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60 Second Interview: Natali Chanany (VAN DER)

15 April, 2011 by Bela Hamid

I always describe Natali Chanany as a little woman with a BIG personality, and of those who’ve met her, I think few would disagree!

Given that we first met at iCUE, a junior enterprise at the University of Edinburgh, I’m not surprised that her interest in entrepeneurism and passion for startups led her to become involved in Scottish startup Van Der. This online fashion startup launched at the end of November 2010 and caught my attention as a result of some marketing activity powered by this wk’s 60 Second interviewee.

Name: Natali Chanany

Your role: Press and Social Media Marketing for Van Der

How old is Van Der? Just under a year.

What’s the next big challenge that Van Der has to overcome?  Continue Reading »

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Final lessons: 5 things Founder/CEO of Innocent Drinks found to be true

15 April, 2011 by Bela Hamid

A few weeks ago I went to see Richard Reed give a talk at the London Metropolitan University where he kindly shared some of his experience with us in the form of five lessons. Lessons one and two were posted a couple weeks ago, and the rest are here.

Lesson 3: It’s all about the people

If after a while you find that someone is just not pulling their weight after you’ve given them opportunity after opportunity to shape up – then you’ve got to let them go.  What if you can’t find someone to replace them?  “I’d rather have a hole than an assh*le” is the Continue Reading »

Posted in Events, Opinions | Tagged , , | 1 Comment »

Events Menu: 11th-17th April

11 April, 2011 by Jessica Williamson

Note the Edinburgh Science Festival is running 9th-22nd April, so you have a great excuse to get out of the office and explore some events there too!

Monday 11th April: Discovering Startling things from your Version Control System (BCS event), 6:30pm at Informatics Forum 4.31

The industry is awash in an epidemic of bad code. We all know what bad code looks like – it’s opaque and impenetrable. But, we spend little time trying to figure out how it got that way. We assume it’s tight schedules or lack of discipline, but perhaps there’s more. In this talk, Michael Feathers (Chief Scientist at Obtiva Corporation) will relate several things that he’s learned by taking a longitudinal view of a system – by issuing queries of a code base and relating the results back to events on a team. This event is put on by the organisation formerly known as the British Computing Society.

Tuesday 12th April: SiCamp Brainstorming event, 6-8pm at The Waverley (3-5 St Mary’s Street, Edinburgh)

As we mentioned last week here, Social Innovation Camp is holding a “call for ideas” event to get the creative juices flowing before the SiCamp event this June. Join Social Innovation Camp for an evening of thinking about how we can use technology to tackle social problems ~ specifically social isolation this time around. You don’t need to know anything about technology to take part; just an interest in making your world a better place. It’s a chance to Continue Reading »

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Love arts? or coding little side projects … welcome to Culture Hack Scotland

8 April, 2011 by Kate Ho

Today, the Festivals Lab has unveiled their first big hackday event: Culture Hack Scotland. Culture Hack Scotland is an exciting event in which bring cultural organisations together with software developers and creative technologists to see what amazing new things they can make in just 24 hours.

Based around Culture Hack Day in London, the day will be similar, but with a distinct Scottish slant to it. I’m secretly hoping that there will be some really neat Festival based apps around it.

The day is looking for designers and developers, as well as people who work in arts.

I’m most excited about this because for once, we don’t have to go down to London for a hackday – which you can imagine is awesome. But the other thing that I’m excited about is, along with Social Innovation Camp, and the potential Startup Recruitment fair, Edinburgh is really one of the hottest places to be at for tech and startup activity. This event contributes to creating a tech community that encourages creativity and experimentation. I only hope that we can reach out to Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen to encourage them to come along!

Posted in Local News | 1 Comment »

#SiCamp event next week: Call for ideas

7 April, 2011 by Hilary Singer

SiCamp

Social Innovation Camp, or SiCamp (who Kate wrote about earlier this week) are holding a free event next week to start brainstorming ideas in advance of the actual hacking weekend in June. I went to a similar event last time SiCamp were in town—it was a challenging, engaging evening, and a much-needed excuse to sit down and think about a brand new idea that could actually change the world (or at least part of it!).

Here’s the basic details, with more available on the registration page:

Date: Tuesday, 12th April 2011
Time: 18.00–20.00
Location: TBC

Join Social Innovation Camp for an evening of thinking about how we can use technology to tackle social problems. You don’t need to know anything about technology to take part; just an interest in making your world a better place.

It’s also a chance to find out a bit more about how you can get involved in our forcoming Social Innovation Camp in Edinburgh, June 2011.

Who else participated in SiCamp last year? Any thoughts on last year, or ideas for the upcoming event?

Posted in Events, Local News | 1 Comment »

60 Second Interview – Jane Ballantine

6 April, 2011 by Kate Ho

Well folks, its been a while since we nabbed someone in the community for a 60 second interview. Just as a recap, we use the 60 second interview as a way to introduce members of the tech/startup community to each other. So if you would like to be featured, don’t be shy and give us a shout on email or in real life. This week, we have Jane Ballantine … Continue Reading »

Posted in Local News | 1 Comment »

Do you want a startup job fair?

6 April, 2011 by Hilary Singer

Startup Job FairAt StartupCafe, we’re weighing the merits of organising a startup job fair (like this one in New York City). We’re know there are loads of talented students, graduates, and others, who dream of working for you. The question is whether you’re actually hiring, and whether you’d be interested in exhibiting at this one-off event.

Give us your thoughts in this lightning-fast survey. If there’s enough demand, we’ll make it happen.

Posted in Local News | 10 Comments »

Social Innovation Camp (@sicamp) is back in Scotland!

5 April, 2011 by Kate Ho

Yes, Social Innovation Camp is back! This time, the team have preferred to locate the competition to the East side of the country (at the Informatics Forum – where I’m sitting right now!) between 17th – 19th June 2011.

Social Innovation Camp brings together software developers and designers with people who understand a social problem to help build web and mobile solutions to social challenges.

This year’s theme is social isolation: Continue Reading »

Posted in Local News | 6 Comments »

Events Menu: 4th-10th April

4 April, 2011 by Jessica Williamson

Wednesday 6th April: Leith Geekup, 1pm at The Constitution (Constitution Street)

Lots of geeks work in Leith .. let’s have lunch at the http://www.constitutionbar.com/ (You can pre-order food for faster service)

Wednesday 6th April: Tech Law for Startups, 5:30pm for 6pm at MBM Commercial

‘Tech Law for Startups’ is a monthly meetup for individuals planning, developing and growing high-growth businesses, primarily based around new technologies. This month’s theme is “Angels or Dragons? How to prepare your business for investment” … At the meetup, Dug will run through the various issues involved in preparing your business for investment before handing over to Shahida Imani, COO of AV9 Limited, a digital media business which provides opportunities for music artists to reach international markets.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Events | Tagged , , , , , , | 11 Comments »

Funding: Technology Strategy Board Proof of Concept

4 April, 2011 by Kate Ho

For anyone that’s looking for funding, there is a new round of funding from the Technology Strategy Board. Check out more details at:

http://www.innovateuk.org/deliveringinnovation/grant-for-research-and-development.ashx

I’ve included a quick intro below.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Funding | Tagged , | 1 Comment »

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