By Gary Sharma 11/19/12 9:30am

Goooood Morning Silicon Alley!

sponsor_garys_red_tie

Best Tech Events This Week (Future of Fashion, Healthcare IT Conference, Mediabistro Party, Ray Kurzweil, WeStory w/ Scott Harrison)

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.

Don’t miss the upcoming TEDxSiliconAlley event on December 4. The theme is “Rise of the Machines” and the keynote speaker is Ray Kurzweil (author of New York Times best-seller The Singularity Is Near). Other keynoters include Bre Pettis (founder, Makerbot), Jincey Lumpkin (attorney & Huffington Post sex columnist) and Ken Segall (creative director of Apple’s “Think Different” campaign).

DEMO will be hosting an event at First Round Capital on December 13 to meet and select potential startups to present next year at DEMO Mobile. Deadline to apply for a meeting is November 28.

Congrats to ZenMenu, Planet Expat and Cielo–the winners of the Who Would You Fund TechStartup Challenge 2012. And kudos to everyone who participated! Read More

By Nitasha Tiku 1/02/12 4:11pm

Teach Me How to Startup

Mr. Harrison

Charity Water: Run By Former NYC Club Promoter, Built Like a Startup

It’s hard to find a more social media-savvy philanthropic organization than Charity Water, whose good deeds are often being tweeted by the same folks who finance startups and launch tech companies. Over at Bits today, Nick Bilton interviews founder and CEO Scott Harrison about the non-profit’s tech bona fides.

Mr. Harrison, a former club promoter who used to make a living “selling people $16 drinks and $300 bottles of vodka,” got the idea for Charity Water, which provides clean and safe drinking water to people in the developing world, after living in Liberia with a group of humanitarian and surgeons.

The tech connection came very early on in the non-profit’s history.  Read More