What a week! As we prep to expand into our new 9,000 sq/ft offices, the clock is counting down to February 6, when teams from across the country will arrive for our spring session. It seems fitting that amidst this flurry of good news, we'd add four super cool guys to our mentor network. It's a mentor blitz!
First up is Ben Berkowitz, co-founder and CEO of SeeClickFix. Ben's got the Gov 2.0 bug and is passionately focused on finding new ways to use technology to increase civic engagement and help people live better. Ben was named Huffington Post’s 2010 Technology Game Changer, Inc Magazine’s “Entrepreneurs we Love” and Government And Technology Magazine’s Top 25 Innovators for 2011. Ben recently contributed an essay to the book Shift and Reset by Brian Reich. He has been a featured speaker at conferences including SXSW, WeMedia, Gov 20 Expo, BIF-6, and many others. Outside of SeeClickFix, Ben enjoys planting trees with his neighbors, hanging out with his puggle and his mutt, cycling and walking around New Haven, CT where he is a proud citizen.
Jim Blumel, Managing Partner of Blumel Holdings LLC, has founded/owned/sold companies, invested/worked in several startups in a variety of fields and built and staffed several businesses, where he gained extensive experience raising funds from venture capital firms and investors in the US and Europe. Jim was CEO of Axis Three. Jim is a member of the Steering Committee and Co-Chairman of the Screening Committee for the Cherrystone Angel Group, a 50-member angel investment consortium based in Providence, RI. He enjoys business and seeing young companies achieve growth. Most importantly, Jim likes to have a good time along the way!
Brian Jepson has been a de facto Betaspring mentor since our launch and it's high time he got due credit with an official acknowledgement. Brian is an O'Reilly editor, hacker, and co-founder of Providence Geeks and the Rhode Island Mini Maker Faire. Brian's advice and counsel has been instrumental to maker-oriented companies of all stripes. He's also been involved in various ways over the years with AS220, a non-profit arts center in Providence, Rhode Island. Not to mention, he's just an amazingly cool guy with deep experience and fresh insights into the world.
Chris Walker made his first visit to Betaspring this fall when he spoke to prospective teams who participated in the Betaspring Experience. Chris is the founder of Secret Labs LLC and inventor of the Netduino open source electronics platform. Never played with the Netduino? This open source electronics platform uses the .NET Micro Framework and features a 32-bit micro controller and a rich development environment that's fully open to users. Use the design files and sample projects to learn and be inspired, then remix 'em until you get what you want, how you want it. He was previously the founder of ControlThink, a home automation company that was acquired by Leviton. Chris and the Netduino will be a big part of our upcoming Hackathon on January 28. Chris currently lives in New York City.
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