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Happy Thursday!
The runaway winner in Tuesday’s Game of Thrones quickie poll is that I should stop being a baby and just stay up later on Sunday nights to watch with the rest of the world even if it means some sleep deprivation. Fair enough. And I’m happy to say that only one reader voted for me to “leave you alone.” Never!
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I’m typing through the tears this morning after saying good-bye last night to our three awesome interns, aka our entire writing staff. (Check out the UNC-themed farewell cake for the three Tar Heels. Yes, I made it.) But this won’t be the last you’ll see of Rebecca Ayers, Jacquie Melinek and Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez. That’s not just because they’re very talented journalists with big futures, but because we’ve cannily made them deposit a few stories “in the bank” to help tide us over until our summer intern, Suzanne Blake, starts on May 20.
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We recently plugged the summer internship program that GrepBeat Godfather Joe Colopy has launched for North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics students. (And remember, startups, please apply by Friday, May 3 if you’re interested in a great intern.) Well, among the NCSSM-alum startup founders we mentioned were Shraddha Rathod and Mona Amin, both Class of ’14 (yes, you’re old).
Together they founded Freshspire, a software platform that connects farmers with the retailers, restaurants and food distributors that buy their produce to make the local-farm-to-table process more efficient and reduce food waste. In fact Shraddha and Mona first conceived of the app as NCSSM juniors. In today’s GrepBeat, Jacquie dives deeper with a Freshspire profile.
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It’s been almost three years since the Durham-based accelerator The Startup Factory closed its doors, but the impact it made is still being felt. More than half of the 35 companies that TSF invested in as part of the program are still alive and kicking, not including two that have already been acquired. TSF founders Chris Heivly and Dave Neal and venture associate Lizzy Hazeltine are also still fixtures in the Triangle tech scene, though Heivly spends more time on a plane in his position as a worldwide community builder for Techstars.
Marco talks to several founders of TSF portfolio companies as part of his look back at the accelerator in today’s GrepBeat.
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The same day that the Carolina Hurricanes bounced the defending champion Washington Capitals from the Stanley Cup playoffs (yaaay local team!), a different Triangle powerhouse announced the toppling of another Cap. Sorry, “Hat.” With its acquisition by IBM steaming toward a close, Red Hat will be removing its red fedora logo from the top of its 19-story downtown Raleigh HQ. The company will unveil a new logo and rooftop visage next Wednesday (May 1) at noon. Really, America, enough with the red hats.
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Music and tech combine over the next four days at Durham’s Moogfest, the 15th anniversary of the festival and the fourth that’s been held in Durham after its move from Asheville. In addition to tons of music from the likes of Questlove, Thomas Dolby and Kimbra, Moogfest will feature VR demos from sponsors such as the NC State Libraries and even a DIY circuit-building workshop using CircuitPython led by Elliott Inman, a data scientist and the manager of software development at SAS. See the WRAL TechWire preview and the Moogfest site for full details. And here’s another nugget for the “you’re old” file: Thomas Dolby released She Blinded Me With Science in 1982. Oh, come on!
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There’s a lot more to entrepreneurial support foundation NC IDEA than just a relentless commitment to ALL CAPS. Yesterday the org announced the 15 North Carolina startups that received its $10K NC IDEA MICRO grants for very-early-stage startups looking to validate and advance their idea. The winners included three local companies: Jeddah’s Tea and FitMom Athletics from Durham, and Wake Forest’s Aphelion. This is the second MICRO grant cycle.
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Fortnite might be all fun and games for millions of players around the world, but it’s a job for the people at Cary’s Epic Games. And with Fortnite’s runaway success, it’s become a very, very busy job. Polygon released a story on Tuesday alleging a “toxic” work environment at the company, detailing the long hours and intense pressure that some employees say have accompanied Fortnite’s dominance—and the efforts to maintain and expand said dominance. Predictably, Epic Games’ tight-lipped management had no comment. Please, just answer one question: do your employees have time to watch Game of Thrones?
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Because too much news is never enough
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See our full, ruthlessly curated calendar of Triangle tech events here.
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Extra Bit
Apparently Avengers: Endgame is like 17 hours long, so thankfully there’s an app called Runpee that will tell you the best time to make a quick run to the, uh, facilities. |
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