Academik

So last night we finally had our networking event, Tech Connection 3, at work. The event is for start-up tech companies to demo their products. We’ve been working on the event for at least a month - finding a location, looking for sponsors, organizing the companies, and marketing the event to a number of different groups. So it took place and it rocked!

We had it at a cool bar in SF called BOCA - the Bar of Contemporary Arts. Apart from a loud crowd and perhaps music that was too loud, it went off without a hitch. We had 5 start-ups demoing their products including Soonr, 411Sync, 4Info, Vpod.tv, and Plum. Soonr won a bottle of champagne for being the best demo, and a new friend of mine won a raffle for a free membership to Flexcar and a bottle of Riesling.

FlexCar and a couple other companies offer this awesome service called ride sharing - basically you pay a monthly or annual fee and you have really cheap access for as little as an hour or as long as a week. PLUS THEY PAY FOR GAS! It’s $9 / hr for hourly use and you can find them for $140 for a weekend! I’m signing up today. This is great for large cities where it’s expensive and annoying to own a car. However you can’t always get everything home on the bus from Ikea or the grocery store. Plus the cars that you get are recent, and many of them are hybrids. Did I mention you get free gas? $140 / weekend - unlimited miles - unlimited gas! Sign me up!