Category: Startups

Why Robot Startups Now? part 2

  2. Broader Financial Climate A positive indicator for robotics startups is the improving financial climate. There are signs that the US housing market is stabilizing. Fannie Mae, the government backed mortgage company, has posted a profit for the first time since 2007 without needing a government bailout. The decline in home prices is slowing, …

Why Robot Startups Now?

Now is the right time for robot startups. Why? The reasons range from changes within robotics to changes in the broader financial and technological environment. There is a critical mass which we believe has been reached. This list attempts to capture the zeitgeist and define all the reasons why we’ve hit the tipping point. I …

Robots are good but roboticists are better!

MEGA Startup Weekend proved that you can mix startups and robots together and build new robot businesses. Now we need to work out how to repeat the success. It’s clear now that having real robot platforms is very inspiring. So is providing soldering irons, arduinos, and other materials like moldable plastics. But most of the …

MEGA Startup Weekend – pix & stories

I’m collecting links to videos, pix, stories from MEGA Startup Weekend – with Robots. The MEGA site has some great postscripts by Claire Lee of the Microsoft BizSpark team and Kelly Byrd, the talkTECH PR & Social Media Director. All the pitches and Q&As are on the Robot Launch Pad youtube channel, thanks to Michael Harries. …

Robots. Startups. Women. Opportunity.

This guest post at Women 2.0 helped us have 1:3 ratio of women:men in robotics track at MEGA startup weekend. Women hackers wanted for robots at the Mountain View MEGA Startup Weekend! By Andra Keay (Organizer, MEGA Startup Weekend) Robots, startups and women – These are a few of my favorite things, but they usually don’t …

Why Are We Doing This?

You might think we’re crazy, organizing robot startup events and doing it all as volunteers. But if you know us, then you know that we are passionate about creating new robot businesses, growing new technologies and new communities, and using startup techniques to influence human-robot culture. Tall words. But we’re taking small steps closer every …