Archive for 'blog'
Skystream Markets Receives Investment From LaunchCapital
Posted on 09. Apr, 2012 by tobymorning in blog, Funding, Startups
Skystream Markets Inc., a provider of institutional transaction platforms
for the renewable energy markets, today announced an investment from LaunchCapital, a venture capital investor with offices in New Haven, Conn., Cambridge, Mass. and Palo Alto, Calif.
LaunchCapital joins an investment syndicate that includes Connecticut Innovations, Ironwood Capital Connecticut’s Connecticut Growth Fund, the Clean Energy Venture Group and several leading angel investors from the financial technology industry.
“LaunchCapital sees its investment in Skystream Markets as a foundational placement in the REC trading markets behind two highly experienced and passionate founders and their team,” said Konstantine Drakonakis, Director at LaunchCapital. “LaunchCapital is looking forward to assisting Skystream Markets as it executes its plan and scales this incredible opportunity.”
Skystream Markets acts as a neutral intermediary in the environmental market and does not take principal risk, thereby avoiding any conflicts of interest with customers. The team has deep expertise and a successful track record in building trading infrastructure in new markets that require service improvements to the entire trade cycle.
“We’re delighted to have a venture capital group of this caliber join our investment syndicate to help us build the company,” said Skystream Markets co-founder Naeem Hukkawala. “We plan to grow our innovative technology offering to provide the next generation of transaction platforms for the environmental trading markets” added Kapil Mohindra co-founder of Skystream Markets.
Skystream Markets is focused on the state level Renewable Portfolio standards, which form the basis of the primary tradable environmental market in the US, called Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). Each REC represents one Megawatt of renewable power.
Skystream Markets’ trading platform improves price discovery and market depth in both the primary and secondary REC markets. Skystream Markets serves institutional investors, including some of the largest renewable energy producers, utilities and commodities traders.
BTC Broadband Taps Entone’s FusionTV
Posted on 05. Apr, 2012 by tobymorning in blog, Cloud, Code4TV, IPTV, Local News
Continuing to lead the way with Hybrid TV, Entone, Inc. is teaming with BTC Broadband to explore a new Broadband TV (BBTV) service model in Bixby, Oklahoma.
With FusionTV, BTC Broadband can offer a new BBTV service that combines live Over the Air (OTA) television programs and full digital video recorder (DVR) capabilities, with additional cloud-based media services that includes VUDU’s streaming library of over 50,000 titles and more than 50 popular online applications, such as photo sharing from Flickr and Picasa, and social media via Facebook and Twitter.
“Our FTTH deployment is a key technological differentiator for our services,” said Scott Floyd, Director of Sales, Product Development & Customer Services at BTC Broadband. “With a product like Entone’s FusionTV, we can leverage our high-speed network to bring next-generation, broadband-centric services to market while also increasing our overall customer satisfaction with a rich and compelling TV service.”
Entone’s FusionTV solution is a turn-key managed platform that includes software, equipment and service. FusionTV combines traditional TV service with OTT services and is delivered as an operator-branded offering. FusionTV allows operators to roll out a unique video-centric broadband service that can increase the average revenue per user (ARPU) and strengthen subscriber satisfaction, all without the upfront capital investment and content acquisition complexities of a full scale IPTV system.
“Operators are realizing that broadband is the anchor platform for delivering new revenue-generating services,” said Andrew Morton, Vice President of Broadband TV Solutions at Entone. “BBTV is the proverbial win-win. It offers a path for progressive operators like BTC to potentially upsell their broadband subscribers to a premium tier, and can also give BTC a way to offer a richer, operator-branded TV service for consumers who may otherwise cobble together their own suite of online video services that can neither be monetized or used to enhance the BTC brand.”
FusionTV is enabled by Entone’s 300 and 400 series of hybrid devices which integrates Broadcom’s advanced dual-core processor – providing a flexible platform for supporting an array of advanced video and hybrid TV applications.
Watch our for our next Code For TV event, get on the mailing list at www.codefor.tv
Become Master Teacher on Skillshare!
Posted on 05. Mar, 2012 by Keisuke in blog, Classes, Coworking, Events, Internships, Japan, Jobs, SOMA, Startups
Skillshare, a marketplace of classes to learn anything from teachers in your community, is now looking for Teacher & Account Executive in San Francisco.
Since I was interested in becoming teacher myself, I decided to have an interview with Stevie who is the community manager of Skillshare. I’d like to share some of the tips she gave me to become master teacher in Skillshare.
Gaining a trust from students
In order to attract students in Skillshare, teacher has to have credibility. How can I earn that trust? Stevie told me that teaching is the only way to construct the good relationship between your students. Get endorsement from people who liked the class and be open to critical feedbacks to improve yourself to become Master Teacher.
However it is sometimes hard to take the first step. For those shy teachers Skillshare organizes class on designing the classes which staff of Skillshare will kindly walk you through picking a class topic, designing your first class, and all the other steps you need.
Building course for your class and create community
Another important concept of Skillshare is “course”. Many other P2P teaching platform just offers intermittent contents but Skillshare encourage teachers to create course with different level of difficulty so that students can improve their skill with continuous support from same teacher.
Becoming Master Teacher
You can also earn the trust by becoming Master Teacher.
Here are some of the criterias you have to overcome.
- Should apply or be nominated by the Skillshare team
- Have taught several amazing classes with EVEN MORE lined up
- Have lots of loving feedback from students
- Have a detailed & personalized profile that links to Twitter, Facebook, and beyond
- Are capable of receiving 15+ endorsements per quarter
Stevie emphasize the importance of endorsement because after all, it’s the student who decides the best teacher in the campus!
Skillshare’s mission is to transform education by empowering teaching and democratizing learning. Every human being is natural teacher! Transform every place to school! (They even once had class in subway, teaching “how to talk to stranger). I’m sure the future of Skillshare will replace the traditional education system with high tuition.
You want to help accomplish this mission? Skillshare is looking for Account Executive who could help recruit great teachers. For more information, click here for more information about this role.
Keisuke
Follow all my adventures in the US here on our Facebook page.
Go Fund Yourself! FailChats
Posted on 28. Feb, 2012 by lilly in blog, Coworking, Events, Funding, SOMA, Startups
Last night over 70 people gathered to hear a panel moderated by Charles Hudson, a Venture Partner with SoftTech VC, talk about their experience bootstrapping, learning the importance of accountability, deciding what were the important metrics of success, and how to survive when things don’t go as well as hoped.
Christine Herron, Director with Intel Capital, Trevor Cornwell, the founder and CEO of appbackr inc., Danae Ringelmann, co-founder of IndieGoGo, and George Revutsky, the founder and CEO of MyNextCustomer all spoke eloquently about their experience.
We learned that mom can be the best angel investor when you need to get through that little hump, but be sure your arrangement has clear terms. We learned about risk, and the importance of maintaining strong relationships both personally and professionally.
Check out the photos on our facebook page, and look out for our next FailChat in the coming months!!
Citizen Space Art and Wine Class
Posted on 25. Feb, 2012 by tobymorning in Art, blog, Classes, SOMA, wine
Saturday August 11, 2012 – Saturday August 11, 2012
425 Second Street, Ste 100
Description:
Citizen Space Wine and Art classes make painting easy and exciting. Our talented artists will instruct you step-by-step through re-creating a featured painting of the day.
At the end of the event, you’ll take home a work of art that you created. Citizen Space Art Classes are cheaper than art school! There are no lengthy or expensive commitments with our art classes.
Membership is easy, and fun. You can join us whenever you want, try it once, do it once a week, once a month, for special occasions or as long as it takes to create a collection that is uniquely yours. “Life is too short for blank dull walls; unleash your inner artist today at Citizen Space”
- One Year Co Learning Membership ($120 value)
- Instructor fee (a $70 value/person)
- Canvas, oil paints, and brushes (a $30 value/person). Participants paint based on a theme or subject, and take home their completed work at the end of the class.
- Choice of champagne or wine (a $24 value/person)
