to audition for an entrepreneurship TV series!
Wednesday (Jan. 30), 6 p.m. @ Hornblower Inifinity, 353 West Street, Pier 40

Entrepreneurship in the Beer Industry
With Chris Gallant (GM and cofounder, Bronx Brewery), Justin Philips (owner and operator, Beer Table) and Jordan Elpern-Waxman (founder, Craft Beer Co).
Wednesday (Jan. 30), 7 p.m. @ Professor Thoms, 219 2nd Avenue

DreamIt Health Road Show (NYC)
Meet the managing directors of DreamIt Health, network with other healthtech entrepreneurs and get your questions answered about their inaugural accelerator program.
Wednesday (Jan. 30), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly West, 10 E. 21st Street

Start-Up City: If You Can Make it Here ... Part 1: Getting Into the Game
With Rachel Haot (Chief Digital Officer, Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment), Mo Koyfman (Spark Capital), Clifford Schorer (EIR, Columbia Business School), David Rose (Gust), Rob Fassino (XO Group) and moderated by Bianca Bosker (senior tech editor, Huffington Post).
Thursday (Jan. 31), 6 p.m. @ Long Island University (Brooklyn Campus), 1 University Plaza, Brooklyn

Digital Dumbo dd:SOCIAL 4 Year Anniversary
Thursday (Jan. 31), 6:30 p.m. @ The DUMBO Loft, 155 Water Street, Brooklyn

Start-Up City: If You Can Make it Here ... Part 2: Tales from the Alley
With Ben McKean (founder and CEO, Savored), Vinicius Vacanti (cofounder and CEO, Yipit), Kathryn Minshew (founder and CEO, The Daily Muse), Kellee Khalil (founder, Lover.ly), Hursh Agrawal (cofounder, Branch) and moderated by Caroline McCarthy (business marketing manager, Google).
Thursday (Jan. 31), 7:30 p.m. @ Long Island University (Brooklyn Campus), 1 University Plaza, Brooklyn

Decoded Fashion Hackathon
Saturday (Feb. 2), 10 a.m. @ The Alley, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

Startup Singles Pre-Valentines Day Happy Hour
Is your Valentine this year your startup team members? That might be good for your startup, but not for your social life.
Wednesday (Feb. 6), 6 p.m. @ Tom & Jerry, 288 Elizabeth Street

More events on the horizon...
February 2013 NY Tech Meetup on Feb. 5 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
Business Insider Presents: Social Commerce Summit on Feb. 6 @ Pier 60
Critical New UX Design Optimization Research on Feb. 6 @ Anchin
Startup Singles Pre-Valentines Day Happy Hour on Feb. 6 @ Tom & Jerry
Advanced LinkedIn Marketing: Beyond the Request to Connect on Feb. 7 @ Infor
Hearst Fashion Hackathon 2013 on Feb. 9 @ Hearst
Tech@NYU DemoDays on Feb. 9 @ eBay NYC
February 2013 NY Enterprise Technology Meetup on Feb. 12 @ Cooley
Investor Feedback Forum on Feb. 14 @ Microsoft
Columbia Business School PE/VC Conference on Feb. 15 @ Alfred Lerner Hall at Columbia University
HackInteractive on Feb. 16 @ General Assembly
Social Media Week NY 2013 on Feb. 18 @ Metropolitan Pavilion
Funding the Best in Global Innovation II on Feb. 20 @ SNR Denton
AIPAC Technology Division: Launch Event w/Dan Senor on Feb. 27 @ Bloomberg Tower

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

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

First off, some sad news: R.I.P. Aaron Swartz. Aaron, who was based here in Brooklyn, was a brilliant mind, hacktivist and internet folk hero who co-authored the RSS 1.0 specification at age 14, joined the Reddit team in its earliest days and was the founder of DemandProgress, playing a key role in helping win the fight against SOPA/PIPA. Many friends have weighed in including Lawrence Lessig, Cory Doctorow and danah boyd. Aaron was only 26 years old and it's such a tragic loss for the internet community. Thoughts and condolences to his friends & family. Here's the official statement from his family and here's a video of Aaron on how we stopped SOPA.

The NYC EDC is launching its Spring 2013 NYC Tech Talent Draft, a series of on-campus info sessions providing computer science and engineering students with a firsthand look at exciting NYC tech startup careers. First event starts January 30. Interested? Go register here.

My buddy Steve Rosenbaum (founder/CEO of Magnify) is NYC EDC’s entrepreneur at large, and he'll be doing virtual office hours (via Google Hangout) on January 18 (12 to 1p.m.) to answer all your startup and entrepreneurship questions. Register here.

Hacker School (a three-month, full-time school for becoming a better programmer, like a writers retreat for hackers) is accepting applications for its Winter 2013 batch that'll run from February 11 to May 2. Oh, and did I mention it's absolutely free?!

Google recently rolled out the biggest Free Wifi network in the city in the n'hood of Chelsea (also the location of the company's offices), spanning the area from Gansevoort Street to 19 Street from 8th Avenue to the West Side Highway. Kudos to Alex Abelin, who heads community affairs at Google, for helping make this happen!

Forget "America's Next Top Model." The real action is in becoming one of New York’s Next Top Makers! The competition is sponsored by the NYC EDC to challenge makers, designers, and engineers to develop new products with commercial potential. Submissions are open until February 13th, and the organizers are throwing an event January 22 where you'll hear from IDEO storytelling gurus why good design doesn’t always speak for itself, and learn about the role of a designer in a world of 3D printers.

Congrats to my buddy Dick Talens (cofounder of Fitocracy and 500 Startups alum) for helping coach Brooklyn's own Mallory Hagan to the Miss America title!

I have one free pass to the Vator conference in San Francisco on February 13. Interested? Email me at gary@garysguide.com.

Looking to master the art of public speaking? Check out Holley (with an E) Murchison's Cool-As-A-Cucumber class series this month at AlleyNYC on the 15th and the Grind on the 30th.

Space Shuttle Enterprise: A Pioneer is a new exhibition opening January 17 at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, exploring the history of Enterprise and its critical role in the development of the space shuttle. The exhibition is free (with the price of admission) and the museum is offering a “buy one, get one free” promotion through February 15 to their Facebook and Twitter fans.

On Saturday, New York declared a public health emergency over the flu outbreak, with over 20,000 cases now reported across the state. Wondering where to get that flu shot? Here's a list of locations.

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

New Work City Member Show & Tell!
Demos by Anna Curran (Cookbook Create), Jason Kende (Inbox.io), Michael Carvin (Smart Asset), Natalie Rodic Marsan (The Social Media Playbook), Tobin Schwaiger-Hastanan (JobsNearby) and John Federico (Qrious).
Monday (Jan. 14), 6 p.m. @ New Work City, 412 Broadway, 2nd Fl.

CTO School: Becoming a better Technical Leader - Tips & Discussions
Jean Barmash will give a brief overview of different aspects of the role of CTO, as well as share some experiences for learning the skills needed to excel.
Monday (Jan. 14), 6:30 p.m. @ Pivotal Labs, 841 Broadway, 8th Fl.

5th Hardware Startup Meetup
Presentations by Ben Einstein (founder, Bolt, a new hardware incubator), Alex Hawkinson (founder, Smart Things), Britta Riley (CEO, WindowFarms) and James Wolff (VP, DSHAPE - the world's largest 3D concrete printer).
Tuesday (Jan. 15), 6:30 p.m. @ NYU Poly Varick Street Incubator, 137 Varick Street, 2nd Fl.

I Like It When You Call Me Big Data
Presentations by Kevin Turner (Associate Partner, IBM Global Services), Josh Baron (Senior Academic Technology Office, Marist College) and Dr. Bruce Wexler (C8Sciences).
Tuesday (Jan. 15), 7 p.m. @ Knewton, 100 5th Avenue

Twitter NYC Engineering Tech Talk
Showcasing some of the latest and greatest projects Twitter is working on in New York City. An evening of beer, food and talks. With Nathan Marz (operating Storm clusters), Naz Erkan (an overview of Spiderduck) and Alek Kolcz (machine learning).
Wednesday (Jan. 16), 6 p.m. @ Twitter NYC, 340 Madison Ave

1st Bronx Tech Meetup
Wednesday (Jan. 16), 6:30 p.m. @ Majora Carter Group, 901 Hunts Point Avenue, Bronx

Starting From Scratch:How One Small Idea Becomes a Big Deal
With Lisa Gersh (CEO, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia) and Lisa Belzberg (founder, PENCIL) for cocktails overlooking the Hudson and a conversation on turning ideas into success.
Wednesday (Jan. 16), 6:30 p.m. @ Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, 601 West 26th Street, Northwest Showroom

Social Retail Summit #4
With Angela Min (Snapette), Erica Cerulo (Of a Kind), Chelsea Sun (Shoptiques.com), Lauren Sherman (Conde Nast LuckyMag), Kate Sekules (ReFashioner), Robert Gaafar (CropUp), Keith Fiore (Zenplaya), Abe Burmeister (Outlier), Seph Skerritt (Proper Cloth), Carine Carmy (Shapeways) and more.
Thursday (Jan. 17), 3 p.m. @ Dumbo Spot, 160 Water Street, Brooklyn

Music recommendations at Spotify
Erik Bernhardsson, the tech lead of the Discovery team at Spotify, will present music recommendations at Spotify.
Thursday (Jan. 17), 7 p.m. @ Pivotal Labs, 841 Broadway, 8th Fl.

#techdrinkup - Kick Off the New Year - NY Tech Party
Kick off the new year right by partying with over 500 awesome people in the tech community at a kick-ass lounge with a one-hour open bar!
Thursday (Jan. 17), 8 p.m. @ Liliam - W Hotel, 201 Park Avenue South

DUMBO Developers: Human Brain Robot Body
Given the chance, would you put your brain in a robot body?!!!
Friday (Jan. 18), 12 p.m. @ Galapagos Art Space, 16 Main Street, Brooklyn

Monthly Music Hackathon NYC
All-day event for musicians & engineers to create new music-related projects from scratch. Amazing cellist Colette Alexander will be in residence throughout the day to collaborate on whatever crazy project you can think of.
Saturday (Jan. 19), 10 a.m. @ 199 Lafayette Street, 3rd Fl.

More events on the horizon...
Legal Essentials for Startups: Part 3 - Intellectual Property Protection on Jan 22 @ Anchin
Entrepreneurs Roundtable 54 on Jan 22 @ NYU Stern
Next Top Makers: The Business of Design on Jan 22 @ 3DEA Pop-Up Store @ Eventi Hotel
How to Build Great Communities: Lets Collaborate on Jan 23 @ Projective Space LES
dd:COLLECTIVE - The Changing Retail Environment Presented by Digital DUMBO on Jan 24 @ Huge
NYC Mobile Startup Weekend on Jan 25 @ WeWork Soho Lounge
TEDxBroadway: Industry leaders envision the future of Broadway on Jan 28 @ New World Stages
Rapid Iteration With Python: Scaling AppNexus on Jan 30 @ AppNexus Razzle Space
Entrepreneurship in the Beer Industry on Jan 30 @ Professor Thoms
Business Insider Presents: Social Commerce Summit on Feb 06 @ Pier 60
UX Design and User Experience Optimization Trends on Feb 06 @ Anchin
Hearst Fashion Hackathon 2013 on Feb 09 @ Hearst
Social Media Week NY 2013 on Feb 18 @ Metropolitan Pavilion

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

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

So, the fiscal cliff has been averted, the NHL lockout is over (yeah!) and William Shatner (a.k.a. Captain James T. Kirk) tweeted at an astronaut--AND got a reply back. 2013 is off to a great start already!

As you know, I got an early jump on one of my New Year resolutions (to get in great shape). Things have been going well and thanks for the encouraging emails, keep 'em coming! And I've got some more suggestions for fitness routines. Two in particular caught my eye: New York news personality Ben Aaron's Dance Walking (yes, apparently that's a thing, and the video's a viral hit) and Formula 50, rapper/mogul 50 Cent's badass six-week regimen.

FYI, deadline for the TechStars New York Spring 2013 class is January 18. So, go apply now. But first, read these excellent tips by TechStars NYC Managing Director Nicole Glaros on team, video and describing your business.

500 Startups is ramping up its presence in New York City with over 35 investments and now a brand spanking new coworking space at 28th and Park. Half of the space (20 startups) will be open to non-portfolio companies. Interested? Contact 500 Startups NY partner Shai Goldman for all the juicy details. Here's the application form.

Hearst is teaming up with the good folks at Angelhack to bring you the Fashion Hackathon: Hack The Runway next month on Febuary 9 during Fashion Week. Prizes include access to exclusive VIP Fashion Week shows and events, use of your hack in NYFW events, $10,000 in cash prizes, and mentorship from Hearst. Yup, it's going to be off the hook!

My friend Alison Flood (producer, Webby Awards / Internet Week) is throwing a little birthday bash / fundraiser to help those affected by Sandy on Staten Island (where she was born & raised). There'll be drinking, dancing and sounds by Silent Drape Runners, Steven Rojas and DJ Frankenmack. Rock on!

For the startup founders, here are two classes I'd highly recommend you check out this week - Steve Schlafman (Lerer Ventures) on How to Pitch Your Startup to NYC Venture Firms (January 7) and Aaron Holiday (DFJ Gotham) on Essential Things to Know When Forming Your Startup (January 10, livestreamed).

My buddy Vijay and his punjabi funk band BlackMahal will be in town on the 12th, performing with Nomadic Massive at Drom. They've played the Vancouver Olympics, shared a stage with Das Racist and been called awesome by Rolling Stone. So go check them out!

Random nugget: "What these people (in the late 19th century) missed was that electricity, far beyond light, was a platform for a host of new industries. Over the following years, entrepreneurs would come up with appliances--today we might call them 'apps'--for vacuuming, laundry and eventually radio and television and huge industries grew on the electricity platform." - Dave Morgan (Internet advertising pioneer and founder/CEO, Simulmedia) in a recent New York Times article.

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

A Conversation with Adaptly Founder Nikhil Sethi
When you found an ad:tech startup at age 22 without ever having worked a day in advertising, odds are high you might make a mistake or two. Learn about the good, the bad, and everything else en route to the first $10 million in transactions through Adaptly's platform last year.
Monday (Jan. 7), 6:30 p.m. @ General Assembly East, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the new Gilded Age
A reception and conversation organized by the Ford Foundation with author and leading telecommunications policy expert Susan Crawford to celebrate the release of her new book.
Tuesday (Jan. 8), 6 p.m. @ Ford Foundation, 320 E. 43rd Street

Invasion of The Hackathons
How a geek event gone mainstream is breeding innovation and unique opportunities for entrepreneurs. With Sabeen Ali (Angelhack), Jonathan Askin (Brooklyn Law School), Christopher Kennedy (48HourApps), Peter Robinson (ChallengePost) and others.
Tuesday (Jan. 8), 6:30 p.m. @ NYU Poly Tech Incubator, 20 Jay Street, #316, Brooklyn

January 2013 NY Tech Meetup
You know the drill: Five-minute, rapid-fire demos. A bunch of amazing new startups. Now hopefully you've managed to snag one of those elusive tickets!
Tuesday (Jan. 8), 7 p.m. @ NYU Skirball Center For Performing Arts, 566 Laguardia Place

New Relic Presents: Code Forward NYC - Meet the Developers Behind the Obama Campaign
Learn how the Obama for America’s focus on team building and efficiency helped them build a sophisticated cloud-based infrastructure that used big data to maximize their campaign’s success, volunteer engagement and voter outreach.
Tuesday (Jan. 8), 7 p.m. @ Grand Hyatt, 109 E. 42nd Street

FinTech Startups: VC Panel on Raising Capital in FinTech and 2013 Forecast
With Mike Cichowski (Edison Ventures), Josh Abramowitz (Deep Creek Capital), Huck O’Connor (Multiplier Capital) and Jordan Bettman (Bain Capital Ventures).
Wednesday (Jan. 9), 6:30 p.m. @ Dechert LLP, 1095 6th Avenue, 28th Fl.

Future of Media Panel
With Angela Tribelli (CMO, HarperCollins), Kate Lee (Director of Content, Medium) and Shafqat Islam (CEO, NewsCred).
Wednesday (Jan. 9), 6:30 p.m. @ Cooley at The Grace Building, 1114 Ave of the Americas, 46th Fl.

General Assembly + Warby Parker New Year's Resolution Party
An exclusive event to celebrate the new year, at Warby Parker's Annex showroom. In keeping with the resolutions theme, fill-in-the-blank postcards will be handed out to help you make and keep your resolutions.
Wednesday (Jan. 9), 7:30 p.m. @ Warby Parker Annex, 819 Washington Street

StartUP Series sponsored by WeWork
With Matthew Manos (CEO, verynice), Farrah Bostic (founder/Creative Strategist, The Difference Engine), Jared Cocken (chief product officer, Fitocracy), Oscar Torres (cofounder, zenplaya) and Pamela Castillo (cofounder, Market Publique). Emcee'd by Cindy Gallop (founder, MakeLoveNotPorn).
Thursday (Jan. 10), 6 p.m. @ Art Directors Club Gallery, 106 W. 29th Street

NJ Tech Meetup 32
With Bob Dorf (co-author, Startup Owners Manual)
Thursday (Jan. 10), 6:30 p.m. @ Stevens Institute Of Technology, Babbio Center, Hoboken

Investor Feedback Forum
Investor Panelists include Brad Harrison (Brad Harrison Ventures), Eric Hippeau (Lerer Ventures), Geoff Judge (iNovia Capital) and William Reinisch (Paladin Capital Group). Startup Pitches by Glyph, Curioos, Vestorly, NimbusBase, Epion Health, FreshNeck, MOWA and Sumpto.
Thursday (Jan. 10), 6:30 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 6th Avenue

Startup GC Panel #2
With Craig Abruzzo (general counsel, Birchbox), Nithya Das (legal counsel, AppNexus), Mark Silverstein (legal counsel, Spotify) and Benjamin Singer (associate general counsel, Gilt Groupe).
Thursday (Jan. 10), 8 p.m. @ General Assembly , 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

API Hackday NY
Bringing developers together for an all-day coding fest focused on building apps and mashups with APIs. Brought to you by Twilio, SendGrid, Ordr.in, Singly, IKANOW, OpenTok & Mashery.
Saturday (Jan. 12), 8 a.m. @ Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

More events on the horizon...
Soho Startup Lunch on Jan. 14 @ Cupping Room Cafe
Enterprise Technology Meetup on Jan. 15 @ Cooley
1st Bronx Tech Meetup on Jan. 16 @ Majora Carter Group
Social Retail Summit #4 on Jan. 17 @ Dumbo Spot
Benefits of Cloud for Video & Image on Jan. 17 @ Anchin
Legal Essentials for Startups: Part 3 - Intellectual Property Protection on Jan. 22 @ Anchin
UX Design and User Experience Optimization Trends on Feb. 6 @ Anchin
Hearst Fashion Hackathon 2013 on Feb. 9 @ Hearst
Investor Feedback Forum (New York) on Feb. 14 @ Microsoft
Social Media Week NY 2013 on Feb. 18 @ Metropolitan Pavilion

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

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

A couple of months ago, while attending the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, I had the opportunity to chat with a ton of upcoming startups, and I noticed a surprisingly higher-than-usual number of enterprise-focused companies. Yesterday Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson wrote an interesting post highlighting how the consumer web might be entering a stage of maturation as the action shifts from the desktop to mobile, where it's becoming increasingly harder to reach scale. 500 Startups' Dave McClure has an excellent rebuttal post on the topic.

Another one of my favorite tech bloggers Y Combinator's Paul Graham wrote a terrific must-read essay last week on startup ideas. Quoting PG: "The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It's to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself" and "Live in the future and build what seems interesting."

In other cool news, City24/7 is turning a bunch of pay-phones across the city into touchscreen smartscreen kiosks. This is the first experiment of its kind in the country, and they'll be rolling out 250 of these in a pilot project. Down in Nolita, 3D printer startup MakerBot just opened their first MakerBot Store at 298 Mulberry where you'll be able to get your hands on the printers, filaments, pre-made items 'n more. Nice!

ERA Accelerator's Winter 2013 application deadline is this Friday (November 30).

Don't miss TechDrinkup this Thursday, where folks from Bravo will be in the house doing an open casting call for the NYC edition of their show Startups. That's right. Reality TV stardom is within your grasp!

Also a couple of Sandy fundraisers / benefits this week: Goodnik and New Work City are hosting the 'Mustache-Sandy' event on Friday, and then there is the #NYTechResponds hackathon benefit on Saturday. And coming up next week are TEDxSiliconAlley: Rise of the Machines with guest Ray Kurzweil on December 3 and the AlleyNYC Holiday Party on December 6.

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

Business Insider: Ignition - Future Of Digital
With Dr. Mehmet Oz (The Dr. Oz Show), Jill Abramson (The New York Times), Jeffrey Bewkes (Time Warner), Don Graham (The Washington Post Company), Jeff Weiner (LinkedIn), Bradley Horowitz (Google) and more.
Tuesday (Nov. 27), 9 a.m. @ Time Warner Center, 10 on the Park, 60 W. 60th Street

Media Preview 2013
Panelists include Saul Hansell (Founder, Sii and former New York Times tech correspondent), Reed Phillips (media investment banker, DeSilva + Phillips), Emily Steele (media and advertising correspondent, Financial Times) and Lee Stimmel (head of creative agency, Columbia Records).
Tuesday (Nov. 27), 6 p.m. @ Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, 488 Madison Avenue

NYC Gaming November: Demo Night
Demos by Joshua DeBonis (Meriwether), Scott Rapp (Instreamia), Greg Irwin (BigTwist), Eric Schwertzel (Garfield's Collectibles), John Nguyen (Super Bunny Breakout) and Ien Cheng (Grasshopper).
Tuesday (Nov. 27), 6:30 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 Avenue of the Americas

MakeIt NYC: Secrets of Kickstarter Panel
With CW&T (creators of the Pen Type-A), Bitbanger Labs (creators of Remee, the REM-enhancing lucid dreaming mask), Hickies, Josh & Eric (creators of the Mason Shaker) and Yury & Joel (creators of the Pulse Sensor).
Tuesday (Nov. 27), 7 p.m. @ University Settlement - Speyer Hall, 184 Eldridge Street

Ultra Light / NY Angels Novemberfest Showcase
A startup showcase and free beer provided by local beer entrepreneurs such as Kelso, Bronx, Rockaway, Harlem and Brooklyn Brewery.
Wednesday (Nov. 28), 6 p.m. @ Alley NYC, 500 7th Ave, 17th Fl.

NYU Founders Showcase
Three startups from the NYU-Poly incubators and three student startups will pitch. Judges include Peter Flint (general partner, Polaris Ventures) and Jorge Torres (VP, Silas Capital).
Wednesday (Nov. 28), 6 p.m. @ Varick Street Incubator , 137 Varick Street , 2nd Fl.

Ad Age & Food Network Present: Brand Hacks
Hacking the food category. Six finalists pitch their concepts and the grand prize winner is revealed.
Wednesday (Nov. 28), 6 p.m. @ The Darby, 244 W 14th Street

Dwolla + Derby Jackpot Party!
Bet on horses. Booze on alcohol.
Wednesday (Nov. 28), 7 p.m. @ Tavern on Third, 380 3rd Avenue

Is Curation an Art or a Science?
A discussion with Techmeme's Gabe Rivera.
Wednesday (Nov. 28), 7 p.m. @ Outbrain HQ, 39 W. 13th Street, 3rd Fl.

MITEF: Investing in Aerospace Entrepreneurship: Air Traffic Management, Unmanned Systems
Stuart A. Auerbach (Ampersand Capital Partners), Mark Cherry (Aurora Flight Sciences), Courtney Graham (NASA), Adam Harris (SpaceX), Don Thoma (Aireon) and Laurence Vigeant-Langlois (Sikorsky Innovations).
Thursday (Nov. 29), 5:30 p.m. @ Holland & Knight, 31 W. 52nd Street

Digital Cocktails: The Investment Landscape-Seeds, Angels and Incubators

Panelists include Phin Barnes (First Round Capital), Tony Bacigalupo (New Work City), Gordon Crovitz (Former Publisher, Wall Street Journal), Micah Kotch (NYC Accelerator for a Clean and Renewable Economy) and Jeffrey Silverman (Laconia Ventures).
Thursday (Nov. 29), 6 p.m. @ The Wix Lounge, 10 W. 18th Street

#techdrinkup - NY Tech Holiday Party
A party for NYC's brightest and savviest people in tech. Oh, and folks from Bravo will be in the house, doing an open casting call for the NYC edition of their show Startups. Yup.
Thursday (Nov. 29), 7 p.m. @ Ava Lounge @ Dream Hotel, 210 W. 55th Street.

Mashable Media Summit 2012
With David Carey (president, Hearst Magazines), Alexis Ohanian (cofounder, Reddit), Kay Matadi (head of entertainment & media, Facebook), Jason Seikin (SVP, PBS Interactive), Bonita Stewart (VP partner business solutions, Google), Raman Kia (exec director digital strategy, Condé Nast) and others.
Friday (Nov. 30), 9 a.m. @ The TimesCenter, 242 W. 41st Street

GIVE GOOD Market
Organized by the New York Women Social Entrepreneurs (NYWSE). The goal of the market is to provide a highly-curated event that promotes successful women-owned businesses that produce supremely crafted sustainable fashion and goods this holiday season.
Friday (Nov. 30), 11 a.m. @ Starrett Lehigh Building, 601 W. 26th Street

Goodnik & New Work City Movember / Sandy Relief Fundraiser
Raising money for Movember and Sandy Relief Efforts. This 'Mustache-Sandy' event will include beer & wine, a shaving station, photobooth, faux mustaches for anyone who didn't grow one and maybe even a Burt Reynolds movie.
Friday (Nov. 30), 7 p.m. @ New Work City, 412 Broadway, 2nd Fl.

Sanitation Hackathon NYC
In partnership with the World Bank's Water Practice and ICT units, mobilizing an unprecedented level of collaboration from sanitation & water experts, designers, software developers, engineers, health professionals & students to develop breakthrough innovations for improving access to sanitation for the world's poor.
Friday (Nov. 30), 7 p.m. @ Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

More events on the horizon...
TEDxSiliconAlley 2012 on Dec. 3 @ Terminal 5
Founders@Fail: The Dos & Donts of Pitching Ad Agencies on Dec. 3 @ General Assembly
December 2012 NY Tech Meetup on Dec. 4 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
Vator Splash NY 2012 on Dec. 5 @ Le Poisson Rouge
Designers + Geeks on Dec. 6 @ General Assembly
Celebrate the Arts with AlleyNYC (Holiday Party!) on Dec. 6 @ AlleyNYC
FashInvest 2012 Capital Conference on Dec. 11 @ Fashion Institute of Technology
Ultra Light Startups: Investor Feedback Forum on Dec. 13 @ Microsoft

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

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

The lights are back on in Lower Manhattan, the subways are up and running again (well, most of them) and things are slowly returning to normal in the city. But in Staten Island, the Rockaways, Red Hook, Hoboken, Breezy Point, Long Beach, Seaside Heights and other coastal areas that bore the brunt of Sandy, there's a ton of recovery work still to be done. People are cold, hungry and tired and devastated communities are gravely in need of our help. If you want to donate cash or goods or volunteer your time, go check out our updated Hurricane Sandy Relief: Volunteering and Donations Guide to see how you can help.

For those of you frustrated from not hearing back from volunteering organizations, I'd recommend just getting a van and a bunch of friends together and driving out to one of the affected areas and start helping. You can take much-needed supplies like food, blankets, flashlights, batteries, diapers, jackets, etc. Volunteers are desperately needed on the ground to distribute supplies and help clean up, and this will be even more true during the coming days, as many folks go back to work. Remember, there may be another storm coming on Wednesday, so the next couple of days are critical.

It's been really heartening to see everybody come together and pitch in and help out over the last few days, so let's keep this trend going. Makes me proud to be a New Yorker!

This Tuesday is Election Day (yes, finally). Make sure you go out and vote and make your voice heard. Not sure where to vote? Here's a poll site locator, which been updated with locations changed because of Sandy.

On November 14, my friend Shaherose Charania (founder of Women 2.0) is organizing the highly anticipated Women 2.0 Pitch conference. Keynote speakers include female founders of Match.com, Cisco, Oxygen Network, Urban Decay,  and panels feature women entrepreneurs who've run super successful Kickstarter projects and grown companies from the ground up. Don't miss it.

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

Founders@Fail: Pitching Publishers
Speakers include Bryan Birsic (SimpleReach), Dennis Mortensen (Visual Revenue) and Shafqat Islam (NewsCred).
Monday (Nov. 5), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Floor

OPEN NY / SAMMA / Time Warner Leadership Series
With Ivan Menezes (COO, Diageo) and Salman Amin (global CMO, PepsiCO).
Wednesday (Nov. 7), 6 p.m. @ Time Warner Center, Columbus Circle and 59th St.

November Prince Building Tech Talks
Matt Witheile (principal, Flybridge Capital) on why a Boston-based VC moved his wife and dog to New York. And Thrillist's Ken Peltzer and Jay Chinthrajah will present on Thrillist's recently launched unified user acquisition system.
Wednesday (Nov. 7), 6:30 p.m. @ ZocDoc, 568 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Talks on International VC and US Visa Regulations for Startups
With David Teten (Partenr, ff Venture Capital) and Michael Petrucelli (founder, Clearpath).
Wednesday (Nov. 7), 7 p.m. @ ff Venture Capital, 989 Avenue of the Americas, 3rd Fl.

Ingenuity 2012
New York City's preeminent startup event, run by the New York Venture Capital Association (NYVCA). Who's coming? Tim Armstrong (CEO, AOL), Julius Genachowski (Chairman, FCC), Mike Richter (NY Rangers), Bob Pittman (Clear Channel), Michael Barrett (Chief Revenue Officer, Yahoo) and others.
Thursday (Nov. 8), 8:30 a.m. @ New World Stages, 340 W. 50th St.

Red Innova New York
An intimate event to create a better understanding of Latin American internet market opportunities and trends. Featured speakers include Martín Varsavsky (FON), Fabrice Grinda (OLX), Andrew Mclaughlin (Betaworks) and Matías Recchia (Vostu).
Thursday (Nov. 8), 9:30 a.m. @ IESE Business School, 165 West 57th St.

PandoMonthly Presents: Daniel Ek
A fireside chat with Daniel Ek (cofounder and CEO, Spotify)
Thursday (Nov. 8), 6 p.m. @ Projective L.E.S., 72 Allen St.

Women in the World of Gaming
How do we deal with the overt sexualization of women in games? Is it weird for girls to like games like Call of Duty? These questions and more will be tackled.
Thursday (Nov. 8), 6 p.m. @ Pace University, 1 Pace Plaza

Capital On Stage
An unconventional conference about funding where, in a twist, top-tier investors will present themselves to the world’s finest Internet startups. With David Aronoff (Flybridge), David Teten (ff Venture Capital), Tom Wisniewski (NY Angels), Brad Svrluga (High Peaks), Lucas Nelson (DFJ Gotham), Jahan Ali (NYC Investment Fund) and others.
Friday (Nov. 9), 9 a.m. @ Goodwin Procter at NY Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, 26th Fl

EcoHack III
Hacking on open software, open hardware, open data, and open ideas.
Friday (Nov. 9), 6:30 p.m. @ Old Pfizer Building, 630 Flushing Ave

Hack & Jill: Hacksgiving
A hackathon for social, global, and greater good. We'll address broken issues. We'll improve inefficient systems. We'll make the future better. Together.
Friday (Nov. 9), 7 p.m. @ Etsy, 55 Washington St., Brooklyn

Assembled: Fashion
With Abe Burmeister (Outlier), Amy Choyne (Kenneth Cole), Brooke Moreland (Fashism), Cindy McLaughlin (Style for Hire), Claire Mazur (Of A Kind), Dave Whittemore (Clothes Horse), Ilan Tito (Refinery29), Jenny Wu (Stylyt), Kimberly Skelton (Have to Have), Marc Schiller (CEO, Bond), Marissa Evans (Go Try It On) and others.
Saturday (Nov. 10), 9:30 a.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Tech@NYU November DemoDays
Students take the stage to showcase what they've been working on.
Saturday (Nov. 10), 5 p.m. @ Pivotal Labs, 841 Broadway

More events on the horizon...
Startup Lunch on Nov. 12 @ The Cupping Room Cafe
NJ Tech Meetup 30 w/ Brian Cohen NY Angels (Hoboken) on Nov. 12 @ Howe Center - Stevens Institute of Technology
New York City Pinterest Meetup #6 on Nov. 12 @ We Work Lounge
Funding The Best In Global Innovation on Nov. 13 @ SNR Denton
November NY Enterprise Technology Meetup (& Sponsored Afterparty by eZ Systems) on Nov. 13 @ Cooley
November 2012 NY Tech Meetup on Nov. 13 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
Women 2.0 PITCH NYC 2012 Conference & Competition on Nov. 14 @ Manhattan Center
AngelHack Fall 2012 New York City on Nov. 17 @ The AlleyNYC
Business Insider: Ignition - Future Of Digital on Nov. 27 @ Time Warner Center, 10 on the Park
Mashable Media Summit 2012 on Nov. 30 @ The TimesCenter

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

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.

Last week was all about hacks, hacking and hackathons. But guess what? We aren't done yet! There's much more hacking goodness coming your way. :)

First up, my buddy Greg Gopman is bringing AngelHack back to New York City next month, on November 17. This time, Angelhack is bigger than ever (2,500 hackers across 11 cities). Winners will be put through AngelHack's six-week Hackcelerator program and flown to Silicon Valley to present to A-list judges like AngelList's Naval Ravikant, Robert Scoble, and Google Venture's Wesley Chan, competing for over $650,000 in prizes. So go sign up!

Ad Age and the Food Network are joining forces to hack the food industry. They're calling on the best and brightest tech startups and entrepreneurs to evolve the Food Network’s local strategy.

AT&T is organizing the Aspire Mobile App Hackathon this Friday, in partnership with the Mayor’s Truancy Task Force and NYC Digital. The admirable goal? Improving attendance rates in New York City’s public schools.

The Shared Learning Collaborative (SLC) is organizing a Camp and Codeathon on October 20, bringing together educators and developers to work together in creating new applications for teaching and learning and to identify quality online content for the classroom.

M_RGE is trying to flip the traditional hackathon model on its head by having designers pitch developers--because design should be as important in winning as technology.

If you're a hacker who's into machine learning, then Machine Learning + NuoDB is the event for you. Speaker John Myles White literally wrote the book on Machine Learning for Hackers.

And finally, Hack 'n Jill have joined forces with the NY Tech Meetup, Girl Develop It, and Control Group to organize Hacksgiving, a hackathon for social, global, and greater good to address big issues, improve inefficient systems and make the future better together.

This week is also Beyond Beta, a series of events that are part of an extended version of Brooklyn Beta (the small but friendly web conference). There are open houses (Union Square Ventures, Birchbox, 10gen), talks (Hack+Startup, Betaworks: The Slow Web), happy hours (Chloe+Isabel) and more.

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

Music:Tech Meetup
Demos by Conduit, CyberPR, GeoRiot, Groovebug and SwarmFM.
Monday (Oct. 8), 7 p.m. @ Knitting Factory, 361 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn

LearnVest LIVE
With fashion designer Cynthia Rowley, Marie Claire editor Joanna Coles, Top Chef judge Gail Simmons, Gilt Groupe cofounder Alexandra Wilkis Wilson and others.
Tuesday (Oct. 9), 5 p.m. @ Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street

Founders@Fail: How To Bring Bad News to Your Investors
With Danny Schultz (DFJ Gotham), Andrew Cleland (Comcast Ventures), Rudina Sesari (Fairhaven Capital) and Owen Davis (SeedStart).
Tuesday (Oct. 9), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Floor

October 2012 NY Tech Meetup
You know the drill. Five-minute cutting-edge tech demos. 850 fellow NY Tech startuppers. One amazing event!
Tuesday (Oct. 9), 7 p.m. @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts, 566 Laguardia Place

Brooklyn Beta
A small, friendly web conference aimed at the "work hard and be nice to people" crowd.
Wednesday (Oct. 10), 10 a.m. @ Invisible Dog, 51 Bergen Street, Brooklyn

Navigating the Digital World
Featuring New York City Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne Haot.
Thursday (Oct. 11), 8:30 a.m. @ Bakehouse, 113 Horatio Street

PandoMonthly Presents: A Fireside Chat with Dennis Crowley
Dennis Crowley is the cofounder and CEO of Foursquare. You may know him from ads for BestBuy and Gap, as well as pretty much every story ever about the ascendency of New York's tech scene.
Thursday (Oct. 11), 6 p.m. @ Projective L.E.S., 72 Allen Street

Investor Feedback Forum
Investor panelists include Avi Fogel (Majorlee Investments), Rahul Gandhi (High Peaks Venture Partners), Bradley Harrison (Brad Harrison Ventures) and Habib Kairouz (Rho Capital Partners). Startup pitches by ACE Group, Jamplify, NestEgg, FreeTheFrame, Grafighters, MeebleMail, Fiestah, Delve and Flavorpill Gel.
Thursday (Oct.11), 6:30 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 6th Avenue

German Innovation Showcase German Tech meets Silicon Alley
Investor panel includes Yanev Suissa (New Enterprise Associates), Mark Fasciano (Canrock Ventures) and Thatcher Bell (DFJ Gotham Ventures). Presenters include Florian Roellig (Poachee), Danny Schaarman (T!M Solutions), Rolf Henning (Edicos) and others.
Thursday (Oct. 11), 6:30 p.m. @ Greenhouse, 150 Varick Street

[Beyond Beta] Chloe + Isabel Happy Hour with VC Q&A
Chloe + Isabel will join forces with General Catalyst VC Jonathan Teo to discuss emerging business model trends in technology startups during a short Q&A.
Thursday (Oct. 11), 6:30 p.m. @ Chloe + Isabel, 122 Hudson Street

[Beyond Beta] Hack+Startup by First Round Capital & Facebook
First Round Capital and Facebook are bringing together engineering leaders to direct technical discussions on crafting superior software.
Thursday (Oct. 11), 6:30 p.m. @ Crosby St Hotel - The Screening Room, 79 Crosby Street

James Altucher and Jerry Colonna: Finding Your Way as an Entrepreneur
An evening of conversation with blogger James Altucher and CEO coach Jerry Colonna ... at a church. You cannot miss this!
Thursday (Oct. 11), 7 p.m. @ Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 150 W. 83rd Street

AT&T Aspire Mobile App Hackathon
Have an idea for an app to improve attendance rates in New York City’s public schools? Then attend this special edition of AT&T Mobile App Hackathon, organized with NYC Digital and the Mayor’s Truancy Task Force.
Friday (Oct. 12), 6 p.m. @ AT&T, 33 Thomas Street

Film Experience Hackathon
Judges include Christina Warren (Mashable), Marc Schiller (Bond Strategy and Influence), Craig Hatkoff (Tribeca Enterprises), Lance Weiler (Filmmaker), Julia Kaganskiy (Creators Project) and Jessica Brillhart (Google Creative Labs).
Saturday (Oct. 13), 9 a.m. @ Meet at the Apartment, 101 Crosby Street

More events on the horizon...
Pivot Conference on Oct 15 @ Crowne Plaza Times Square
Entrepreneurs Roundtable 52 on Oct 16 @ NYU Stern
October NY Enterprise Technology Meetup on Oct 17 @ Cooley
Talk NYC Presents: 2nd Annual Tech Madison Avenue Conference on Oct 17 @ Crosby Street Hotel
Queens Tech Meetup 4 on Oct 17 @ See Exhibition Space
The Future is Robotics + Software on Oct 18 @ Venue
Ignite NYC 15 - Truth is a Moving Target: Oddities Anomalies and Wonders with Data on Oct 22 @ Sheraton New York Hotel
New York Software Engineers (NYSE) Job Fair on Oct 23 @ AlleyNYC
NYTECH Presents: Apple vs. Samsung: What The Case Means to Software Development and UX Design on Oct 23 @ Morgan Stanley
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
Hack'n Jill: Hacksgiving on Nov 09 @ Appnexus
AngelHack Fall 2012 New York City on Nov 17 @ The AlleyNYC

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

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.

K-pop singing sensation Psy's "Gangnam Style" video (you know, the one with the horse dance) just blew past 250 million views and recently set a Guinness World Record for most-liked video on Youtube--and yet it shows no signs of slowing down. So some of my Silicon Valley friends decided to join in on the fun and create their very own "Gangnam STARTUP Style!" version :)

This West Coast reinterpretation stars Ben Parr, Dave McClure, Danielle Morrill, Seth Bannon, Kate Click, Chris Saad, Heather Meeker, Amy Higgins and a whole bunch of folks. Highlights include Dave McClure wearing a giant bowtie and a skirt (or is that a kilt?), David Hornik's cameo appearance on a bicycle and the inimitable Ben Parr channeling Psy (outside Google's Android building) so well he just might have a new career on his hands!

Missed the ERA demo day last week? No worries! Betabeat has you covered with a round-up of the latest class of startups, including Bizodo, Jetaport, Juniper & Trade, VidRocket, Houdini, CaterCow, AngelPolitics, SaleMove, Healthy Chic and mxHero.

A couple of my friends, Charlie Kemper (Revel Partners, ERA) and Shai Goldman (Silicon Valley Bank), are organizing a two-day kiteboarding event on October 6 and 7, bringing together entrepreneurs and founders for a great mix of kitesurfing and networking in the Hamptons. Interested? Go check it out!

Don't forget, next week is Advertising Week, with a ton of panels and parties happening all over town.

Peter Bell (SVP engineering, General Assembly) with my friend Kathryn Minshew (founder and CEO, The Daily Muse) will be doing a free livestream this Friday at 3:30p.m. on the topic of How To Create A Great Presentation.

Wix Lounge invites you to apply for their Design-a-Wix-athon, a contest pitting fifty designers against one another to see who can build the most face meltingly awesome website using Wix.com in just one hour. (Plus, there's a cash prize of $500.)

And in totally random (but awesome) bit of news, here's a snapshot of two Starfleet captains--Kirk and Picard, specifically--complaining about their cable service on Twitter.

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

Social Entrepreneurship Party
With Reshma Saujani (former deputy public advocate and founder, Girls Who Code), Nihal Mehta (cofounder & CEO, LocalResponse), Dave Kerpen (cofounder & CEO, Likeable Media) and Caroline Ghosn (founder & CEO, Levo League).
Monday (Sept. 24), 6 p.m. @ Likeable Media, 240 W. 37th St., 7th Floor

Muck Rack's #MuckedUp in NYC with NBC News
Muck Rack cofounder (and Shorty Awards co-creator) @Gregory Galant will lead a conversation with the amazing NBC News Social Media Team.
Monday (Sept. 24), 6 p.m. @ NBC News, 30 Rockefeller Plaza

NYC Data Business Meetup #8
With Dwight Merriman (CEO & cofounder, 10Gen), Arnab Gupta (CEO and founder, Opera Solutions) and K Young (CEO and cofounder, Mortar Data).
Monday (Sept. 24), 6 p.m. @ Bloomberg LP, 731 Lexington Ave, 7th Floor

Coming To America: Immigration Entrepreneurship & the Economy
With Congressman Michael Grimm (introduced the Startup Act into the House in May), Robert Greifeld (CEO, Nasdaq OMX), Liz Elkiss (U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service), Kate Hipwell (Regional Director of the Americas, UK Border Agency) and Dario Mutabdzija (cofounder & President, Blueseed).
Monday (Sept. 24), 6:30 p.m. @ New York Law School, 185 W. Broadway

Personal Democracy Media Presents: An Evening with Steven Johnson
Author Steven Johnson discusses his new book, Future, Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked Age. Other speakers include Beth Noveck (first US Deputy CTO and founder, White House Open Gov Initiative), Tina Rosenberg (New York Times) and Clay Shirky (bestselling author and NYU Professor of Interactive Telecommunications).
Monday (Sept. 24), 7:30 p.m. @ New York Law School, 185 W. Broadway

Enterprise Insights: Go Big (Data) Or Go Home
Panelists include Edouard Servan-Schreiber (director for solution architecture, 10gen), Richard Daley (founder & chief strategy officer, Pentaho), Patrick Angeles (solutions architect, Cloudera) and Kathleen Rohrecker (director of marketing, Revolution Analytics). Moderated by Andrew Brust (big data blogger for ZDNet and CEO, Blue Badge Insights).
Tuesday (Sept. 25), 6 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor

Open Hardware Summit 2012
The world’s first comprehensive conference on open hardware, a venue to discuss and draw attention to the rapidly growing open-source hardware movement.
Thursday (Sept. 27), 8:30 a.m. @ Eyebeam, 540 W. 21st St.

Entrepreneurs Roundtable 51
With guest speaker Raju Rishi (Sigma Partners).
Thursday (Sept. 27), 6 p.m. @ NYU Stern, 44 West 4th St., Rm 2-60

Fast Company Event at Aloft Harlem // Destination Design
With Geoff Cook (Base Design New York), Kelsey Falter (PopTip) and Chris Paik (Thrive Capital).
Thursday (Sept. 27), 6 p.m. @ Aloft Harlem, 2296 Frederick Douglass Blvd

Queens Tech Meetup 3
Presenters include Amol Sarva (Founder of Virgin Mobile USA, Angel Investor and Founder, Cfund), Sonar (a mobile social discovery app), Storybox (a social collaging tool) and Rukkus (an event ticketing platform).
Thursday (Sept. 27), 7 p.m. @ Hunter's Point Plaza Rooftop, 47-40 21st St., 10th Floor, Long Island City

Startup Grind NYC
With Scott Kurnit (founder of About.com and Keep.com). Scott led About.com as CEO through IPO and its growth to a public market value of $1.5 billion.
Thursday (Sept. 27), 7:30 p.m. @ The Alley, 500 7th Ave

NYC Startup Job Fair
Connecting qualified students and recent graduates with exciting and innovative New York-based startups.
Friday (Sep 28), 1 p.m. @ World Trade Center 7, 250 Greenwich St

Cleanweb Hackathon NYC
The opportunity to apply web, mobile and social media technologies to resource constraint issues, such as energy, waste, transporation, and water efficiency.
Friday (Sept. 28), 7 p.m. @ AlleyNYC, 500 7th Ave, 17th Floor

2012 World Maker Faire New York
MAKE magazine's 3rd Annual Maker Faire in New York, showcasing creative and resourceful people in the areas of science and technology, engineering, food, and arts and crafts.
Saturday (Sept. 29), 10 a.m. @ New York Hall of Science, 47-01 111th Street, Queens

More events on the horizon...
NYTECH Presents: Content Marketing: Beyond Liking and Tweeting on Oct 02 @ Anchin
Daniweb Presents: Advertising, Marketing and Media Mayhem! on Oct 02 @ Slate Lounge
Feast Conference Hackathon on Oct 04 @ Eyebeam
Growth Hacking with Noah Kagan on Oct 04 @ AlleyNYC
FOCUS100 Symposium and Pitch Bootcamp on Oct 05 @ Ogilvy & Mather
Investor Feedback Forum on Oct 11 @ Microsoft
Talk NYC Presents: 2nd Annual Tech Madison Avenue Conference on Oct 17 @ Crosby Street Hotel
Ignite NYC 15 - Truth is a Moving Target: Oddities Anomalies and Wonders with Data on Oct 22 @ Sheraton New York Hotel
All Things D: Dive Into Mobile on Oct 29 @ The Ritz-Carlton Battery Park
Ad:Tech New York on Nov 07 @ Javits Convention Center

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

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

You know what time it is? Why, it's SXSW 2013 Panel Picker time, of course! Which means that right now, you fine folks are probably putting together a bunch of awesome, amazing panels. So, same as last year, I'll be setting up a special section on GarysGuide listing your panels. This should be a good way to get the word out and pick up some valuable votes! :) To submit your panel, just email me the link to your panel at gary@garysguide.com and I'll add it to the list. Remember, voting ends August 31!

Wanna hang out with Jessica Alba? Of course you do! She, along with hot-CEO-of-the-moment Yahoo's Marissa Mayer, Path's Dave Morin, SV Angel's Ron Conway, Google Venture's Kevin Rose, SF Mayor Edwin Lee, Khan Academy's Salman Khan, Crunchfund's Mike Arrington and others will be at the annual TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco next month, from September 8 to 12. Go grab your tickets!

And speaking of San Francisco, I'll be heading there for a week or so to attend the TechCrunch Disrupt conference and hackathon. In addition, I plan on attending a bunch of other parties and events, spending time at some of the incubators, accelerators and coworking spaces and meeting a bunch of startup founders, CEOs, VCs, angels, bloggers and others. So if you are interested in sponsoring my world-famous Red Tie during my San Francisco / Bay Area trip, contact me ASAP! This will be an amazing way to generate buzz in the Valley about your awesome startup / company / firm / service :)

How does it work? You give me your company's one page summary + elevator pitch and also your awesome logo sticker(s), which I'll put on my Red Tie. If you wanna sponsor the entire tie and get complete exclusivity, that's also possible. Contact me at gary@garysguide.com for more details.

The NYC Economic Development Corporation is currently organizing the NYC Tech Talent Draft, a series of on-campus information sessions that provide computer science and engineering students at universities a firsthand look at exciting startup careers in New York City’s booming tech hub. If you want to get involved, the deadline for the first-round registration is today.

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

The Mobile App Developers Roundtable
Participants include Nina Sodhi (BluTrumpet), Mark Ghermazian (Appboy), Eli Sappir (Apptopia), Arie Abecassis (AppStori), David Ambrose (TravelZoo), Bob Walczak (PubMatic), Jamie Hall (MocoSpace), Rachit Shukla (Two Toasters), Gauri Manglik (Fondu), Jonathan Slimak (Piictu), Will Koffel (Thumb), Luke Melia (Yapp), Brett Martin (Sonar), Kevin Galligan (Touchlab) and David Weinfeld (Screach).
Tuesday (Aug. 21), 8:30 a.m. @ Frankfurt Kurnit, 488 Madison Avenue

Free High-Tech Fashion Event: Get Feet Scanned & Create Sexy Shoes That Fit
They'll scan your feet and use your biometrics to make high heels that are as stylish as they are comfortable!
Tuesday (Aug. 21), 5 p.m. @ 519 8th Avenue

NYTM Change-The-Ratio Womens Demo Night
Come see eight great female-founded startups demo! Lineup includes Fun Org, UpswingMe, ClearHealthCosts, GiftHit, Continuum Fashion and more.
Tuesday (Aug. 21), 6:30 p.m. @ Facebook, 335 Madison Avenue, 17th Fl.

NJ Tech Meetup 27 (Hoboken)
Startups demoing include Memori.al, GeneralMachin.es (DeafTel) and SilverLiving. Featured speaker is Peter Shankman - angel investor, founder (HARO), world traveler, ironman triathlete and cat father!
Tuesday (Aug. 21), 6:30 p.m. @ Stevens Institute Of Technology, Babbio Center, Hoboken

Brooklyn Tech Meetup
Companies scheduled to present include Sedan Magic, Loosecubes and Headliner.
Tuesday (Aug. 21), 7 p.m. @ Huge BK, 45 Main St., Suite 220, Brooklyn

Bubbleproof: Social Good For-Profit Meetup
So whats on the agenda? Dwolla's Alex Taub with a huge secret social good project, Gene Gurkoff (founder, CharityMiles) will tell the story of their model & business to date and a 21st century networking experiment.
Tuesday (Aug. 21), 7 p.m. @ New NYU Poly, 137 Varick Street, 2nd Floor

Entrepreneurs Roundtable 50
Drinks + Snacks + Networking! :)
Wednesday (Aug. 22), 7:30 p.m. @ The Alley, 500 7th Ave

TechHub NY by Flurry - Android Developer Dive
With Nick Burton (Foursquare), Matt Parker (LumaViro) and Kevin Galligan (Touchlab).
Thursday (Aug. 23), 6 p.m. @ First Round Capital, 200 Park Avenue South, Ste 1501

Facebook Presents: When ___ Companies ___ Great Designers
With Cameron Koczon (partner, Fictive Kin and co-organizer, Brooklyn Beta), Mimi Chun (design director, General Assembly), Charles Adler (cofounder, Kickstarter), Luke Woods (product design manager, Facebook) and Nate Bolt (research manager, Facebook).
Thursday (Aug. 23), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway

Helping Hacks: The Goodnik Hackathon
An opportunity to create real solutions to the technology challenges facing nonprofit organizations or benefit corporations by engaging some of New York’s best developers, designers and project managers.
Friday (Aug. 24), 6 p.m. @ Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Floor

More events on the horizon...
NY Games Conference on Sep 05 @ Museum of Jewish Heritage
September NY FinTech After-party and Networking on Sep 05 @ Butterfield 8 Restaurant & Lounge
2012 Tech Does Fashion Week (#TDFW): A Kickoff Party on Sep 07 @ AlleyNYC
Comedy Hack Day on Sep 08 @ Pivotal Labs NYC
Digital Money Unconference-- From NYPAY and Consult Hyperion on Sep 11 @ Google
FinovateFall 2012 on Sep 12 @ Jacob K. Javits Convention Center
Investor Feedback Forum (New York) on Sep 13 @ Columbia University - Schapiro Center
Design for Manufacturing Summit on Sep 20 @ Dumbo Spot

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

Now for sale on The Fancy: Cookie Monster cupcakes. (Photo: The Fancy)

The new OKCupid TheDatable, a new social dating site, allows users to tag their single or, more selectively, “datable” Facebook friends—so that prospective dates can browse for partners within three degrees of separation, i.e. their friends’ friends. Non-singles can join too, but expect to be tagged as a “wing.”

Not just 140 characters The web series network Blip will partner with Twitter in its launch of “expanded tweets”—which will include links to partner websites and content previews allowing users to view images, play videos and more, all within the tweet itself.

DIY Pintrest competitor The Fancy has partnered with the peer-to-peer marketplace Zaarly so that users can buy and sell DIY items like this Lego head propane tank and these Cookie Monster cupcakes.

Midtown madness Online advertising company TruEffect has opened an engineering lab in Midtown and tapped MIT grad Thatcher Clay to run the division.

Photoshop Aviary’s photo editing app is now available for iPhone and Android.

Sustain IT Brooklyn Beta and the City of New York are teaming up next weekend to host Reinvent Green, the city’s first sustainability hackathon, at NYU Poly.

Summer soundtrack Since its release for iPad last week, the Songza iOS app has gotten more than 1.15 million downloads. The team is apparently celebrating its success with a new playlist entitled “Pre-gaming with Ke$ha,” curated by the namesake herself.

Blue ribbon SpotlessCity won first place at the Ultra Light Startups Pitch Showdown last week.

Investors wanted Today is the Building New York’s Innovation Pipeline event at the SUNY Levin Institute. The workshop will include a roundtable chaired by Stephen Cohen, Deputy Commissioner of the Empire State Development Corporation, to discuss the statewide innovation ecosystem, as well as a keynote address by Dr. Alain E. Kaloyeros, the founder of the world’s leading nanotech center, the Albany Nanotech Complex.

Now hiring We hear that Warby Parker is looking for an Email Marketing Specialist, Signpost needs an Interim CFO and Sageworks wants a Chief Risk Officer.