SAN ANTONIO – Start Up Week is a five-day celebration nationwide to highlight a new kind of entrepreneur that is solving business and community problems with technology based solutions. Monday’s slate of events varied from an Ideation Workshop to a San Antonio Hackers Association Meetup, both at Geekdom.
Trinity University’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, as well as the 80/20 Foundation organized and launched the events.
Codeup, a three year old company that once was considered a startup, is hosting several events as well, including an all-female millennial forum. Claire Osburn, a website designer and consultant, was joined by other successful women in the growing industry to explain what they’ve learned and how to go forward.
While she acknowledges that she is a part of a growing demographic, "I think there's a lot more that can be done to encourage more women to work in this industry," Osburn said.
The first step is often simply learning the language, and that is something Codeup’s co-founder Jason Straughan said is helping San Antonio’s technology industry grow immensely. Straughan said, "We started with three of us three years ago. Now we are at a nice new facility, graduating more than three hundred new students into the job market. We are very excited about that."
One of his students, Richard Rapstein, is learning code and hoping to trade in his EMT ambulance job for a keyboard. "I want to work for someone, get some experience, get an idea for how it works and I eventually want to branch out on my own," he said.
There are many examples of how it can happen, including several small startups that grew from Codeup’s own growth. Simple business problems that have been solved with technology are now about to hit the market.
In their kitchen is a demo for Snack Dot, a fixed IPad that is programmed so that all the different foot items the company buys for the kitchen can be purchased without a vending machine company or large market kiosk.
Throughout the week, many more events are planned to inspire the startup community, featuring leaders, lawyers, funding experts, analysts and more.
Some of the events will include: the fear of getting started, entrepreneurial mom’s mixer and panel discussion, the global impact of the Mexican IT industry and collaboration is key: scaling your dreams.
A full schedule of events can be found by clicking here.