Celebrating Idaho's Coolest Entrep/Tech Stories! Will you help?

Feeling the entrepreneurial buzz? 

Just got blown away by the Breaker BOI event where design thinking gurus are helping HS students to team up for radical innovation. Wow! [Major props to the Albertson Foundation & Lisa Fisher, plus Juliette from Project Breaker and Susie Wise from Stanford's mind-blowing d.school!] About damned time that we brought genuine experts in design thinking!

Also, I am driving north to speak at and mentor in the "Be The Entrepreneur" bootcamp by the Palouse Knowledge Corridor [link - still time to get there, at least drop by Sunday AM to lob tomatoes at my talk :) ]

A quick favor -- I am on the ITC's marketing committee and we're working on two ideas, one we need YOU to chime in! (I know you all are shy... but please help us out?)

You've heard my mantra 

"Celebrate. Educate. Initiate."
 ...possibly ad infinitum? ;)

Imagine 15-16 of the coolest tech stories in Idaho showing off!

We want to put together a 2015 showcase for the best entrepreneurial/tech stories in Idaho - companies who are doing amazing things, creating incredible value but we do NOT want this to be the usual suspects, we want the Hidden Gems. (We also want to showcase the full range of Idaho's tech wizardry and encompass the entire state.) 

I am lobbying hard for the Ignite/pecha kucha model where speakers talk for 5 minutes in front of a wildly supportive audience. As I get deeper into launching the national/global TEDxEntrepreneurship in August write for details], I am increasingly convinced that if you've got a great story... we can help you be a great presenter.

So............

Will you send me ideas for presenters - especially hidden gems, especially non-Boise (but still want them), and a variety of industries?

Will you keep your eyes out for great candidates? 

This is going to be FUN! But we need your help to keep this being the same-old, same-old. 

If every Idaho economic developer, every Idaho entrepreneur, every Idaho entrepreneurial supporter on this elist sends me just ONE candidate... we could have an event that could draw national media attention and allow us to truly...

Celebrate (what great things we have)

Educate (learn from these folks) and

Initiate (use their example to inspire others to action!)

p.s. the other idea is a portal for resources supporting entrepreneurship, etc. Given that there are basically ZERO successful portals out there (and Idaho's prior efforts have fallen short).. it's a daunting task.:) 

BUT there is one exception and that's the new SourceLink model (www.ussourcelink.com) that embeds the portal into a more proactive connector model which itself is embedded within a serious, independent, no-turf-monsters-allowed ecosystem defrag effort. Anyway, check out especially www.kcsourcelink.com and play with it a while... SourceLink really wants to do Idaho (and they are making noises about my joining their board) so.. check out the KC site and dream of an Idaho version. 

And as always...

Entrepreneur Up, Idaho!