Come meet the third class of Startup PDX Challenge companies as well as mentors and supporters of a program that is intentionally diverse and inclusive. Learn more about how the Portland Development Commission (PDC) supports startups in our city.

Diversity is crucial to Portland's startups, but there's a big difference between talking about diversity and actually doing something. This panel will focus on practical steps local startups can take to improve diversity in our tech scene.

moderated by Audrey Eschright, founder of The Recompiler

Thursday Bram, founder of Urgency Inc.

Elea Chang, founder of Affect

Sev Leonard, founder of The Data Scout

Negotiation is an every day part of startup life. During this workshop, Katie Lane will help you with effective, practical skills to improve negotiations and give you ways deal confidently with conflicts.

Katie is an attorney and a negotiation coach who helps people protect their rights and get paid fairly for the work they do. She writes about negotiation and intellectual property at her blog WorkMadeForHire.net.

Diversity in the tech scene is a crucial topic right now. This panel will lay out real options for encouraging women entrepreneurs in Portland with suggestions from the entrepreneurs already living the life.

moderated by Paige Hubbell, founder of Women's Tech Radio

Christie Koehler, founder of Stumptown Syndicate and Authentic Engine.

Paige Hendrix Bruckner, founder at ClientJoy

Jewel Mlnarik, founder at Workfrom

During this one-hour workshop, product designer and UX consultant Amelia Abreu will give you a crash course in design thinking and how to use it at your startup!

Amelia is a consultant who works with technology-driven organizations to build and improve products and services. She is the founder of Abreu.co and has worked with clients ranging from Mozilla to Nike.

Portland's startup scene is like no other city's. Join us on Wednesday, February 3, as we shine a spotlight on the creatives and entrepreneurs you need to know locally.

You'll hear about local startups through the lenses of design, negotiation, and diversity during this slate of talks:

10 AM — "Sales Before Storytelling"
Paige Hendrix Bruckner, founder at ClientJoy

11 AM — "Design Thinking for Startups"
Amelia Abreu, product designer and UX consultant at Abreu.co

12 PM — Lunch Break

1:30 PM — "What Women Entrepreneurs in Portland Need"
moderated by Paige Hubbell, founder of Women's Tech Radio
Christie Koehler, founder of Stumptown Syndicate and Authentic Engine
Paige Hendrix Bruckner, founder at ClientJoy
Jewel Mlnarik, founder at Workfrom

2:30 PM — "Beyond Leaning In: How to Negotiate to Get What You Want"
Katie Lane, attorney and negotiation consultant at Work Made for Hire

3:30 PM — "Practical Diversity in the Portland Tech Scene"
moderated by Audrey Eschright, founder of The Recompiler
Thursday Bram, founder of Urgency Inc.
Elea Chang, founder of Affect
Sev Leonard, founder of The Data Scout

Please note that no lunch will be provided, though you're encouraged to take one of our speakers out to lunch at one of the many restaurants near the PDC.

WHEN
Wednesday, February 3, 2016 from 10:00 AM to 4:30 PM (PST)

WHERE
Portland Development Commission - 222 Northwest 5th Avenue Portland, OR 97209

Paige Hendrix Bruckner has a startup with an amazing story that any marketing team would love to tell, but she's the first to tell you that a startup needs to focus on finding a product-market fit and building sales long before launching a marketing stratgy.

Paige is a passionate educator and entrepreneur. As the Founder and CEO of ClientJoy, she works with her team to help businesses show gratitude by managing their gifting. When she's not working on her startup, Paige teaches high school students how to become entrepreneurs with TiE Oregon.

"In diversity there is beauty and there is strength." - Maya Angelou

Design has the power to permeate every product, moment, and solution in our lives.

At the same time, diversity of thought leads to innovations in design that have the power to transform everyday life.

The question is, how do we design products, services & environments that reflect a diversity of experiences and perspectives, which are shaped by things like race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual identity, ability/disability and location, among other factors?

Please join us and our incredible panel of diversity, design + technology leaders, as we seek to address what diversity means, not only in the world of design and technology, but in the world at large.

About our panelists:

Tyesha Snow has spent more than a decade creating and shaping interactive experiences and successfully managing software products, working with some of the world’s largest agencies to create brand affinity for Fortune 500 companies in multiple industries.

James Pritchett is an award-winning designer, known for delivering out-of-the-box concepts, dynamic visuals and innovative strategies for online and print delivery. His background includes acclaimed work on campaigns for startups to leading Fortune 500 brands. He is currently founder & CEO of The More Company.

Joy Alise Davis is a collaborative design strategist and interdisciplinary social practitioner. She is a founding partner of Design Culture Lab, a research-based social lab dedicated to the transformation of neighborhoods through collaborative design strategies that address complex spatial issues of cultural, racial and ethnic inequality.

An expert in front-end web development and UI, Darren Bruckner has been designing and building quality websites and web applications for major companies for almost 10 years. He’s currently founder and CEO of Workfrom.

About our moderator:

Stephen Green is currently serving as community director of Elevate Capital and has over 10 years of experience connecting small/diverse businesses owners to the resources they need.

As Oregon’s largest foreign trading partner, China is critical to our state’s economy. Whether importing, exporting, investing in or courting investment from China, the business practices and cultural gaps can be impediments to those unprepared to work with the Chinese.

Information is power, and what you don’t know can cost you time and money in any cross-border deal with a Chinese partner. Learn effective strategies to counter the common mistakes that American companies make when negotiating with the Chinese.. Question/answer period will follow the presentation along with a brief discussion of PDC’s China strategy.

Featured speaker: Paul Saydak, Blue Sky Pan-Pacific, Portland, Oregon

Coffee and refreshments served

About our speaker:

Paul Saydak is Managing Partner at Blue Sky Pan-Pacific in Portland. During a decade in China, he managed numerous cross-border transactions, including a Middle Eastern investment bank's pre-IPO acquisition nominated by China Law & Practice as “2009 Private Equity Deal of the Year.”

Paul’s experience in China includes serving as Partner & General Counsel at a U.K. private equity firm based in Shanghai and as Senior Attorney at the Beijing office of a global law firm. Paul is a graduate of Rice, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania Law School and speaks Mandarin Chinese, Polish and Russian.

Please join us for the public launch of the City of Portland Early Adopter Program.  This initiative seeks to better connect  local Portland companies that can provide smart tech solutions with city bureaus needing improvements in operations, maintenance and capital projects.  The public sector is a viable testing ground for innovations developed by the private sector, in particular those produced by early stage entrepreneurs.  As the go-to resource for public and private interaction on cooperative projects, the Early Adopter Program will foster better information exchange and more efficient decision making between city departments and local industry.

At this event, you will:

Learn about City Bureaus and the innovation challenges that your company may help solve Meet with city staff and discuss specific problem statements in a roundtable format Introduce and promote your company   Discover how the Early Adopter program can be a resource for your company

We will be sending more information before the event on specific problem statements that bureaus will present for the roundtable sessions.

Join us for a Startup Spectacular!!

• Are you an entrepreneur who has taken the leap of faith and created a company with your brilliant idea?
• Are you looking for seed or early stage funding?
• Do want validation of your idea?
• Do you have a product, customers and are you ready to grow? Then pitch to a panel of judges from the world of investment at TiE Oregon's annual PitchFest!

Present your company in front of an audience of investors, entrepreneurs, TiE Charter Members and other influencers, movers and shakers in Oregon entrepreneurship.

The application process for companies is open NOW! Anyone can buy a ticket to attend, but participation in the competition is available for TiE Members only: that is, each pitching company must have at least one TiE member at the time of the competition, in order to pitch at PitchFest. Note that TiE membership has many other benefits!

Awards will be made available to winners in each of three categories: Concept Stage Seed/Bootstrap Stage Mature/Growth Stage

Interested in volunteering at Startup Weekend? Join us June 20-22 for SWAccess!

Sign up here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1mtYWuIfRedK25LJBWm6h4ml7rozAqKdDtNDD6LkUk0o/viewform

What is Startup Weekend Access? A crash course for those curious about entrepreneurship! You’re invited to attend Startup Weekend Access, a Startup Weekend focused on making entrepreneurship more accessible to everyone. Our mission is to create an environment where anyone can innovate together. We're focusing on accessibility to provide better access for people with disabilities and fluid collaboration amongst every participant. An appropriate accessible environment with the necessary auxiliary aids support services will be provided!

Everyone is welcome, and we’d love you to join us!

What’s Startup Weekend? Startup Weekend’s a 54-hour event where aspiring entrepreneurs, developers, designers, marketers, product managers, and entrepreneurs of all abilities come together to share startup ideas, form teams, build products, and launch startups. Essentially, it’s a crash course in entrepreneurship that lets you experience what it’s really like to build and launch a startup.

Whether you have an idea for a new mobile app that will make your life easier or just want to learn more about entrepreneurship, we encourage you to attend.

Why? The statistics are clear, people with disabilities are not only less likely to be employed, but also less likely to pursue entrepreneurship. We hope that Startup Weekend Access will ignite your entrepreneurial spark!

FEBRUARY 24th EVENT

Hi All - very excited to announce our February event. Vanessa Van Edwards will treat us with a private workshop on body language, especially targeted to women entrepreneurs. Can't wait! See you all there!

Body Language for Female Entrepreneurs

How can body language increase your presence, power and charisma? Vanessa Van Edwards has a special presentation for Female Founders Forum on how female entrepreneurs can use nonverbal to:

• Get an edge in negotiations
• Rock their elevator pitch
• Master networking events
• Pitch investors

Vanessa will use the latest research on nonverbal communication to teach women how to increase their success with people in the business world.

Speaker Bio:

Vanessa Van Edwards (Science Of People) Vanessa is a published author and behavioral investigator. Her specialties are human lie detection and body language. She is a Huffington Post columnist and regularly appears on CNN, Forbes, Business Week and the Wall Street Journal to talk about her research. Vanessa is a published Penguin author and regularly gives keynotes and appears in the media. She teaches a popular online class on Body Language for Entrepreneurs about the use of nonverbal communication to increase influence as a business owner. She helps entrepreneurs use body language to pitch investors, fundraise, get in the media, negotiate, increase sales and do effective customer validation.

Use discount code " calagator "for a 25% discount. http://bit.ly/1ioWhHi

Startup Weekend focused on making entrepreneurship more accessible to everyone. Our mission is to create an environment where anyone can innovate together. We're focusing on accessibility to provide better access for people with disabilities and fluid collaboration amongst every participant. An appropriate accessible environment with the necessary auxiliary aids support services will be provided!

Startup Weekend’s a 54-hour event where aspiring entrepreneurs, developers, designers, marketers, product managers, and entrepreneurs of all abilities come together to share startup ideas, form teams, build products, and launch startups. Essentially, it’s a crash course in entrepreneurship that lets you experience what it’s really like to build and launch a startup.

Whether you have an idea for a new mobile app that will make your life easier or just want to learn more about entrepreneurship, we encourage you to attend.

Why? The statistics are clear, people with disabilities are not only less likely to be employed, but also less likely to pursue entrepreneurship. We hope that Startup Weekend Access will ignite your entrepreneurial spark!

AWS User Group Road Trip with Jeff Barr

Acquia is hosting an Open House to meet all of our friends in the Portland area! Please join us for an Hour (or 2!) of Happy!

RSVP at the Eventbrite, space is limited.

Please explain who or what Acquia is. Thank you.

CREATING AND PROMOTING A CULTURE OF INNOVATION: With Facebook's Former VP of HR: Beth Steinberg

Beth will talk about her experience at Facebook as VP of HR and the strategies and tactics she used to build an attractive culture and retain the talent that helped fuel Facebook’s explosive growth. She will share some stories about her time at Facebook and other leading technology companies and will talk about some roles that a CEO/Founder can play in helping to build a great team and market corporate culture in support of recruitment efforts.

• Learn strategies and tactics used to attract and retain the talent that helped fuel Facebook’s explosive growth
• Learn what roles a CEO/Founder can play in helping to build a great team and market corporate culture in support of recruitment efforts
• Gain strategies that local companies can use to attract C-level talent as well as top-notch developers in a market that is growing more competitive by the day
• Gain helpful insight for Tech leaders and companies with complex organizational and growth issues

Agenda 5:30pm Doors Open, Cocktails and Networking 6:00pm Program Begins 8:00pm Program Ends

Click Here for information and to Register.

PDX11 is proud to welcome Ken Westin, CEO of ActiveTrak, and Jeff Martens and Matthew Wallington, founders of CPUsage to lead Roundtable #2 - The Psychology of Starting Up!

On Tuesday, March 20th from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m, we will hold our second of the 2012 PDX11 Roundtable Series. This session’s topic is “The Psychology of Starting Up” – a first hand exploration of two different experiences that led to our speakers' successful launches.

The Portland startup scene is full of activity, talent, and new concepts – if you’ve got these but need a candid, firsthand account on how/when/why to leave the tarmac and launch your startup, this Roundtable’s for you. Refreshments will be served, and there are a limited number of seats. Please RSVP to Tamsen Galloway to reserve a spot at the roundtable. Details will be listed at www.calagator.org.

About the PDX11 Roundtable Series:

The PDX11 Roundtable Series is an answer to the startup community’s request for a roundtable-style, firsthand interaction with software leaders who have expertise in specific topics. These will be held on a regular basis throughout the year.

For more information about the PDX11 Network, please visit www.pdx11.org

Please RSVP to [email protected] to reserve a spot at the roundtable.

This is our second community gathering in the process of identifying the elements the City needs to develop in order to have a thriving software cluster in the Portland region.

Our first survey in April helped identify the critical areas the city needed to focus on in order to build the cluster.

Our second survey in July drilled down into some specific ways to address these areas. At this meeting we will share the results of the July survey: • User group support • Creating a directory of local software companies and coders • Mentoring matching • Software company financing

Software is one of only four clusters that the Portland Development Commission is focusing on, so your input on this topic will have a large impact on what ultimately becomes our region's future for software success.

The PDC interview came up with 3 critical areas that impact software professionals: 1) Education 2) Political Engagement 3) Taxes & Fees

The goal of the meeting will be to break into small groups, read some of the written ideas from the online interview and brainstorm ways for the PDC to address these issues.

Each of the 3 groups will share with the larger group with the goal of reaching consensus around a few ideas for the PDC to pursue.

We'll then go out to the larger community with a second online interview to make sure that we're giving the PDC advice that reflects the entire region.

The Portland Development Commission (PDC) will be hosting Lunch 2.0 on May 19.

Are you vegan or vegetarian? Please leave a comment so we can plan food accordingly. Thanks.

Wondering what Lunch 2.0 is?

Lunch 2.0 is a phenomenon that began in Silicon Valley. You can read about their current events and the history behind Lunch 2.0 at lunch20.com.

We imported the concept to Portland in 2007, and you can follow all things Portland Lunch 2.0 at the Silicon Florist.

http://entrepreneur.meetup.com/1041/calendar/5666004/

http://entrepreneur.meetup.com/1041/calendar/5666004/