[ { "id": 897, "participant_id": 3513, "presenter_name": "Maheshwari K Ramakrishnan", "presenter_bio": "\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @MaheshwariKR1", "session_title": "Journey into the Realm of Possibilities ", "summary": null, "description": " @10:15 in Hall# OKLAHAMA\r\n\r\nJourney into the Realm of Possibilities \r\n - Discussion about the probably Path for Self-Discovery, to Rehash your Narratives.\r\n\r\n\r\n•\tIs it fun being yourself ? Is there something blocking from being yourself ? \r\n•\tSometime in life we feel so lost and so tied up to some narratives which is not any closer to the image of our authentic self\r\n•\tSometimes we get too numb to our own desires, we question our self-worth\r\n•\tWe over identify ourselves as a responsible ADULT that we totally forget that we all have our inner child and that it needs to be nourished and honored to have a balanced left-brain versus right-brain orientation\r\n•\tCan we declutter some of those patterns? Can we find our true self? Can we connect authentically with our inner self ? \r\n•\tHow do we cope-up with everyday changes to massive crisis. The Possibility spectrum contains not just the PTSD, but Post Traumatic Growth as well.\r\n\r\n", "room_name": null, "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": null, "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 13, "created_at": "2019-04-26 22:23:37 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-28 02:21:01 UTC" }, { "id": 896, "participant_id": 3364, "presenter_name": "Esha Gupta", "presenter_bio": "I am a marketing professional with 5+ years of experience in marketing strategy, business development, customer research and brand management roles across multiple industries including manufacturing, non-profit, retail, media, healthcare and technology. I use my skills and expertise to address customer pain points, deliver meaningful outcomes and co-create exceptional customer experiences. I have a Masters in Marketing and an MBA from University of Minnesota ", "session_title": "Decoding Customer Irrationality !", "summary": null, "description": "We often think customers are irrational and their mind is a big black box. This session will help participants understand why customers end up making not so smart decisions and its implications on our business. This sessions aims to decode the phenomenon of customer decision-making and some surprising effects that play a role in making those decisions.", "room_name": "Cabin", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 15, "created_at": "2019-04-26 14:08:50 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:27 UTC" }, { "id": 895, "participant_id": 3080, "presenter_name": "Brian Weyer", "presenter_bio": "Software Engineer at SportsEngine focusing on front-end. I love to make things.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/brianweyer)", "session_title": "What to do when you don't know what the hell to do", "summary": null, "description": "You have been given a task to complete, either on your own, or as part of a team. The requirements seem understandable, you’re ready. Then, with no warning, it blows up on you. There’s missing requirements, you don’t have enough information, privileges, knowledge, or experience to conquer this task. So what do you do? \r\n\r\nHow do you know where to start? How do you gain experience and insight? What if you don’t have enough time to learn? What happens if you don’t know where to turn next? Are your colleagues or boss too busy? Do you feel supported? Do you feel as though you’re failing?\r\n\r\nThese are all natural responses to what often may seem an insurmountable task, at the very least, it’s a struggle. There are several strategies we can use to help ourselves move forward, inform teams and leadership (who are responsible for mentoring and leading the inexperienced), and move toward continuous improvement.\r\n\r\nThis session will cover actionable take-aways like:\r\n\r\nSelf-analysis\r\nRubber-ducking\r\nEffectively raising “the red flag”\r\nProactively improving interactions/communication/solutions\r\n", "room_name": "Oregon", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Design" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 50, "created_at": "2019-04-25 20:10:18 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:48 UTC" }, { "id": 894, "participant_id": 3486, "presenter_name": "⠀", "presenter_bio": "", "session_title": "⠀", "summary": null, "description": "⠀", "room_name": "New York", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 20, "created_at": "2019-04-25 13:01:09 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-07-22 05:48:03 UTC" }, { "id": 893, "participant_id": 3485, "presenter_name": "Gokul Baskaran", "presenter_bio": "Target (Lead Engineer)", "session_title": "API Authentication", "summary": null, "description": "PKI Authentication\r\n\r\nThe talk is focussed on the common patterns on API authentication and spread the awareness and need for enhanced authentication for API's. Very much needed to safeguards every enterprise in current vulnerable environment.", "room_name": "Nebraska", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Development", "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 47, "created_at": "2019-04-25 12:03:12 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:49 UTC" }, { "id": 892, "participant_id": 1793, "presenter_name": "Ian Young", "presenter_bio": "Ian is a professional web developer and an extremely amateur philosopher. He believes in keeping Minnebar weird.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/iangreenleaf)", "session_title": "Lightning Rants 🌩😡🌩", "summary": null, "description": "Is something bothering you? Of course it is! Share your negativity in a 1-5 minute format. All complaints accepted, no matter how great or small. Come angry.\r\n\r\nThe Minnebar Code of Conduct *definitely still applies here*, and at any rate you should figure out a way to make your rant about ideas or things, not people.", "room_name": "Oregon", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 28, "created_at": "2019-04-25 04:02:16 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:27 UTC" }, { "id": 891, "participant_id": 3471, "presenter_name": "Riley Major", "presenter_bio": "Riley Major is an Enterprise Architect based in the Twin Cities, MN metro area who enjoys collaborating with business leaders to design technical solutions and working with technology professionals to build them. He's been programming and designing databases since he was a kid and doing so professionally for 20 years. He has a special place in his heart for T-SQL in SQL Server and loves to share that enthusiasm.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/RileyMajor)\n- Twitter: @RileyMajor", "session_title": "Refactoring Database Stored Procedures", "summary": null, "description": "We get it. Move fast and break things. Just ship it! But what's left a giant stored procedure with cursors, temp tables, and mystery calculations. It's a big black box that nobody wants to touch. Let's fix that. We'll open the lid on an example monolith and do major surgery. What's left will perform better, be easier to understand, encourage code reuse, and be easier to test.\r\n\r\n(Code and process is designed for Microsoft SQL Server but concepts have wider applicability.)\r\n\r\nMost recent materials: https://www.sqlsaturday.com/842/Sessions/Details.aspx?sid=90600\r\n\r\nOther presentation materials: https://scribnasium.com/talks/", "room_name": "Kansas", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 18, "created_at": "2019-04-24 22:11:13 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:48 UTC" }, { "id": 890, "participant_id": 2544, "presenter_name": "Jean Lee", "presenter_bio": "Rev.Dr. Jean Lee is a fmr. Fortune 500 corporate auditor, has been on numerous Boards, Commissions, Task Forces, and Initiatives at the local, state and national levels. Dr. Lee has founded and Co-founded several organizations and businesses. She's done years of system changes and improvements from planning, development, and implementation to long term sustainable models. Core areas of work has been in education, economic development, Healthcare, housing, advocacy and services, public policy and technology.", "session_title": "Money Talks", "summary": null, "description": "Interactive Money Talks: Where and how to access funds other than your own. The art of raising funds and leveraging resources towards getting what you need for projects, product development, workforce and other business needs. ", "room_name": "Maryland", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 18, "created_at": "2019-04-23 19:23:06 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:40 UTC" }, { "id": 889, "participant_id": 2307, "presenter_name": "Anna A Prisacari", "presenter_bio": "[Anna Prisacari](https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaprisacari/) is the Senior UX Design Researcher at Honeywell and previously worked as VP of UX and Marketing at [Praxik](http://praxik.com), an Augmented Reality startup in Minneapolis. In her role, she closely works with clients to understand their pain points and needs and with developers and engineers to ensure the clients' needs are transformed into practical and desired products. To do so, Anna connects ideas and research findings, conducts UX testing, and oversees client satisfaction. She holds a BA in International Business, Marketing, Political Science, and French and MBA from St. Ambrose University and MS and Ph.D. in Human Computer Interaction from Iowa State University. Anna is the recipient of numerous awards in communication, teaching, and service and is a passionate speaker, writer, and mentor on subjects like UX, women in technology, and STEM. You can connect with Anna on LinkedIn and follow her on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/anna_prisacari/).\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @AnnaAPrisacari", "session_title": "How to prepare an effective UX resume and ace your interview presentation", "summary": null, "description": "Whether you are applying for your first job or exploring new opportunities, writing an effective resume for a UX position is not an easy task. In this session, I will share some tips on how to design your resume so it persuades the hiring manager you qualify for the position in seconds. But this is not where your job adventure stops. Often, UX researchers and designers are asked to make a presentation. These presentations may vary in format, length, content, but play a significant role in the job process. In this session, I will share some tips and tricks on how you can prepare your resume and on-site presentation. Bring a printed copy of your resume for a group activity and walk away with ideas on how to improve it.", "room_name": "Florida", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:25:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 26, "created_at": "2019-04-22 22:06:42 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:44 UTC" }, { "id": 888, "participant_id": 914, "presenter_name": "Marisa Brandt", "presenter_bio": "\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @marisabrandt", "session_title": "\"You get a car! And you get a car! And you get a car! Everybody gets a car!\": Moving Beyond Zero-Sum Negotiation Strategies", "summary": null, "description": "Many people find salary negotiations painful and awkward, but avoiding them can cost over a million dollars in lifetime earnings. In this talk, I'll go over successful strategies to make negotiations (at least a little) easier and how to increase your chances of better outcomes. \r\n\r\nEven when it's not possible for everyone to get a car, often everyone **can** get something they want out of the process. I'll discuss ways to find creative alternatives to zero-sum negotiations so you can feel confident going into a negotiation and feel good about yourself and the outcome at its conclusion. You'll leave the session with a better sense of how to prepare and what to do during the actual conversation, with a clear starting point for future negotiations.", "room_name": "Nokomis", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 50, "created_at": "2019-04-21 22:46:58 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:50 UTC" }, { "id": 887, "participant_id": 3056, "presenter_name": "Bart Gottschalk", "presenter_bio": "I've been involved in building web applications and digital products for more than 20 years. I've worn many hats, worked across a range of business and technical environments and been responsible for the full SDLC as an engineer and manager.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/bartgottschalk)", "session_title": "Social Networks - Moving Beyond The Current Business Model to a Better Future", "summary": null, "description": "Social media and social networks have grown tremendously to become one of the most significant sources of news, connection and entertainment for people. \r\n\r\nHowever, there's growing dissatisfaction with the companies behind social media platforms. More and more, people are waking up to the reality that \"if you aren't paying for it, then you're the product\" and people want an alternative. \r\n\r\nThese platforms have a fundamental problem in their business model. They grew their network while acting in relatively benign ways using venture capital. At some point, they had to shift their focus from growing their membership to \"monetizing\" the “asset”. Their goal was to make this transition \"invisible\" to their users to maintain whatever trust they had managed to build. \r\n\r\nUnfortunately, this shift has been translated into selling data, selling advertising, and selling access to \"eyeballs.\" None of these companies managed to find a way to any other business model and it's ruining them, their member’s experience, and it could be argued, our communities. \r\n\r\nI'll propose a new approach to building a social network based on 11 principles. My goal in this talk is to see if this problem, these 11 principles and this idea resonate with you. If it does, I'll provide you with an opportunity to help move this idea forward!", "room_name": "Tackle", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 42, "created_at": "2019-04-18 17:57:47 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:37 UTC" }, { "id": 886, "participant_id": 678, "presenter_name": "Paul Cantrell", "presenter_bio": "Paul fell in love with programming at first sight on an Apple ][+ and never looked back. He teaches computer science at Macalester College and is a freelance software developer (often with the fine folks at Bust Out).\r\n\r\nLiving a secret double life as a classically trained composer and pianist, he brings a musician's passion for aesthetics and nuanced detail to the craft of writing software, thus making his bio sound all fancy.\r\n\r\n**Links:**\r\n\r\n- [Personal site](https://innig.net)\r\n- [Mastodon](https://hachyderm.io/@inthehands)\r\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/pcantrell)\r\n", "session_title": "7,777 votes: How we generate the Minnebar schedule", "summary": null, "description": "Update: Here is the interactive scheduling visualization from this session. Enjoy! (Source code at the bottom of that page.)\r\n\r\nDid you know we Minnebar organizers create the session schedule based on your votes? It’s true! An algorithm turns thousands of session votes into one giant schedule. When you click that “Yes! I might attend” button, you affect which sessions happen when.\r\n\r\nThis poses an interesting problem: **How do we decide that one schedule is better than another?** How do we quantify that?\r\n\r\nIf you are only interested in 2 sessions, then you want them scheduled at two different times. Easy! But what if you are interested in 30? There are only 7 time slots, so you can only see 7 of those sessions — and you almost certainly will get to. Are some of the schedules where you get to see 7 sessions better for you than others?\r\n\r\nIn earlier versions of the session scheduler, the answer to that question was “no.” In recent years, we upgraded the answer to “yes!” Come find out how we did it.\r\n\r\nIn addition to being a fun little brain teaser, **this talk has lessons for organization trying to make data-driven decisions that sit at the intersection of data, UX design, and human behavior**.\r\n\r\nThis is a follow-up to my [earlier session on the topic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsMWMRzBsG0). The session before focused on simulated annealing, and the advantages of using a zero-training probabilistic optimizer (which is a fancy way of saying “just let the software guess a lot”). This session delves into the details of _what_ we are optimizing.\r\n\r\nThis talk **does not require advanced math or programming background**. There will be some fun tidbits for the math lovers in the audience, but the concepts will be accessible to all.", "room_name": "Minnetonka", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 70, "created_at": "2019-04-18 13:59:52 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-29 20:59:25 UTC" }, { "id": 885, "participant_id": 1390, "presenter_name": "Eric A. Zerwas", "presenter_bio": "Eric comes with decades of combined experience working with clients in detailed creative mediums, spanning from starting out in the competitive world of portrait photography and video production, to working as a Multimedia Training Coordinator and Content Strategist for software companies here in the Twin Cities. On top of his love of creating and producing in-house training, promotional, and post-event videos, Eric’s passion for breaking down and simplifying complex processes and delivering them in a visual, easy-to-understand, digestible format, is definitely one of the main reasons he gets up every day excited to go to a job he absolutely loves. ", "session_title": "Tips & Tricks for Creating Video Training & Promotional Content In-House ", "summary": null, "description": "This session will give a high-level overview of how to create above average training and animated promotional videos in-house.\r\n\r\nLike anything else associated with technology, the ability to create useful and timesaving training and promotional video content is becoming cheaper and easier to do than ever. During this session, I will talk about how I have helped software companies improve their client and staff training/help content via video creation, along with creating animated videos/online ads to help promote products, service, and events, all in-house. \r\n\r\nSpecifically, we will cover the use of:\r\n\r\n - video screen-capture & editing software used\r\n - animation software used\r\n - steps for creation\r\n - audio capture & editing\r\n - tips & tricks\r\n\r\nSo, if you are simply looking at options to take your office video help/info content creation internally, or, if you are interested in getting into this expanding field, come join us and learn how to make decent video content on a budget. ", "room_name": "Pennsylvania", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 42, "created_at": "2019-04-18 06:31:24 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:49 UTC" }, { "id": 884, "participant_id": 3305, "presenter_name": "Jeffrey C. Robbins", "presenter_bio": null, "session_title": "Piranha Pool (R) 2019 Pitch Event", "summary": null, "description": "Sponsored by **AngelPolleNation** and **Avisen Legal, P.A.**, the Piranha Pool (R) 2019 event is Minnesota's own annual live take on the TV series \"Shark Tank.\" During the session, three local tech startup companies will make a 10-minute investment pitch to, and answer 5 minutes of Q&A from, a panel of experienced, local tech investors. The event winner as selected by the panel gets an automatic berth to present to 50+ local investors at the Thursday, June 20 Gopher Angels meeting. Confirmed returning Piranhas are well-known local investors Ed Cannon, Cathy Connett and David Russick.\r\n\r\nTo apply as a presenting company, please send your investment deck (in widescreen PowerPoint pptx format) for consideration to Jeffrey C. Robbins at Avisen Legal, P.A. -- jrobbins@avisenlegal.com.\r\n\r\n**The Piranhas**:\r\n\r\n**Ed Cannon** is CEO of Zivix, a multi-patented fingertip-sensing technology for use in real musical instruments and peripheral devices. Ed spent the first years of his career with the Westinghouse Power Systems group before leaving and co-founding Cannon Technologies in 1987. As CEO of this start-up, he lead the team to sales in excess of $100 Million and 150 employees. Cannon Technologies was one of the first truly smart-grid companies, helping electric utilities better manage demand response, substation automation and smart meters. Cannon Technologies was acquired by Cooper Industries (NYSE: CBE) and is an integral part of their Energy Automation Solutions group today. Ed holds a BSEE from South Dakota State University and was honored by them as Distinguished Engineer 2007. He is also an Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Minnesotas Carlson School of Management.\r\n\r\n**Cathy Connett** is CEO and managing partner of Sofia Fund, which invests in high-growth women-lead businesses. She is also president and founder of CorConnections, which specializes in guiding businesses through new business initiatives, equity infusions, ownership transitions, and the building of alliances and partnerships. Cathy has served as the director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of St. Thomas and, for the last 19 years, helped initiate multiple programs to support the entrepreneurial community, including the Minnesota Seed Capital Network, Women to Women (W2W) investment group and the Sofia Angel Fund. She has also served twice as a judge for the regional Ernst &Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards. Cathy has served on a number of private company boards, including Smarte Carte, Hot Shot Products, Woodland Container Corporation and Vixar and non-profit boards including MDI, Minnesota Project Innovation and the Harvard Business School Alumni Association, where she chaired the board, which serves the 65,000-member international alumni community. Cathy’s formal education includes an engineering degree from Vanderbilt University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She has a diverse operational background in all functional areas, in union and non-union environments and in a wide range of B2B industries and marketplaces. Her experience includes roles at large companies such as Procter & Gamble, Boise Cascade and 3M as well as within start-up and small private companies.\r\n\r\n**David Russick** is an established entrepreneur and angel investor. Russick is co-founder, Managing Director, and Board Member of Gopher Angels, an investment organization dedicated to supporting entrepreneurship and early stage businesses in the state of Minnesota and throughout the Midwest. Russick currently serves as Director of Scalability and Sourcing for Mighty Spark Food Co. Previously, Russick was founder and President of TUBS, Inc., a family owned waste and recycling business operating in the Twin Cities, Denver and Cleveland, Russick also co-founded Bagster, LLC., a nationwide waste services company. He served as President and Board Member prior to Bagster’s acquisition by a Fortune 500 company. In addition, Russick serves on the Board of Advisors for the Dakota Venture Group and on the Business Advisory Group for the University of Minnesota’s Office for Technology Commercialization. Russick has been featured in the “Star Tribune,” “Twin Cities Business,” and the “Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal.” “Twin Cities Business” named him a “2014 People to Know – Finance.” In 2010, Bagster was named by “Ad Age” as one of the 10 Hottest Brands in the U.S. TUBS, Inc. was selected by City Business in 1998 as a “50 Fastest Growing Private Company.” Russick is a patent holder and a graduate of the University of South Dakota. He earned a Master of International Management degree from the Thunderbird School of Global Management with studies at Oxford University, Oxford England.\r\n\r\n**Your host**:\r\n\r\n**Jeffrey C. Robbins** is an attorney with the business law boutique Avisen Legal, P.A. in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For 36 years, he has represented entrepreneurs who start and grow technology-based enterprises and angel and venture investors who target those companies. He is a serial entrepreneur himself, having founded two companies in the entertainment ticketing industry. Jeff represents high-growth, high-potential private enterprises and publicly traded companies. In 2011, he founded AngelPolleNation, a networking organization for investors that holds quarterly events in the Twin Cities. He serves as an advisory board member to Gopher Angels, a Minneapolis-based investor network. Jeff is also a judge for the annual statewide Minnesota Cup business plan competition. He is a board member of Venture Academy, a Minneapolis charter school focused on developing entrepreneurial leadership skills for its students, and of the Minnesota Jewish Theater Company, and also serves on the Business Advisory Group for the University of Minnesota's Office of Technology Commercialization. Jeff was named in 2011 as one of “200 Minnesotans You Should Know” by Twin Cities Business magazine.", "room_name": "Pennsylvania", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 38, "created_at": "2019-04-17 22:34:10 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:34 UTC" }, { "id": 883, "participant_id": 2795, "presenter_name": "Michelle D'Angelo", "presenter_bio": "I am a user experience designer and researcher. In 2017 I made the decision to quit my stable job with benefits that I had for many years to pursue a brand new career in UX. Scary! But I am glad I did it. I am currently looking for UX opportunities to continue my path into this exciting field.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @UXmdangelo", "session_title": "Imposter syndrome support group for job seekers in a new career", "summary": null, "description": "Imposter syndrome: we all have it.\r\n\r\nIt's especially hard for those of us still in the job seeking phase in a new tech career or at the beginning of a new tech career. \r\nLet's vent, share, and come up with ideas to keep the imposter monster at bay so we can be successful! \r\nOr something. I don't know yet, but I personally could use a support group!", "room_name": "Learn", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 44, "created_at": "2019-04-17 20:58:57 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:43 UTC" }, { "id": 882, "participant_id": 2599, "presenter_name": "Kevin Burns", "presenter_bio": "Kevin is a lean and agile product development coach with a passion for helping teams turn their ideals into implementations that wow their users and customers. He’s been helping teams think different about their flow and how they measure success for over twenty years. Kevin’s love for coaching and teaching came from his Peace Corps service in the 90’s. Today, Kevin is still trying to work-himself-out-of-a-job by coaching product teams to continuously learn and by focusing team success in terms of the beneficial impacts and outcomes they're trying to achieve for their users, customers, and stakeholders. \r\n\r\nhttp://sagesw.com\r\nkburns@sagesw.com\r\n@kevinbburns\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @kevinbburns", "session_title": "Product Discovery Stories: when and how to use a discovery sprint to validate your ideas", "summary": null, "description": "Are you unsure about whether your big idea has legs? Or maybe you’re confident your idea has a positive ROI but you’re not sure how to design and deliver it. This talk will illustrate how teams move from concept to prototype to customer interviews in a week using a Dojo Discovery Sprint. In this talk you’ll learn how the Dojo Discovery Sprint focuses the team on idea and design discovery more than delivering the next software increment. In many cases, it’s hard to know with a high degree of certainty what the next most valuable software work is when the ideas and designs haven’t been tested with real customers. You'll learn how to test your ideas and designs before jumping into implementation.\r\n\r\nParticipants will learn how to test their ideas and designs with end-users and customers before committing to implementation. ", "room_name": "Tackle", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Design" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 56, "created_at": "2019-04-17 16:21:22 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-27 03:43:20 UTC" }, { "id": 881, "participant_id": 1202, "presenter_name": "Wessam Sonbol", "presenter_bio": "Over 18 years in startups, product management and learning how to better partner with clients to develop better products that can scale.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @Wsonbol", "session_title": "🙉🙈🙊Product Management in a Nutshell 🙉🙈🙊", "summary": null, "description": "My name is Wessam Sonbol, I am a product guy developing products, analytics and identifying ways to resolve the data silos in healthcare since 2000. Over the past couple of years (since 2016), I have been providing product consulting and guidance to some of the top 500 companies. One item stood out to me the most, is the lack of what is a product and what is a project.\r\n\r\nIn this session, I plan to cover the following:\r\n1. Defining a product vs a project\r\n2. Your customer\r\n3. What does a product team look like\r\n4. Who is a product manager\r\n5. Product roadmap\r\n6. How to manage stakeholders\r\n\r\nCome prepared to share your experience ", "room_name": "Challenge", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Design", "Other", "Hardware", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 71, "created_at": "2019-04-17 16:15:58 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-27 03:48:35 UTC" }, { "id": 880, "participant_id": 1057, "presenter_name": "Ben Leadholm", "presenter_bio": "A developer for almost 25 years, starting out with Excel macros and parlaying those skills to an entry-level development position. From VB3 to Ruby (with a stint of .NET and Java in between). Ben is now contracting with specializations in Ruby, Python, and database migration.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/bclead3)\n- Twitter: @bgbn3", "session_title": "The History of the 6502 Processor.. Or How Your Spreadsheet Died From Dysentery... ", "summary": null, "description": "Some of us are old enough to remember our first computer being the one of the Atari Game Systems, Atari 400 or 800, some form of Apple II, or the Commodore Vic 20 or C64. \r\n\r\nThere are fascinating histories behind the creation of the heart of most personal processing systems back in the late 70s and early to mid 80s.\r\n\r\nWe won't focus on Intel's 8080, the heart of the Altair, the first personal computer, and the computer that helped to spawn the HomeBrew Computer Club. Instead, we'll start with Chuck Peddle, a microchip designer who left Motorola because the company didn't want his idea of a stripped-down processor to eat market share away at their $300 68XX chip family.\r\n\r\nChuck jumps to MOS Technologies, and develops the 6502 Microprocessor, on sale for $25 in quantities of one.\r\n\r\nIt is this price point that attracts Steve Wozniak to build a working personal computer on plywood to plug into a TV called the Apple I, to show off at the HomeBrew Computer Club. Fifty Apple I circuit boards were sold for $666.66 each (roughly $3k today). Woz's friend Steve Jobs thinks they could make a business selling pre-assembled computers, \"1000 a week.\"\r\n\r\nThere will be tales of intrigue, backstabbing, dirty tactics, and cutthroat competition from Don Rawitsch [of Oregon Trail fame], Steve Jobs, Dan Bricklin, Bill Gates, Nolan Bushnell, Jack Tramiel, and Bil Herd.\r\n\r\nThere may be 8-bit machines on display (Atari | Commodore | Apple).\r\n\r\nSome time may be allocated to let others reminisce about their '6502 moments.'", "room_name": "Georgia", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 42, "created_at": "2019-04-17 13:40:24 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:31 UTC" }, { "id": 878, "participant_id": 2309, "presenter_name": "Meredith Kathleen Neumann, MS, LMFT", "presenter_bio": "I am Meredith Kathleen Neumann. I work with entrepreneurs and business leaders to help them identify and overcome internal barriers and limiting mindsets so they can graduate to the next level of leadership. I call this work Scaling Within, and it’s basically a hybrid between counseling and executive coaching. In my past work as a Licensed Therapist, I specialized in understanding the neurology of complex trauma. This background helps me identify my clients’ underlying issues quickly, enabling them to level up both professionally and personally. Additionally, I do speaking and team trainings for companies, where I teach a simple framework from neurobiology that helps individuals grow in self-awareness, so that they have the practical tools needed to scale within as they scale up their businesses.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @scalingwithin", "session_title": "Scaling Within: Expand Your Inner Capacity to Sustain Growth", "summary": null, "description": "In order to successfully scale your venture, you must first learn to scale within. That is, you must expand your internal capacity to lead yourself and others well as your company develops over time. It's one thing to have a great idea; it's another thing entirely to grow a business, build a functional team, manage client drama, and troubleshoot any number of unexpected challenges that arise along the way. As your business grows, you must make updates to your own inner operating system in order to grow with it.\r\n\r\nIn this session, I will teach a simple but cutting-edge framework from the field of neurobiology that will expand your capacity to:\r\n\r\n-Act from intention rather than reaction with increased self-awareness\r\n-Identify and begin to overcome internal barriers and limiting mindsets\r\n-Make clear and rational decisions without feeling overwhelmed or withdrawn, and\r\n-Effectively communicate with colleagues and clients in the midst of crucial conversations, maintaining both honesty and respect\r\n\r\nWhether you are currently scaling your business, are in the initial brainstorming stages of a great idea, part of a team, or anywhere in between, this is a life-challenging tool that will positively impact every area of your life even beyond succeeding in business.\r\n", "room_name": "Proverb-Edison", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 46, "created_at": "2019-04-16 19:41:00 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:50 UTC" }, { "id": 877, "participant_id": 1247, "presenter_name": "Senthil Kumaran", "presenter_bio": "Senthil S. Kumaran is a seasoned technology leader, architect, and educator with over 30 years of expertise in software engineering, applied AI, and emerging technologies. He is the co-founder of Virtuwell, a leading telehealth clinic in the Midwest that has served over a million patients with a 98%+ positive feedback rating, revolutionizing access to convenient and affordable healthcare. He is currently serving as VP of IT Systems at a Senior Care company.\r\n\r\nA former leader in HealthPartners' AI, Machine Learning, and Enterprise Architecture group, Senthil has driven innovations in HIPAA-compliant systems, predictive analytics, and digital transformation. His expertise spans healthcare, finance, retail, and manufacturing, with a focus on scalable cloud solutions, enterprise architecture, and digital product development.\r\n\r\nAn accomplished conference speaker and adjunct professor at Concordia University, Senthil blends hands-on expertise with a passion for mentoring. He holds an MBA in Finance from the University of St. Thomas and a Master's in Electronics Engineering from Bharathiar University, India. Senthil is also an active contributor to nonprofits and a regular presenter at leading technology events worldwide.", "session_title": "Leverage Technology in Real Estate Wealth building ", "summary": null, "description": "Real Estate Investing isn't always about buying and renting it or flipping it. It definitely helps you in growing your investment portfolio multifold. In this session, we will see 20 different real estate investment strategies from buying and flipping to crowdfunding to REITs. Depending upon on your goal and appetite you can be a passive or extremely active investor. As a technologist, I will share my expertise on how I leveraged tech and data analysis skills to grow my portfolio multifold in the last decade without disturbing my day job. I am neither a realtor nor an investment consultant but a simple nerd who learned some tricks ", "room_name": "Oregon", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 42, "created_at": "2019-04-15 21:28:09 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:42 UTC" }, { "id": 876, "participant_id": 2428, "presenter_name": "Maria Ploessl", "presenter_bio": "Maria Ploessl serves as the first Executive Director of Minnestar, a nonprofit organization committed to building, nurturing and engaging those interested in technology through meaningful connection. In her role, she works to promote the strategic vision and growth of the organization, while developing events and experiences that bring the MN tech community together.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @MariaPloessl ", "session_title": "Minnestar: How it all began - with co-founders Ben Edwards and Luke Francl", "summary": null, "description": "Join Minnestar Executive Director Maria Ploessl, Minnestar Co-Founders Ben Edwards and Luke Francl, and old friends as we take a deep dive into the nostalgia of the early years of Minnestar, Minnebar, and Minnedemo. \r\n\r\nWhether you are new to Minnestar, or you were one of the 135 attendees at the first Minnebar in 2006, this will be a fun and exciting look at the last 13 years of this great community. \r\n\r\nCan't wait for your nostalgia fix? Get started here: https://minnestar.org/vault-11-crowd-favorites-11-years-minnedemo/\r\n", "room_name": "Challenge", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Luke Francl", "Ben Edwards" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 1, 3 ], "attendance_count": 58, "created_at": "2019-04-15 18:13:30 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:52 UTC" }, { "id": 875, "participant_id": 1992, "presenter_name": "David Herring", "presenter_bio": "A software engineer with just enough hardware experience to be dangerous. Entrepreneur and tech lead.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/dwherring)", "session_title": "BoatThing using Hardware and Data to sail better, sail faster", "summary": null, "description": "We have created BoatThing - easy to install and use hardware to assess sailboat performance in a competitive racing environment. \r\n\r\nBoatThing gathers sailboat performance data, such as wind and boat speed, from a boat's existing sensor network. It provides both real time and past performance data.\r\n\r\nWe have used BoatThing during a season of sailboat racing on Lake Superior. We will show the system, the data we gathered and what we learned from the analysis. We will also describe challenges we faced, current work, and future goals for the system.\r\n\r\n\r\n", "room_name": "Pennsylvania", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Hardware", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 19, "created_at": "2019-04-15 15:31:04 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:40 UTC" }, { "id": 874, "participant_id": 3194, "presenter_name": "Greg Daigle", "presenter_bio": "![](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/10c546_68718eaead004a8cbd4bb66d7bf93fd0~mv2.jpg)\r\n\r\nSince the '80s I have spent a career in human-centered design while looking for the next unexpected innovations in technology, known as “black swans”, and [wrote of those experiences](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/designer-black-swan-greg-daigle/). LENR, which I have followed for about 10 years, is one of those technologies and appears poised to introduce worldwide change to our energy economy.\r\n\r\nAs a former professor of industrial design in the 80's at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, I contributed to the design of a range of physical products — from the systems logic design of [Ethospace](https://www.hermanmiller.com/products/workspaces/workstations/ethospace-system/) for the designer of the Aeron and Equa chairs, to the industrial design of Stratasys's first commercial [fused deposition modeler](https://www.stratasys.com/) (now commonly known as 3D printing), to the front-end display of a Cray supercomputer and concept hybrid lawn mowers for Toro.\r\n\r\nIn the '90s as a co-founder of ICONOS I designed internationally awarded [STEM software](https://www.theunlitpipe.com/wts-videos) for kids, ranked alongside classic software titles Myst and Carmen SanDiego. More recently I taught interaction and interface design at the University of Minnesota, led [digital badge concepts](https://www.hastac.org/blogs/greg-daigle/2016/08/26/interactive-badge-prototype-mentored-learning/ \"Digital Badges\") under a MacArthur grant and managed QA testing and customer support for e-learning authoring tool ZebraZapps, created by Dr. Michael Allen, one of the co-founders of software giant Macromedia (later folded into Adobe).\r\n\r\nPrevious Minnebar Presentations: \r\n\r\n2009: Black Swans:\u000bGME-2 and Orbo... and predicting leaps forward \r\n\r\n2019: LENR: A Primer on Carbon-Free Heat Tech \r\n\r\n2020: LENR: An Energy Primer - Focus on Rossi's E-Cat \r\n\r\n\r\n**Links:**\r\n\r\nPortfolio at [The Unlit Pipe](http://www.theunlitpipe.com) \r\nSpeculative work at [Gravity Modification](https://gravitymodification.com/)\r\n\r\n[LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregdaigle/)\r\n\r\n\r\n", "session_title": "LENR: A Primer on Carbon-Free Heat Tech", "summary": null, "description": "Link to a version of this presentation: https://www.theunlitpipe.com/lenr-a-primer\r\n\r\nWith firms like Toyota, Nissan, Boeing and Mitsubishi engaged in research, and patents filed as recently as February by Google, it is worth finding out how this carbon-free sustainable technology is positioned to fill the gap between renewables and traditional nuclear. \r\n\r\n**LENR** is an acronym for Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, but is also known as LANR (Lattice Assisted ...), CANR (Chemically Assisted ...) and describes a category of carbon-free generators of heat energy that have been researched for 30 years.  This year one company has said they will introduce IoT-controlled LENR products into the marketplace that could dramatically reduce our reliance upon fuels that emit greenhouse gases. So shouldn’t we learn more about it?\r\n\r\nOne potential manufacturer states, “Think of it as an energy amplifier, that turns one unit of energy into many units without any toxic waste or dangerous radioactivity.”\r\n\r\nControversial?  You betcha!  Despite over 1,000 peer reviewed papers from research universities and labs showing the generation of heat, financial backing by the Gates Foundation and Google Alphabet and confirmation of heat production by research heavyweights like SRI International, LENR has come a long way since its beginnings when it was called “cold fusion”. \r\n\r\nThis will be a primer on the topic, including some of the science, how the field has progressed and how it might be poised to be the biggest provider of heat energy in industry, the home and even in vehicles.\r\n\r\nThe session will provide links to researchers, organizations, commercial ventures and patents filed by those trying to be first to market with a device that may generate thousands of kilowatts of heat from a core the size of a cigarette that can run for six months on a single charge using the same materials you find in today’s laptop batteries.\r\n\r\n\r\n", "room_name": "Kansas", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 23, "created_at": "2019-04-15 14:42:50 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-05-22 03:59:15 UTC" }, { "id": 873, "participant_id": 485, "presenter_name": "Dan Ficker", "presenter_bio": "Dan Ficker has been building websites since 1997, when he wanted to tell the world which rock bands he was a fan of. Since then, he has helped build hundreds of websites, most of them using the PHP programming language. He went to college, learned more about development in Java and Oracle, but still builds websites, these days most often using the Drupal or WordPress content management systems built on top of PHP. In the past 14+ years of professional development, he has built and worked on the PHP code, MySQL queries, HTML output, and performance of hundreds of websites. Dan still gets excited when a band he's a fan of comes to town and enjoys learning about other areas of technology.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/dficker)\n- Twitter: @deliriousguy", "session_title": "Online in 2019: Personal Internet Security Basics", "summary": null, "description": "No matter if you're a developer, designer, manager or a business owner, you're a person. And these days, being a person on the Internet can be a minefield. Phishing attacks are trying to steal your information and some of your passwords have been published on the internet. But you have to work on the Internet--living off the grid is not an option.\r\n\r\nIn this session, I will go over some common attacks that you should be aware of. Also, I will highlight some simple, practical ways to protect yourself while browsing the Internet for fun or work. No doubt, some in the room will say, \"This is too hard to be secure,\" and others will say, \"This speaker is not paranoid enough.\" Security is a continuum, and this is meant to be a point for you, the attendee, to evaluate your personal security practices and think about improving them.\r\n\r\n### Topics Covered\r\n* Is Your Browsing Secure?\r\n* Is Your Communication Secure?\r\n* Backing Up Data\r\n* Examples of Phishing\r\n* Examples of Impersonation\r\n* Two-Factor Authentication\r\n* Password Managers\r\n* Trust No One vs. Cloud Services\r\n\r\n### My Experience\r\nI am a professional web developer with 13+ years of building, launching and maintaining dozens of websites both freelance and at a design/development agency. While I am not a certified Security/IT expert and do not sell my services as a security professional, I hope that my experience in trying to understand security and keep my personal and professional work secure can be shared with you in this session.", "room_name": "Oregon", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 42, "created_at": "2019-04-14 23:51:19 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:40 UTC" }, { "id": 872, "participant_id": 1832, "presenter_name": "Andrew Brobston", "presenter_bio": "Andrew Brobston is a principal software engineer at Hobsons, developing software to help academic institutions advise their students for success. Previously, he was a lead full-stack software developer at SJV Data Solutions, an Atlanta-area company specializing in background checks. Before SJV, he was a full-stack developer with Stack Overflow.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/abrobston)\n- Twitter: @AndrewBrobston", "session_title": "Optimizing SQL Server: What Developers Can Do", "summary": null, "description": "A growing business hired me to add to their software-development team. A queue of worthwhile, interesting projects greeted my arrival. Alas, with flourishing order volume came an unforeseen, sudden result: an overwhelmed SQL Server instance. This urgent situation led me to shelve my project work and delve into optimizing our SQL Server implementation. Over about a year, I improved our database performance considerably. Our applications became faster and had fewer database-related errors. With far fewer urgent database issues, I could resume project work. Trial and error, plus some other resources, taught me practical ways to improve our database code and to troubleshoot SQL Server performance. I want to share some of these tips with you!\r\n\r\nI will teach some rules of thumb for writing better-performing SQL Server queries quickly. I will also show how to troubleshoot performance with SQL Server execution plans. If you are unfamiliar with execution plans, don’t worry! We will go through how to use these diagrams to see how SQL Server runs your queries and how to fix problems. Execution plans show a lot of information, and I will share what is important and what you should ignore.\r\n\r\nWhether you know a little or a lot about developing for SQL Server, you will learn tips you can use Monday morning to make your database code better. Even if you use an object-relational-mapping framework like Entity Framework or NHibernate, knowing how to find bad SQL Server queries that ORMs generate will help your performance. I look forward to sharing what I have learned with you!", "room_name": "Nebraska", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 41, "created_at": "2019-04-13 19:58:39 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:31 UTC" }, { "id": 871, "participant_id": 1282, "presenter_name": "Sara Heitkamp", "presenter_bio": "Mama to a 15 year old daughter and a 2 year old son. I enjoy embarking on new adventures with my children, playing volleyball, reading, working out and practicing yoga.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @@saraheitkampmn", "session_title": "Beyond Diversity; Fostering an Inclusive Culture at Best Buy", "summary": null, "description": "Best Buy is proud to host a conversation about diversity and inclusion in tech. At Best Buy, we value everyone’s talents, life experiences, beliefs and backgrounds so our employees can relax and be themselves. Our goal is simple: Unleash the power of our people and utilize their unique talents, experiences, beliefs and background to create an engaging work environment and a world-class retailing operation. \r\n\r\nWe recognize diversity goes beyond gender and cultural background. It extends to sexual orientation, disabilities, new parents returning to the workforce, age and beyond. Join us for a thought-provoking discussion where panelists share real life experiences about fostering an inclusive culture that embraces our differences and provides employees an environment where they can bring their whole selves to work\r\n\r\nDiscussion topics include:\r\n\r\n- What has shaped our panelists' thinking and how they approach supporting diversity and inclusion\r\n- Ways they have gone about finding advocates and advocating for others\r\n- Ideas for how each of us can help welcome diversity and foster a more inclusive tech organization \r\n- Ideas for implementing and supporting D&I strategies in your own organization\r\n\r\n\r\n**Moderator**\r\n\r\n**Matt Furman - Chief Communications and Public Affairs Officer**\r\n\r\nMatt Furman is the chief communications and public affairs officer for Best Buy Co. Inc. In this role, he oversees internal and external communications, government affairs, corporate responsibility and sustainability, community relations, as well as the company’s in-house production studio and event planning functions.\r\n\r\nPrior to joining Best Buy in 2012, Mr. Furman was the vice president of corporate affairs at Mars Chocolate, the manufacturer of such iconic brands as Snickers, M&M’s and Dove. He previously held senior communications positions at Google, CNN and in the administrations of New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and President Bill Clinton.\r\n\r\nMr. Furman has a law degree from the American University School of Law and holds a bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton. He is admitted to practice law in several jurisdictions, including before the U.S. Supreme Court.\r\n\r\n**Panelists**\r\n\r\n**Brittani Uribe - Web Developer, Communications**\r\nA bilingual engineering professional with a focus in digital communication, strong, passion for all things tech and deep-rooted brand love. Skilled in client services, client experience, communications, event management, web development and design.\r\n \r\n**Bryan Brandau - Director of Web Operations, BestBuy.com.**\r\nAs the Director of Operations for BestBuy.com, Bryan is responsible for infrastructure operations and technology that powers core ecommerce functions such as cart, commerce, catalog, search and browse for all BestBuy.com and Digital properties. He is a hands on technical leader who insourced all Bestbuy.com infrastructure operations previously managed by vendors. \r\n\r\n**John Hardy - Diversity & Inclusion Manager, Experiential Learning**\r\nJohn is passionate about helping others to recognize and invest in their own passions and potential. He and his team currently drive Best Buy's Diversity & Inclusion strategy, partnering with leaders across the organization to create sustainable strategies for recruiting, developing, engaging, and retaining talent. He aspires to build organizational cultures that help people find their greater purpose, both inside the workplace and in within our communities\r\n\r\n**Sara Heitkamp - Senior Manager, Web Operations, BestBuy.com**\r\nSara is a Senior Manager of Web Operations leading the Associate Facing Web Operations team. Sara’s role is to manage day to day oversight and activities related to Associate Facing Web Operations including production support, technical web duties and initiatives in support of maintaining highly scalable web applications and services for the global web properties of BestBuy.com", "room_name": "Learn", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 60, "created_at": "2019-04-12 19:46:06 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-27 03:43:20 UTC" }, { "id": 870, "participant_id": 3250, "presenter_name": "Tsering Choephel", "presenter_bio": "An analyst at Best Buy Corporate Office for Marketing and Supply Chain division of Digital and Technology. \r\n\r\nhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/tseringchoephel/\r\n", "session_title": "Let's Talk About Agile!", "summary": null, "description": "Ever wondered the why, what and how the software development teams use Agile framework to design, develop, test, deploy and repeat again? Well - wonder no more! I'll teach you the best practices of how people, process and tools come together to consistently deploy enhancements, bug fixes, and performance improvements for users to enjoy. \r\n\r\nThis session is designed to entice the minds of all levels from Developers to Engineers to Analyst to Product Owners to everyone in between. \r\n\r\nI will reserve 15 mins at the end of the session for Q&A.\r\n\r\n\r\nTsering Choephel\r\nAnalyst at Best Buy Corporate Office \r\n\r\nhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/tseringchoephel/", "room_name": "Zeke Landres", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Design", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 68, "created_at": "2019-04-12 02:55:01 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:42 UTC" }, { "id": 868, "participant_id": 1463, "presenter_name": "John Arnold", "presenter_bio": "Minnesotans like him because he was born and raised here. Academicians befriend him because he earned his BS degree from the prestigious U of M Carlson School (though he facetiously claims he only got accepted because he submitted cash with his application).\r\n\r\nJohn plays soccer, hockey, and golf, so athletes give him a high-five, while adventurers approve of his ambition to travel to a different country every year. Even geologists love him for his daredevil hike around an active volcano while visiting Costa Rica. And early risers clamor for his company at The Local, where he watches English Premier League games at 6 am on Saturdays.\r\n\r\nThis former championship-soccer-goal-scoring guitar aficionado eats ice cream cakes (even on non-birthday occasions) while enjoying cinematic action thrillers and comedies, which makes him appealing to 99% of the population.\r\n\r\nAnd while intellectuals appreciate his taste in books (a page-turner is either economics- or marketing-related), they also salute his previous employment in web analytics, strategic marketing and IT recruiting.\r\n\r\nBut mostly, John is valued by the staff at Celarity, where he focuses on the general operations of Celarity with a focus on the marketing and client services teams so the recruiters, clients and talent are taken care of.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @Celarity", "session_title": "Find, Recruit and Retain Top Talent: Best Practices from a Local Recruiting Agency", "summary": null, "description": "In this session, members of the Celarity team will share their expertise on how to find, recruit, and retain top talent. This local agency has been in the industry for 25+ years and has placed over 4,500 marketing, creative, and digital professionals at more than 500 local companies. They've received 4.8/5 stars on GlassDoor with over 100+ reviews, been recognized multiple times as a best place to work, and received many top-partner awards from their Fortune 500 clients.\r\n\r\nSo, get ready to take notes! They’ll cover their recruiting secrets, best practices, tips, and tricks of the trade so that you can find, recruit, and retain top talent for your teams too!\r\n\r\nThey’ll answer questions and cover topics like:\r\n\r\n>1. What makes a passive candidate interested in working with you\r\n>2. How to ensure potential candidates find your company and your opportunity\r\n>3. How to reach out to qualified people who aren’t finding you \r\n>4. Keeping candidates interested throughout the hiring process\r\n>5. How to vet candidates to make sure they’re a fit for your team\r\n>6. Best practices for closing candidates\r\n>7. How to continually engage your employees and keep them on your team\r\n", "room_name": "California", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Connor Duffy", "Katie Larson" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 3248, 3406 ], "attendance_count": 60, "created_at": "2019-04-11 20:31:52 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:45 UTC" }, { "id": 867, "participant_id": 1247, "presenter_name": "Senthil Kumaran", "presenter_bio": "Senthil S. Kumaran is a seasoned technology leader, architect, and educator with over 30 years of expertise in software engineering, applied AI, and emerging technologies. He is the co-founder of Virtuwell, a leading telehealth clinic in the Midwest that has served over a million patients with a 98%+ positive feedback rating, revolutionizing access to convenient and affordable healthcare. He is currently serving as VP of IT Systems at a Senior Care company.\r\n\r\nA former leader in HealthPartners' AI, Machine Learning, and Enterprise Architecture group, Senthil has driven innovations in HIPAA-compliant systems, predictive analytics, and digital transformation. His expertise spans healthcare, finance, retail, and manufacturing, with a focus on scalable cloud solutions, enterprise architecture, and digital product development.\r\n\r\nAn accomplished conference speaker and adjunct professor at Concordia University, Senthil blends hands-on expertise with a passion for mentoring. He holds an MBA in Finance from the University of St. Thomas and a Master's in Electronics Engineering from Bharathiar University, India. Senthil is also an active contributor to nonprofits and a regular presenter at leading technology events worldwide.", "session_title": "How to grow your skill to get in to AI/Machine Learning/Data Science teams", "summary": null, "description": "This January 2019 report from Indeed, one of the top job sites, showed a 29% increase in demand for data scientist’s year over year and a 344% increase since 2013 -- a dramatic upswing. The rise of AI and Machine Learning may also be a factor in the dramatic increase in demand for Data Scientists. Let us first understand the difference between AI, Machine Learning and Data Science. What companies in town are working on these new innovations? and what are they looking for?. What are the different job titles in a Data Science team? What skills are needed in each of these job titles?. You know how to program and work with SQL but how do you break into this team? What are available courses that you can take in online learning platforms like Coursera, Udacity, Udemy Lynda Edureka, ClassCentral Edx, Emeritus, etc? How about other university programs in town?\r\n\r\nCome into the session and let us explore this together. ", "room_name": "Proverb-Edison", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 86, "created_at": "2019-04-11 19:42:22 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:32 UTC" }, { "id": 866, "participant_id": 3235, "presenter_name": "Kody Kantor", "presenter_bio": "Kody is a software engineer at Joyent where he enjoys analyzing and developing models of complex software systems. At Joyent Kody has created software to monitor thousands of application instances, helped recover hundreds of terabytes of user data from cloud storage, fixed numerous low-level performance problems, and witnessed the failure of every hardware component in the IO path.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/kodykantor)", "session_title": "Hardware catastrophe in the datacenter", "summary": null, "description": "In the world of cloud computing and hardware virtual machines we are told not to worry about hardware failures. Disks come and go beneath our virtual machine volumes, the NIC in our VM is virtual and might correspond to some sliver of time in a set of aggregated links.\r\n\r\nBut what if you operate your own datacenter? These things must fail, right? A disk is, after all, a stack of tiny pizza pans spinning at 10k RPM with metal wands shooting electrical currents onto its surface. That can't be safe. There's also a bunch of other garbage between your application and its data - cables, SAS expanders, HBAs, and backplanes! Can those fail too?\r\n\r\nIt turns out everything can fail, and everything does fail. Sometimes catastrophically and all at once!\r\n\r\nThis session is about real life data path hardware failures from ambient checksum errors to motherboard-eating power surges.", "room_name": "New York", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Development", "Hardware" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 32, "created_at": "2019-04-11 18:32:47 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:43 UTC" }, { "id": 865, "participant_id": 2597, "presenter_name": "Edward Euclide", "presenter_bio": "Edward has been researching and designing immersive experiences for a decade as a performance artist, experiential educator and now as a UX Researcher. \r\n\r\nAs a performance artist he explored remote immersive performance, puppetry/object performance and interdisciplinary collaboration.\r\nAs an educator he explored embodied learning techniques and lesson plans.\r\nHe is currently researching industrial safety connected-equipment and IoT designs as a Senior UX Researcher with 3M.\r\n\r\n\r\nHis work was most recently featured as an installation at \"Limitless Spaces Gallery: Imagining New Digital Worlds\" (2019).\r\n\r\n\r\nEdward Euclide \r\n(he/him) \r\n[eeuclide.com](eeuclide.com) \r\nedeuclide@gmail.com \r\n", "session_title": "Intro to Immersive Experiences for Research and Design", "summary": null, "description": "Virtual reality, augmented reality, interactive art and even Ikea showrooms are all examples of immersive experiences--\r\nBut *how* are they immersive? What makes something immersive? And what skills can we as designers/researchers start to leverage for affecting immersive experiences with our design/research?\r\n\r\nWith the rise of \"immersive experiences\" like virtual/augmented/mixed reality experiences, we will turn to adjacent fields like immersive theatre and experiential learning for examining our role in shaping these experiences.\r\n\r\nWe will be engaging in some (introvert friendly) experiments exploring the \"elements\" of immersion.", "room_name": "Texas", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Design", "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 42, "created_at": "2019-04-11 17:21:25 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:52 UTC" }, { "id": 863, "participant_id": 151, "presenter_name": "Genghis Philip", "presenter_bio": "Genghis is an ultimate player, boxer, and gamer. He has spent well over a decade making sure teams work well together at various and sundry tech companies around the cities, with titles ranging from Scrum Master to Director of Engineering to COO. He also sits on the board of the Twin Cities Ultimate League and is an assistant coach for the Strike, Minnesota's professional women's and nonbinary ultimate frisbee team.\r\n\r\nI guess you could follow him on Twitter (@hawksfire) or Bluesky (@genghis.bsky.social), but only if you're particularly interested in all-caps tweets about the Chicago Bears and Ultimate.", "session_title": "A crash course on Hiring and Firing", "summary": null, "description": "Building and maintaining the right team is one of the most important parts of running a company -- but for many of us, hiring is a complete black box. Post a job, cross your fingers, and sort through applicants. \r\n\r\nThis first half of this session is aimed at quickly giving you a toolset to evaluate when to hire, how to set criteria, how to interview, and how to hire.\r\n\r\nThe second half focuses on how to deal with troubles-- remediating problems, performance improvement plans, and termination. Our goal is to let you know where your responsibilities and liabilities are, and how to be humane throughout the process.\r\n\r\nThis session is intended to be pretty rapid-fire, and HR questions often require a little digging before we can answer responsibly, so please send any Hiring/Termination questions along to @hawksfire on twitter, or Genghis.Philip@gmail.com before the session and we'll try to get to them. ", "room_name": "Proverb-Edison", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Brianna Durfee" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 3216 ], "attendance_count": 66, "created_at": "2019-04-09 21:04:13 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:39 UTC" }, { "id": 862, "participant_id": 200, "presenter_name": "Zack Steven", "presenter_bio": "I am a lifelong entrepreneur and leader who is passionate about good design, big ideas, and strong inclusive communities. \r\n\r\nI find the path from napkin to traction exhilarating and have traveled it multiple times personally and with clients. I am a Founding Partner of [Monkey Island Ventures](http://monkeyislandventures.com), and CEO of [Cloudburst, SBC](http://cloudburststudio.com) and I host the monthly [No-Code Coffee](https://no-code-coffee.kit.com/a17a71e671) meetup for non-technical entrepreneurs building tech companies. \r\n\r\nI have a degree in Studio Art from Grinnell College and have spent the past 20 years mastering the art of business in leadership roles across Product, Sales, Finance and Operations for organizations ranging from startups to public companies. At its best, business is sculpture - beautiful and useful. \r\n\r\nI hold several patents, am a Minnesotan on the Move award recipient, and have served on non-profit boards including MetroIBA, St. Paul Central High School Foundation and Unity Church-Unitarian. I am a native of The North and live in Edina with my wife and two sons.\r\n\r\nIf any of this aligns with your interests, let's connect on X: [@zacksteven](http://www.twitter.com/zacksteven) or in person at MinneBar. Just @ me.\r\n\r\n**Links:**\r\n\r\n- X: @zacksteven", "session_title": "Ditch the Pitch: Founder Friendly Ways to Get Started (and Get Funded)", "summary": null, "description": "What if all the time spent building decks and pitching investors were instead invested in building things and pitching customers?\r\n\r\nIf you're an early stage tech entrepreneur you may think that the VC/blitzscaling/unicorn path is the only option...\r\n\r\nGood news - it's not! \r\n\r\nFor many entrepreneurs, independence is more valuable than anything. There are new models emerging that enable founders to get started more efficiently than ever and get funded while preserving options and control. This session will be an overview of some of the new models (indie.vc, Earnest Capital, Tiny Seed) and examples of entrepreneurs who are charting a different path. \r\n\r\nPlease bring your experience and your questions so we can learn from each other. \r\n", "room_name": "Challenge", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups", "Development", "Hardware" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 69, "created_at": "2019-04-08 22:31:22 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:32 UTC" }, { "id": 861, "participant_id": 3206, "presenter_name": "Jason Kaasovic", "presenter_bio": "Daytime developer of solar projects in the Twin Cities, father to the world's fastest youth racing pilot, and owner of Sky Pirates FPV - a commercial filming group.\r\n\r\nIG: intent2bhuman", "session_title": "Modern Wizardry 🧙🏼‍♂️ Intro to FPV Drones: Racing, Freestyle and Cinematics", "summary": null, "description": "In this session, local Pilot Jason Kaasovic - intent2bhuman, will walk through an FPV drone, explain ways to get into it, share capabilities, discuss the industry, demonstrate flight, and invite Q&A.\r\n\r\nThere will likely also be some conversation on the experience of residing in the body of a quad while flying through reality.\r\n\r\nAlso, if A/V equip is available, some example footage will be shown.", "room_name": "New York", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other", "Design", "Hardware" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 32, "created_at": "2019-04-08 17:12:40 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:50 UTC" }, { "id": 860, "participant_id": 3207, "presenter_name": "Chris Medina", "presenter_bio": "Chief Strategy Officer for Clovity IoT\r\nIoT Geek\r\nwww.clovity.com\r\nchrism@clovity.com\r\n", "session_title": "5G and IoT in Retail, Healthcare, Homes and Cities", "summary": null, "description": "\r\nToday's world is experiencing in the 4th phase of the Industrial Revolution more globalization and technology than ever before. A global phase where machines can talk to each other and people interact with data through connected devices like a Fitbit, a sensor on a road or in their car, or sensors that can help detect cancer or diabetes. These capabilities are just the tip of the iceberg as a new wave of innovation begins and 5G is ushered in.\r\n5G is the next generation of cellular service upgrading from the existing 4G or LTE services. The speed of delivery and scale will enable devices to scale experiences, data and content in ways that we have never seen before and at a cost that allows for everyday use. \r\nIoT is the Internet of Things, the ability to connect devices that allow for access and provide data which in turn creates knowledge and information. Data that can now use the full-scale capabilities of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Predictive data sciences. \r\nIoT is impacting virtually every market and every vertical in one way or another. Retail will see IoT contribute to the ease of shopping with no check-out lines and predictive maintenance in Smart Products allowing them to live longer, become more effective in our lives and become more efficient. \r\nHealthcare is booming with IoT by connecting devices to a lightning fast 5G network to provide data to the gaps in the health ecosystem that is patient care. From Smart medication management, to IoT health patches that can detect up to 20 different proteins in a patient sweat, and even Telemedicine; the ability to read data and act upon it due to the connectivity of IoT health devices will forever change the way Providers and Care Facilities tend to patient's needs. \r\nSmart homes will become part of the everyday family ecosystem as builders and designers create homes of the future that can allow for 'closed home networks' and smart capabilities that augment and enhance a Family's everyday life. Smart lighting will ensure no energy is wasted, Smart heating will always be available, when someone is home and Smart cameras and Smoke alarms can connect to 911 to ensure the fastest response possible in the event of an emergency. \r\n\r\nThis session will dive into the various use cases in the areas of Smart Retail, Healthcare, Homes & Cities. It will also dive into how 5G is different and why it will drive the next generation of a Connected World. \r\n\r\nClovity is a San Francisco Based IoT company that proves its connected technology through the deployment of its proprietary accelerator called CSensorNet. www.clovity.com\r\n", "room_name": "Discover", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 56, "created_at": "2019-04-08 16:49:18 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:52 UTC" }, { "id": 859, "participant_id": 3161, "presenter_name": "Christina Adams", "presenter_bio": "[Christina Adams](https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-adams-developer/) is a Certified Professional in Web Accessibility from the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP). She is a Digital Accessibility Software Engineer for Siteimprove working on global accessibility initiatives and providing accessible solutions for our customer's digital assets. Her goal is to champion inclusive design and development practices for equitable digital spaces.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/offsetchris)\n- Twitter: @offsetchris", "session_title": "Accessibility in the development process", "summary": null, "description": "How can we avoid *only* testing for and addressing accessibility in QA? How can we incorporate accessibility compliance earlier in the process? What tools would help us along the way? \r\n\r\nI would like to discuss how developers can be accessibility champions and incorporate best practices into the development process. I will have examples to share of easy wins, common things to check for in code reviews, and some more elaborate examples of accessible UI development patterns if we want to look at them. I'm hoping for a great conversation and ideas from the community as well. ", "room_name": "California", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 52, "created_at": "2019-04-08 16:29:30 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:36 UTC" }, { "id": 858, "participant_id": 1662, "presenter_name": "Bob Sparkins", "presenter_bio": "If you want to spend more of your time with paying customers than chasing after prospects, turn to me to make it simple for you. \r\n\r\nWith the online marketing strategies I can teach you (like blogging, social media, email marketing, webinars, information products, and affiliate marketing), you can increase your revenue, decrease frustrations with your computer, and impact more people with less effort.\r\n\r\nAs the Lead Evangelist of Leadpages, I bring world-class training to our Leadpages customers so they can boost their conversions and get more leads and sales with the Leadpages system. I also host our podcast, The Lead Generation, and appear on stages (live and virtual) teaching marketing to small business owners and entrepreneurs.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @BobTheTeacher", "session_title": "Facebook Audience Targeting Tips and Tricks", "summary": null, "description": "If you're advertising on Facebook for your business (or want to be soon), WHO sees your ads is as important as the ad itself. \r\n\r\nMost beginner and intermediate advertisers sabotage their advertising efforts (and therefore lose too much money) because of audience targeting traps. \r\n\r\nIn this presentation (from [Leadpages](https://www.leadpages.net) Lead Evangelist Bob Sparkins, you'll learn 5 Facebook audience targeting traps to avoid, and what to do instead so you can get better qualified traffic to your landing pages and website. \r\n\r\nAttend this session if you are: a solopreneur, small business owner, fresh agency founder, or junior marketing team member... \r\nAnd you are: just getting started with Facebook ads, or you're frustrated by the results you've been getting. \r\n\r\nThis session includes plenty of time for audience questions to apply what's presented to your business situation. \r\n\r\nWant to help steer the content? **[Connect beforehand on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobtheteacher)**", "room_name": "Georgia", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 35, "created_at": "2019-04-08 16:28:05 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:51 UTC" }, { "id": 857, "participant_id": 2538, "presenter_name": "Andy Krueger", "presenter_bio": "Principal Product Designer at Datasite. President of UXPA-MN. Big nerd.", "session_title": "UX Whiteboard Challenge", "summary": null, "description": "Hosted by the organizers of the [Whiteboard Challenge Meetup](https://www.meetup.com/UX-Whiteboard-Challenge/), this is a hands-on session to practice your problem solving skills in a fun environment. **No UX experience required!** We aim for peer learning, support, and friendship among all skill levels. Build confidence in thinking out loud, get ready for a big meeting, or practice for interviews.\r\n\r\n# **Who Should Attend** #\r\nExperience Designers, Product Designers, Web Developers, Human Factors Engineers, Graphic Designers, Business Analysts, Researchers, Creatives, all skill levels.\r\n\r\n# **What To Expect** #\r\nAfter a brief demonstration, we will break into pairs and start whiteboarding. One person will be the designer and the other the host. For 10 minutes the designer will work through the design challenge on the whiteboard. You may ask questions of the host as needed. Otherwise the host will practice the valuable but difficult skill of *listening* (this can be the hardest part of the challenge!). \r\n\r\nYou'll think out loud while working to show how you are exploring and tackling the challenge from your unique point of view. When the 10 minutes is up, the host gives 5 minutes of feedback/co-creation. Then you'll swap roles and do it again with a different challenge. The value of this exercise is more about the process than the solution, but we'll leave time at the end to see other people's whiteboards and discuss. \r\n\r\nHope to see you there!", "room_name": "Learn", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other", "Design", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Joel Lueders", "Anna Haug" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 2750, 3373 ], "attendance_count": 57, "created_at": "2019-04-08 15:33:40 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:49 UTC" }, { "id": 856, "participant_id": 3170, "presenter_name": "Mary Rick", "presenter_bio": "Mary Rick works for the City of Saint Paul’s Economic Development team and runs their tech and innovation program, Full Stack Saint Paul. Full Stack is a public/private partnership with the Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce and numerous private sector tech and innovation leaders. \r\n\r\nRick has extensive history with social enterprise and impact investing networks, including past roles with Global Exchange, Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), Investors’ Circle, and Peace Coffee. She has worked with tech start-ups, including BackpackEMR, Arrayent, and the Hoop Fund. Rick also served as a co-founder and inaugural CEO of the Impact Hub MSP – designing their new 13,000 sq ft facility, recruiting core office partners, developing the FINNovation Lab’s fellowship programming, and co-launching the Twin Cities Impact Investing Ecosystem Project.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @maryrick", "session_title": "Starting Up in Saint Paul: Tips for Founders & Innovators", "summary": null, "description": "Saint Paul's tech and innovation scene has been growing by leaps and bounds. Get advice from a Saint Paul-based entrepreneur, foundation leader, and city representative about tapping into the community and network of resources.\r\n\r\nHosted by Glitch's Evva Kraikul, Knight Foundation's Jai Winston, and City of Saint Paul/Full Stack's Mary Rick.", "room_name": "Texas", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Evva Kraikul", "Jai Winston" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 1027, 3222 ], "attendance_count": 42, "created_at": "2019-04-06 16:45:30 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:43 UTC" }, { "id": 855, "participant_id": 3196, "presenter_name": "Mpls Jr Devs", "presenter_bio": "Mpls Jr Devs is a community of aspiring and less experienced software engineers that was born at Minnebar in 2017.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @@mplsjrdevs", "session_title": "Live Junior Dev Mentoring", "summary": null, "description": "Mpls Jr Devs is a community of aspiring and less experienced software engineers that was born at Minnebar in 2017. To celebrate our second birthday, we're engaging our audience in mentorship.\r\n\r\n- Mentorship builds meaningful connections to other individuals within the tech community.\r\n- Creating bonds through mentorship strengthens support networks.\r\n- Engaging mentors at every stage of your career curates stepping stones to new knowledge.\r\n- You do not need to be a master of all languages, frameworks, or skills; purely being open to sharing your experience with another is considered mentorship.\r\n- Empathy is greater than engineering; the most sturdy engineering solutions do not hold up to poorly-comprehended problems.\r\n\r\nWhether you're self taught, went through a boot camp, studied CS in school, or are just interested in the topic, join us to talk about building mentorship opportunities in MN. We encourage both junior devs and people interested in mentoring to attend as there will be opportunity for those looking to mentor to introduce themselves and network with potential mentees.\r\n\r\nThis will be very casual and informal.", "room_name": "Nokomis", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Carla Brady", "Kam Kubesh", "Mai Yer Lee", "Sarah Cooke", "Matt Decuir" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 2471, 2461, 2951, 2598, 917 ], "attendance_count": 66, "created_at": "2019-04-05 23:32:30 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:53 UTC" }, { "id": 853, "participant_id": 2987, "presenter_name": "Casey Shultz", "presenter_bio": "Casey joins us from the Bay Area with a host of relevant startup and accelerator experience. She was one of the original employees of CouchSurfing International, the precursor to AirBnB, where she helped the company raise its $7.9M A-round. She then moved into the capital side of the equation as a lead of the Citrix Startup Accelerator. Most recently, Casey was the head of business operations at Serverless, Inc. \r\n\r\nCasey was wooed to Minnesota via the Twin Cities Startup Week Fly-in Program, where she was first introduced to our thriving startup ecosystem. As the Director of Program Management at BETA, Casey oversees the logistics and strategic partnerships for Startup Week. Casey lives in St. Paul with her husband, daughter, and goldendoodle puppy, Bumper. She holds an MBA from Presidio Graduate School.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @alaskacasey", "session_title": "Intro to personal safety and self defense", "summary": null, "description": "Please join me for a 45 minute introduction to the basics of personal safety and self-defense. This is appropriate for all skill levels and abilities. \r\n\r\nEmpowerment self-defense skills translate across all areas of our lives. Whether it’s using verbal boundary setting with a coworker or using full force self-defense to escape an assault this intro to self-defense basics will leave you feeling more confident in your everyday life. \r\n\r\nIn this session we’ll cover:
\r\n• how to use our awareness and intuition to assess situations
\r\n• how to use our voice and body language to set clear boundaries
\r\n• basic self-defense moves when other options are unavailable
\r\n\r\nNo special clothing or equipment is required. ", "room_name": "Pennsylvania", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 31, "created_at": "2019-04-05 17:44:33 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:43 UTC" }, { "id": 852, "participant_id": 2988, "presenter_name": "Kemal Balioglu", "presenter_bio": "Kemal Balioglu has 20+ years of experience in software development and has led local and global teams for more than 10 years. He \"survived\" several agile transitions and has learned from its impact as a software manager. Kemal is currently Director of Software Engineering at Field Nation where his main focus is on supporting the development team by providing mentorship, career and personal growth opportunities, as well as improve the team’s effectiveness.", "session_title": "Finally Time to Take Care of People - Software Team Management in the Agile World", "summary": null, "description": "Agile transformations require mindset and capability adjustments for all organizational leaders, especially software development leaders. While in the waterfall-based environment, the software managerial responsibilities include the wide range of people, product, project, and process areas, the agile transition transfers a significant amount of these responsibilities to agile teams. This “loss” can be unsettling for software development managers. Yet, it also lessens the need for focus on delivery (product, project, and process) and gives them more bandwidth for taking care of individual developers and teams.\r\n\r\nThis opportunity is also timely. A well-known Gallup report from 2017 highlights that 70% of U.S. workers are not engaged at work. There is no reason to believe that the numbers are very different for software engineers and it is up to software managers to address and mitigate this situation.\r\n\r\nIn this session, we will discuss how development leaders can take advantage of the opportunity that the agile transition provides. I will share some examples of what we do at Field Nation and invite all session participants to share what is working for them. Specifically, we want to talk about how we can support and increase: \r\n\r\n- Individual growth\r\n- Team effectiveness\r\n- Employee Engagement\r\n- And more\r\n\r\nAt the end of this session, participants should leave with a toolkit they can use with their teams. \r\n", "room_name": "Texas", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 44, "created_at": "2019-04-05 17:28:32 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:37 UTC" }, { "id": 851, "participant_id": 2620, "presenter_name": "Tiffany Orth", "presenter_bio": "Tiffany Orth is a Manager for Make It. MSP, GREATER MSP’s regional talent retention and attraction initiative. Her responsibilities include managing the implementation of the Make It. MSP initiative, as well as providing support to the regional economic development strategy team. Prior to joining GREATER MSP, Tiffany worked as a Project Coordinator for the MN Sports Facilities Authority; the public entity charged with planning and designing the new U.S. Bank Stadium. Previously, Tiffany coordinated the gubernatorial appointments process for judicial and state agency positions in the Office of Governor Mark Dayton and also supported Governor Dayton’s transition team. She has also worked in fundraising for various political campaigns.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @@tiffanyorth", "session_title": "Sharing the Minneapolis-Saint Paul tech community story with the world: How should we tell it? ", "summary": null, "description": "Join the Make It. MSP. Tech Team and the Forge North coalition to co-create storytelling strategies and gain practical tips for how you can better promote our tech community. Help us explore ways to share what makes our tech community great: its talented and diverse individuals!\r\n\r\nMinneapolis-Saint Paul’s (MSP) humble nature is an asset but it can also hold us back. It is vital for our region to step up and brag about our fantastic tech community. Partners in efforts like Make It. MSP., Forge North, Full Stack Saint Paul, DocuMNtary, and others have worked in recent years to discover how we can better tell our region’s tech story to the world. Through national outreach and ambassador training efforts, we have gained valuable insights into what tech professionals and others from around the country are looking for and what may encourage them to relocate to MSP. \r\n \r\nTo learn more about the MSP Tech team’s efforts to tell our story, visit tech.makeitmsp.org\r\n\r\n", "room_name": "Louis Pasteur", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Matt Lewis", "Minnestar", "Kelly Clausen", "Stephanie Rich" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 1004, 2622, 1490, 135 ], "attendance_count": 36, "created_at": "2019-04-05 02:24:29 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:51 UTC" }, { "id": 850, "participant_id": 3081, "presenter_name": "Shawn Seymour", "presenter_bio": "Distributed systems engineer and Apache Kafka enthusiast. At work, I'm currently architecting and implementing a data streaming platform. Outside of work, I like to write code, listen to music, and share cool tech with people.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/devshawn)", "session_title": "🚀 Making Distributed Systems Easy With Apache Kafka 😃", "summary": null, "description": "As event-driven design and microservice architectures are becoming more popular, distributed systems are being seen often and becoming more complex. A once simple web server with a database is now often distributed between multiple databases, caches, services, and systems. By utilizing Apache Kafka, one can reduce the complexity of a distributed system, build fault-tolerant & scalable services, de-couple integrations between different components, and easily expand when new systems are needed. \r\n\r\nIn this presentation, I’ll go over what a distributed system is, what event-driven architecture is, how it relates to service-oriented architecture, and why we need distributed systems. I’ll give an overview of Apache Kafka, how it works, and how it relates to other message brokers. Lastly, I’ll share my experiences utilizing Apache Kafka as the backbone to build a scalable, fault-tolerant data streaming platform.", "room_name": "Zeke Landres", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 59, "created_at": "2019-04-04 17:45:48 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:37 UTC" }, { "id": 849, "participant_id": 3046, "presenter_name": "Madelin Snyder", "presenter_bio": "Founder at Caus, I've got a varied background - having started out a musician and Arts Director, before turning to a career in product management and design.\r\n\r\nPassionate about leveraging the high-level creative thinking I've garnered in different mediums throughout my career, the tech world continues to present opportunities for me to let my mind run wild.\r\n\r\nI never thought I'd be a product person. I mean, I've got 8 apps on my phone and deleted my Facebook in 2012. When I started out in tech as a content creator, I remember sincerely asking a developer, \"What do you actually do though? Explain it to me again!\"\r\n\r\nSlowly I began being involved with strategizing, designing, and developing products. As of today, I've worked on nearly 100 - and am sincerely in love with the process.\r\n\r\nI'm now most interested in understanding the relationship between technology and the human experience. As our world continues to develop at hyper-speed, I believe it's our job as technical people to avoid building products that harm or invade - and intentionally prioritize kind and value-based interactions.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @heymadness", "session_title": "How can we design products in ways that value mental health?", "summary": null, "description": "Technology is all around us. From your smart watch, to your smart fridge, to the clusters of apps on your phone that buzz with notifications every day - our minds are nearly constantly being affected in some form by a digital product. And these products were designed expertly to get our attention and hold it using proven addictive engagement tactics and visual patterns that ensure our time is spent on them. \r\n\r\nHow might this interaction with technology be impacting our mental wellness? 25% of people are experiencing a mental illness, and everyone has mental health to look after. Are the products we're building taking that into account? And more importantly, how can they?\r\n\r\nCome join us in talking about creating digital experiences that value mental health. \r\n\r\nTopics discussed:\r\n\r\n- Current tactics, and the impact of designing for mental health\r\n- New design principles, patterns, and thought processes\r\n- How you can design experiences that are mental health friendly", "room_name": "Bde Maka Ska", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other", "Design", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 84, "created_at": "2019-04-04 12:33:30 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:46 UTC" }, { "id": 848, "participant_id": 3156, "presenter_name": "Ken Krutsch", "presenter_bio": "I’m a seasoned technology and operations executive, product architect, and user experience designer. \r\n\r\nMy mission in life is to create great products and customer experiences. My design and technical creativity has garnered the industry's highest recognition. \r\n\r\nOf note is Aireo for SoniqCast (CES Best of Show finalist in the Portable DAV category) and ICON Manager, winning numerous Editor’s Choice Awards as well as Best of Show finalist at VMworld. My clients benefit from 14 US patents, awarded as a result of my inventive product design.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/krutschcom)", "session_title": "Everywhere UX", "summary": null, "description": "User Experience Design is a mindset, more than it is a process or a set of specific skills.\r\n\r\nPrinciples of UX are ever present: crafting an impactful presentation, telling the world who you are on LinkedIn, even how you correspond with someone via e-mail. All these forms of content are little \"user interfaces\" that enable interactions with our colleagues, clients, and customers. UX goes beyond websites and mobile app user interfaces; it includes how you perceive your customers or clients - and how they perceive you. \r\n\r\nWe will show concrete examples and leave you with thoughts that might change they way you think about everything.\r\n\r\nWe come in, give an engaging talk for 20 minutes, followed by discussion. The last one we did was a lively Q&A that lasted another 30 minutes.\r\n", "room_name": "Zeke Landres", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Design" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 76, "created_at": "2019-04-03 15:00:33 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:39 UTC" }, { "id": 847, "participant_id": 3147, "presenter_name": "Eric Kang", "presenter_bio": "Eric Kang is passionate about Artificial Intelligence. Eric believes AI and specifically ML will be used everywhere in business and in our personal lives. Currently, Eric is working on various projects in the area of data sciences and machine learning by both mentoring entrepreneurs and being hands on. During the majority of Eric’s career until recently, Eric was an IT architect with various enterprise software packages, especially SAP. As an IT architect, Eric was recognized as a performance tuning guru, an RDBS expert, an SCM specialist, an IT application security instructor, and leader. Eric has successfully started software companies and had them acquired in the past. Eric had been in executive management positions in enterprise software businesses. \r\nEric had Ph.D. level training in both Mathematics and Computer Engineering from the University of Minnesota in Twin Cities.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/eqkwizard )\n- Twitter: @erickang", "session_title": "Machine Learning for dummies", "summary": null, "description": "In this session, I'll show step by step from the beginning how everyone can easily pick up machine learning (ML) skills. We'll use open source software, we'll doing ML coding in real time and you'll be able to do it yourself. We'll have a lot of fun together.", "room_name": "Theater", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Design", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 165, "created_at": "2019-04-02 15:59:50 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:38 UTC" }, { "id": 846, "participant_id": 3144, "presenter_name": "David Anderson", "presenter_bio": "David Anderson, Frauenshuh, Inc., brings over 25 years of experience as a commercial real estate developer and advisor to business clients, applying his technical knowledge and skills in real estate strategy, acquisitions, development, finance and negotiations to create value. Anderson’s clients range from small entrepreneurial enterprises to large corporations with national and international real estate interests. His unique ability to identify and craft solutions that create value at every stage of a company’s life cycle are invaluable assets to his clients.\r\n\r\nDavid Paeper, HGA, brings over 35 years of architecture and design experience to the pre-design phase of projects -- visioning, master planning, programming, research and workplace design -- to connect an organization’s facilities to their goals. David guides clients through the critical early stages of their project, using an interactive design process to understand their facility needs -- in terms of people, culture, space, technology and processes for working and learning. David’s project experience ranges from small tenant spaces to new campuses for Fortune 100 corporations and includes new high-performance office buildings for the State of California", "session_title": "Work Space Selection: Aligning Work Space With Your Company's Growth", "summary": null, "description": "This session will cover the basic elements of work space selection, negotiation and execution process for any sized company at all stages of growth along with insights to ensure your real estate aligns with your business plan. The speakers bring decades of leadership in site selection, real estate evaluation, business negotiation, space planning and project execution for entrepreneurial start-ups to major international corporations. Some of the session highlights will include:\r\n\r\n•\tCommercial Real Estate Process Overview\r\n•\tLocation/Space Selection Criteria\r\n•\tNegotiating business terms reflecting business needs and growth\r\n•\tCreating a winning environment (functionally and aesthetically)\r\n•\tAffirming company “culture” through your space \r\n•\tBuilding the right team to execute with success!\r\n\r\n\r\n", "room_name": "Kansas", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 11, "created_at": "2019-04-02 13:47:36 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:53 UTC" }, { "id": 845, "participant_id": 3129, "presenter_name": "Bruno Bornsztein", "presenter_bio": "I'm the founder InfluenceKit (and previously, Curbly and ManMadeDIY). I've been building web apps since the early 2000s, and spent most of the last ten years running online content businesses. These days I'm building a SaaS application that helps automate reporting for influencer marketing.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/bborn)\n- Twitter: @brunotorious", "session_title": "Bootstrapper’s Delight", "summary": null, "description": "What:\r\nA discussion about what it takes to start, grow, and exit a bootstrapped business. \r\n\r\n**Outline**\r\n\r\nBang bang boogie:\r\nBruno Bornsztein (InfluenceKit, Curbly) will talk about how to start, why success and failure can look the same at the beginning, and why knowing your weakness might be your greatest strength.\r\n\r\nLet’s rock:\r\nBjork Ostrom (Pinch of Yum, Food Blogger Pro, WP Tasty) will share his experience building a team and growing revenue.\r\n\r\nDrop the mic:\r\nKevin McArdle (SureSwift Capital) will talk about what a bootstrapped exit looks like, and how to position a successful bootstrapped business for the next step. ", "room_name": "Texas", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Kevin McArdle" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 2452 ], "attendance_count": 53, "created_at": "2019-04-01 22:32:51 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:31 UTC" }, { "id": 844, "participant_id": 3128, "presenter_name": "Lucas Bagno", "presenter_bio": "Lucas is a Managing Partner at Atland Ventures. Atland invests in early-stage startups that are solving problems felt by Gen Z. We currently have five companies in our portfolio, and are closing our $1.3M fund in May. You can learn more about us and the companies in our portfolio at www.atlandventures.com\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @atlandventures", "session_title": "The Principles of Business Model Innovation, by Atland Ventures", "summary": null, "description": "Are you interested in innovation and startups? Join us in this session to learn the tricks and handbooks that the most disruptive startups of the past decade have used to build their businesses. We will be looking at case studies and principles used by startups and venture capital firms that will give you a better understanding of early-stage growth.\r\n\r\nCome join us at this session to learn more about:\r\n\r\n- The underlying principles of business model innovation\r\n- The most important factors that drive growth at a startup\r\n- The main growth limiters\r\n- Proven business model patterns\r\n\r\nThe content of this session is helpful for founders, entrepreneurs, and investors alike. We hope to see you there with us!\r\n\r\nAtland Ventures is a venture capital firm ran by students at the University of Minnesota. You can learn more about us at https://www.atlandventures.com/", "room_name": "Proverb-Edison", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Design", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 80, "created_at": "2019-04-01 17:31:53 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:35 UTC" }, { "id": 843, "participant_id": 3126, "presenter_name": "Josh Janzen", "presenter_bio": "A fast-moving Data Scientist with broad experience in multiple industries, leveraging various tools and cloud computing platforms. The key to Josh’s success is the ability to recognize opportunities in data and the skills to capitalize from start to finish. Along the way, picked up of Master's of Data Science and M.B.A. from University of St. Thomas. ", "session_title": "Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) to replace Data Scientists?", "summary": null, "description": "AutoML can automate data preparation, feature extraction, model selection, and model tuning. This can save a Data Scientist loads of time. So instead of hiring four Data Scientists, you may only need two, right? \r\n\r\nIt’s no secret the shortage of data science talent to help companies produce advanced analytics from their stockpiles of data. There is also a plethora of vendor tools available making promises of turning an analyst into the next great data scientist (which BTW, is possible). \r\n\r\nFrom the depths of the hardcore mathematicians, statisticians and computer scientists (who created this stuff in the first place), have created more advanced tools automate the model creation process to help Data Scientists become more efficient, and (hopefully) better at our jobs. \r\n\r\nI will demo AutoML, discuss some pros/cons, and what it can do for you. \r\n", "room_name": "Oregon", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "Advanced", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 52, "created_at": "2019-04-01 14:50:09 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:46 UTC" }, { "id": 842, "participant_id": 2436, "presenter_name": "Brian Krohn", "presenter_bio": "Brian Krohn, Ph.D. is a serial entrepreneur with businesses ranging from heathIT, green fuel, Minnesota hops, and yes, creating a wizard staffs. He is currently the Entrepreneur in Residence and Project Manager at Modern Logic, where he helps businesses got from the spark of an idea to a scaled business. \r\n", "session_title": "How to create a successful Kickstarter! 🔥🔥🔥 A story of flaming wizard staffs ", "summary": null, "description": "Only 1 in 3 Kickstarters are successful. How do you tip the odds in your favor?\r\n\r\nJoin us for a journey through the $30,000 funded Kickstarter for Magic Wizard Staff [link](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1757290948/magic-wizard-staff?ref=creator_nav). Magic Wizard Staff (www.magicwizardstaff.com) makes wizard staffs that actually do wizard things like shoot a 3 foot flame or billow a cloud of fog. We created Magic Wizard Staff specifically to learn how to run a Kickstarter and now we are sharing our lessons learned with you. \r\n\r\nCome one, come all, and learn about:\r\n\r\n * What products do well on Kickstarter\r\n * When to launch your Kickstarter\r\n * How to prepare for your Kickstarter\r\n * How to deliver your Kickstarter\r\n * How to keep your bakers happy in the face of everything going wrong\r\n\r\nCome and learn from our mistakes in this brutally honest and conversation based session. \r\n\r\nMagic Wizard Staff is just the beginning. In addition to hearing about our trials and tribulations, come and learn about our next project The Reactor. The Reactor is a group of engineers and marketers that meets regularly with the goal of building successful products for Kickstarter. Find out how we are implementing our lessons learned to meet our 2019 goal of receiving over $100,000 in funding on Kickstarter.\r\n\r\n\r\n", "room_name": "Louis Pasteur", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:25:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other", "Design", "Hardware", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Steven Thomalla" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 2506 ], "attendance_count": 48, "created_at": "2019-03-29 16:27:02 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:29 UTC" }, { "id": 841, "participant_id": 1421, "presenter_name": "Marty Wetherall", "presenter_bio": "Daddy, Entrepreneur, co-founder of @FanChatter (YC S09), launching #DroneRacing Entertainment co @HydraFPV and racing at a bar near you http://hydrafpv.com\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @mcw719", "session_title": "A Live Drone Race 😎🎮⌘ at Minnebar 😯😲🤯", "summary": null, "description": "Come see the sport of the future when **live drone racing comes to Minnebar 2019**, powered by Twin Cities Drone Racing Entertainment Tech startup Hydra FPV and featuring the Twin Cities' top racing pilots. \r\n\r\nCo-founders Marty Wetherall and Joel Stewart will demonstrate their fan engagement platform as spectators watch the pilots' first-person-view video feeds and play along on the Hydra FPV app (iOS and Android) [link](http://onelink.to/hydrafpv), predicting the finish order of each heat and working their way up the Fan Leaderboard. \r\n\r\nAnd don't forget to stop by the Hydra FPV table during the day for information on **Minnesota's first high school drone race event** happening on May 18, including information on bringing FPV drone racing as an irresistible STEM lesson to your school or youth group. ", "room_name": "Cafeteria", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Design", "Hardware", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 75, "created_at": "2019-03-28 15:03:59 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-27 20:20:10 UTC" }, { "id": 839, "participant_id": 2291, "presenter_name": "Aneela Idnani", "presenter_bio": "Aneela Idnani is Cofounder & President of HabitAware (www.habitaware.com). HabitAware created it's Keen smart bracelet to help people “Retrain The Brain” from detrimental behaviors to positive ones. To do this, Keen creates awareness and mindfulness of hair pulling, skin picking and nail biting, which at their core are debilitating mental health conditions. Having grown up with hair pulling disorder, Aneela is now an outspoken mental health advocate, raising awareness of these very common yet unknown conditions. Aneela is a HAX hardware accelerator alumnus and her company recently received a research grant from the NIH to improve their device and validate Keen as a treatment for these disorders. Her life’s work (HabitAware) has been featured as a TIME Magazine 2018 Best Invention and in BuzzFeed, SELF Magazine, The Washington Post, Prevention Magazine and more.\r\n\r\n\r\n**follow**: www.twitter.com/ak310i or www.twitter.com/habitaware\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @habitaware", "session_title": "Mental Health in the Workplace: Creating Caring Communities", "summary": null, "description": "Was your 10th grade health class lacking mental health education? Are you now interested in helping change attitudes towards mental illnesses?\r\n\r\nThen this session is for you.\r\n\r\nMental illness effects one in five adults and one in five youth in any year. Lifetime prevalence is 50% so it’s important to learn more about mental illness if you’re an employer, family member, friend, the general public or someone managing a mental health problem.\r\n\r\nIn this session, Creating Caring Communities, Kay King from NAMI Minnesota (National Alliance on Mental Illness) will help you learn about mental illnesses, the impact of negative attitudes and share 5 things each of us can do to make our communities a better place for people who experience a mental illness. \r\n\r\n**About NAMI**\r\nNAMI Minnesota is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of children and adults with mental illnesses and their families. Through education, support and advocacy we strive to eliminate the pervasive stigma of mental illnesses, affect positive changes in the mental health system, and increase the public and professional understanding of mental illnesses. Kay King is a Community Educator for NAMI Minnesota. For more information visit: https://namimn.org/\r\n\r\n**Speaker Bio**\r\nKay King is Older Adults Program Coordinator and Community Educator at NAMI Minnesota (the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Minnesota)\r\nand has worked for NAMI nine years. Kay teaches about 4,000 professionals, family members and people managing a mental illness per\r\nyear in classes ranging from one to eight hours.\r\n\r\nKay is the former Executive Director of a retirement community in the Twin Cities that offers both independent and assisted living services. She managed a home health care agency. She also was a hotel and resort manager with over 25 years of hospitality industry experience nationally and internationally.\r\n\r\nKing is a family member whose grandmother, mother, sister and niece (fourgenerations) lived/lives with a mental illness.\r\n\r\n\r\n**Event Coordinators:**\r\nLaurie Healy, Fueled Collective, Head of Sales\r\nDustin Bruzenak, Modern Logic, CEO\r\nAneela Idnani, HabitAware, CoFounder\r\n\r\n\r\n* This event is sponsored by HabitAware as part of their mental health education, advocacy and parity efforts *", "room_name": "Challenge", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Laurie Healy", "Dustin Bruzenak" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 2367, 2504 ], "attendance_count": 69, "created_at": "2019-03-28 03:11:55 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:53 UTC" }, { "id": 838, "participant_id": 2954, "presenter_name": "Nels Pederson", "presenter_bio": "Partnerships at [Livefront](http://Livefront.com)\r\n\r\nStartup nerd, Board member, and former managing director of [Beta.MN](http://beta.mn) and [Twin Cities Startup Week](http://Twincitiesstartupweek.com)\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @nelspederson", "session_title": "Why I Built This - Ignite Talks from 5 Emerging Startups", "summary": null, "description": "Hear from the founders of 5 local companies as they give an Ignite talk on why they built their businesses. \r\n\r\nIgnite talks are simple, to the point, and a ton of fun. Presenters get 20 slides, which automatically advance every 15 seconds. The result is a fast and fun presentation which lasts just 5 minutes. Following each presentation we'll take a few minutes for the audience to ask any questions. \r\n\r\n\r\n**Presenting Founders**\r\n\r\n**Sean Higgins** - CEO and founder of [BetterYou](http://betteryou.ai)\r\n\r\n**Katrina Anderson** - CEO and Co-founder of [Clinician Nexus](http://www.cliniciannexus.com) \r\n\r\n**Phil Xiao** - CEO and founder of [Homi](http://homi.io) \r\n\r\n**Simon and Jesse Okiror** - Founders of [Suprabook](http://www.suprabook.com)\r\n\r\n**Bharat Pulgam and Sam Lerdhal** - Founders of [Runerra](http://runerra.com)\r\n\r\nInterested in presenting? Awesome! Shoot an email to Nels@livefront.com and we can chat. ", "room_name": "Bde Maka Ska", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Development", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 96, "created_at": "2019-03-27 20:50:07 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:38 UTC" }, { "id": 837, "participant_id": 1044, "presenter_name": "David Quimby", "presenter_bio": "I practice systematic innovation, experimental design, and technology forecasting at _Innovation Radiation_. I'm a patented inventor in Web architecture and a published author in technical and social innovation. I advised an array of manufacturing and service industries on emerging opportunities in artificial intelligence as a technology analyst at Stanford Research Institute. I've intentionally wandered, explored, and discovered on six continents... I've climbed Mount Whitney; I've done trekking in Thailand, a photographic safari in Kenya, and sea kayaking in Alaska; I've traversed the U.S. and Canada by motorcycle.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n**Links:**\r\n\r\nLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dhquimby\r\n\r\nWeb: www.innovationradiation.com", "session_title": "What is Your Contradiction?", "summary": null, "description": "Start with a contradiction. If you plan to invest several years of your precious time in a product / service opportunity that doesn't solve a contradiction, keep looking. If you are pursuing a product or service innovation and you aren't planning on a multi-year commitment, keep looking. Whether you're in a small enterprise or a large enterprise -- find an opportunity that is worth a multi-year commitment. \r\n\r\nA contradiction is two opposing forces or dimensions that apparently can't be improved simultaneously. We usually optimize across contradictions instead of solving them -- by increasing one variable while decreasing the other variable. Optimization is not the same as resolution. Optimization produces incremental innovation; resolution produces radical / disruptive innovation. Optimization can be a distraction from discovering significant, long-term product / service value.\r\n\r\nMany innovations improve one variable in isolation. Some innovations even improve two variables -- although the two variables are not inherently in conflict with each other, and they may even be un-related. Incremental innovation. Improve two variables that are inherently in conflict with each other. Radical / disruptive innovation.\r\n\r\nSolving a contradiction addresses the two critical elements of a viable business model: Customer value (delivering two dimensions that previously required a compromise) and competitive advantage (delivering customer value that the competition has not discovered and / or is not equipped to deliver).\r\n\r\nThis approach is a variant of a broad domain that is known as **systematic innovation**. I will describe the basic model of systematic innovation. I will describe how the systematic approach is more effective than un-systematic approaches. I will describe how this particular systematic approach is more effective than other systematic approaches -- it solves a contradiction among systematic approaches!\r\n\r\nI will describe how prominent innovators have used this approach to disrupt entire eco-systems in medical technology and information technology. I will describe how I used this approach to discover a Web middleware innovation that is currently generating a healthy royalty stream. We may even explore an application or two on the fly if you want to iterate some ideas.\r\n\r\nJoin me as we discover product / service value with systematic innovation. If you haven't discovered a contradiction that you can solve -- keep looking!\r\n", "room_name": "Tackle", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:25:00 -0500", "level_name": null, "categories": [ "Development", "Design", "Hardware", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 55, "created_at": "2019-03-26 22:24:27 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:29 UTC" }, { "id": 836, "participant_id": 917, "presenter_name": "Matt Decuir", "presenter_bio": "Matt (he/him) is a software engineer, entrepreneur, and Minnestar board member. Past projects include [Invisible Network](https://www.invisiblenetwork.com/), [Mpls Jr Devs](https://mplsjrdevs.com/), and [OMG Transit](https://omgtransit.com).\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/experimatt)\n- Twitter: @experimatt", "session_title": "What it's Like To Be a Developer at Company X", "summary": null, "description": "The goal of this session is to give perspective on both what it's like to be a software engineer at different types of companies, while also showcasing a few different local companies.\r\n\r\nThere will be engineers from 4 different local organizations who will each be interviewed in front of the audience for 6-8 minutes, about what it's like to work at their company.\r\n\r\nThink of it like a reverse interview, where you get to sit in the audience and observe, without any of the stress of *actually* interviewing.\r\n\r\nHere are the companies and people that will be representing them:\r\n\r\n* **Foodsby, Joseph Szczesniak**. A funded startup focused on food delivery for office workers.\r\n* **Foundry, Travis Meyer**. A design and development agency based in downtown Minneapolis.\r\n* **Target, Nicole Liang**. An enterprise-sized retailer headquartered in Minneapolis.\r\n* **Sharp Five Software, Jaim Zuber**. A solo consulting shop specializing in software development.", "room_name": "Minnetonka", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Joseph Szczesniak", "Jaim Zuber", "Nicole Liang", "Travis Meyer" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 3127, 17, 3441, 3540 ], "attendance_count": 86, "created_at": "2019-03-26 22:08:27 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:34 UTC" }, { "id": 835, "participant_id": 958, "presenter_name": "Andrew Rahn", "presenter_bio": "Andy is a developer at Modern Logic. He has experience in a wide variety of platforms and languages and is fearless when it comes to exploring new technologies. In the past few years, he's been an avid user of the programming languages Swift 4, Kotlin and Typescript. He's also a big data nerd who thrives on AWS technologies such as Athena, Pinpoint and Firehose.\r\n\r\nAndy lives in Minneapolis. He loves dogs and plays the oboe.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/paddlefish)\n- Twitter: @paddlefish", "session_title": "App Analytics for CEOs and Startups", "summary": null, "description": "You know the data derived from in-app analytics programs can help you make better business decisions. But how do you go about securing and interpreting that data?\r\n\r\nJoin me for a brief session on how you can implement and use data from in-app analytics tools. You’ll leave this session with:\r\n\r\n* Samples of effective business experiments using analytics\r\n* Examples of how in-app analytics enhance product decisions\r\n* Strategies for choosing an in-app analytics solution\r\n* Familiarity with the power of AWS for analytics\r\n\r\nThis session will be facilitated by me, Andy Rahn, a principal developer at Modern Logic. This event will help CEOs and product leaders who are ready to apply in-app analytics to their decision-making processes.\r\n", "room_name": "California", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 49, "created_at": "2019-03-26 20:07:34 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:43 UTC" }, { "id": 834, "participant_id": 1109, "presenter_name": "Joel Coppin", "presenter_bio": "Joel is Vice President of Product Development at Conservis, a company dedicated to enabling farmers through software and tools to manage and optimize their operations. Prior to Conservis he has led software development organizations with companies large and small, including Best Buy, Wells Fargo and SPS Commerce.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @jcoppin", "session_title": "The Digitalization of Farming", "summary": null, "description": "Technology is enabling a transformation in agriculture that is touching all aspects of the industry. Advancements in IoT, machine vision, automation, robotics, and big data are leading to the digitalization of farming and is opening up opportunities that were never before possible. \r\n\r\nMinnesota has a long history of driving innovation in agriculture, and is uniquely positioned to lead the way towards more efficient and sustainable farming. In this talk we will put into perspective this exciting time, touching upon the history of technical advancements in farming and dive into how Agtech will disrupt and transform the industry in the years to come. ", "room_name": "Learn", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 71, "created_at": "2019-03-26 15:36:32 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:32 UTC" }, { "id": 833, "participant_id": 2306, "presenter_name": "Andrew Haisting", "presenter_bio": "Andrew writes, reviews, and ships top quality code at [Livefront](https://livefront.com/).", "session_title": "The Preflight Checklist: lessons learned the hard way, so you can ship your app the easy way", "summary": null, "description": "You’ve muscled through a dozen sprints, you’ve sharpened your app with round after round of user testing, you’ve got QA signoff - and now, finally, you have the green light to submit your app to the app store. \r\n \r\nYou. Are. Ready. To. Ship.\r\n \r\nBut are you ready… really?\r\n \r\nWhen building a digital product, those last few steps before launch can seem like a formality. Compared to the complexity of your product itself, it is quite easy to overlook the process of releasing to the app store. \r\n \r\nBut, if you’ve ever received an obscurely-worded app rejection notice from an app reviewer at Apple, had a twinge of doubt over whether your Android app would run properly after code obfuscation, or even just scrambled to find decent-looking screenshots at the last minute on launch day – you know well that there are dragons lurking all over the app store submission process. \r\n \r\nIn this session, you’ll hear practical tips, hard-earned lessons, and maybe even a few horror stories from our experiences shipping hundreds of releases over the years. \r\n \r\nYou’ll leave the session with Livefront’s Preflight Checklist, which is the tool we use to slay those product launch dragons. The Preflight Checklist is a comprehensive list of checks, TODOs, and other things you just flat out don’t want to forget when shipping a new app to the store. \r\n \r\nWith this simple list; you can ship early, ship often, and most importantly - ship with confidence.", "room_name": "Learn", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:25:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Matt Schraan" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 3095 ], "attendance_count": 62, "created_at": "2019-03-25 23:27:35 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:29 UTC" }, { "id": 832, "participant_id": 2987, "presenter_name": "Casey Shultz", "presenter_bio": "Casey joins us from the Bay Area with a host of relevant startup and accelerator experience. She was one of the original employees of CouchSurfing International, the precursor to AirBnB, where she helped the company raise its $7.9M A-round. She then moved into the capital side of the equation as a lead of the Citrix Startup Accelerator. Most recently, Casey was the head of business operations at Serverless, Inc. \r\n\r\nCasey was wooed to Minnesota via the Twin Cities Startup Week Fly-in Program, where she was first introduced to our thriving startup ecosystem. As the Director of Program Management at BETA, Casey oversees the logistics and strategic partnerships for Startup Week. Casey lives in St. Paul with her husband, daughter, and goldendoodle puppy, Bumper. She holds an MBA from Presidio Graduate School.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @alaskacasey", "session_title": "The secret society of Twin Cities Startup Week planning, and how to be a part of it", "summary": null, "description": "Twin Cities Startup Week (TCSW) is one of the largest entrepreneurial events in the United States. Every year hundreds of community members come together to plan workshops, panel discussions, activities, and cultural events. In 2018, TCSW attracted over 17,000 attendees to more than 200 events. This year is already shaping up to be even better, with the introduction of some exciting new updates to the format of the week including concentrations around topics and event-locations.\r\n\r\nIn this session, the TCSW team will provide a brief history of the week, announce some of the key enhancements to the 2019 plan, and then provide tips on how to ensure that your event/location/community is involved in the next Startup Week.\r\n\r\nIf you’ve always been interested in bettering your personal and/or professional brand via Startup Week, this is the session for you.\r\n\r\n**Presenters**\r\n\r\n**[Reed Robinson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/reedrobinson/), Co-founder/ Executive Director of BETA**
\r\nReed co-founded Twin Cities Startup Week (TCSW) in 2014 when he realized that there was a lack of awareness around all the incredible innovation taking place in the Twin Cities. A startup founder himself, Reed recognized the importance of bringing the great entrepreneurial minds together for a week of celebration. He is the executive director of [BETA](http://beta.mn/), a local startup accelerator that focuses on elevating the performance of first-time founders. \r\n\r\n\r\n**[Casey Shultz](https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseyshultz/), Director of Twin Cities Startup Week**
\r\nCasey recently moved to the Twin Cities from the San Francisco Bay Area where she previously managed the Citrix Startup Accelerator in Silicon Valley and Serverless, Inc. a developer tools startup in San Francisco. Casey was lured to the Twin Cities by the high quality of life and thriving entrepreneurial community, which she was introduced to through the TCSW Fly-in Program.\r\n\r\n", "room_name": "Proverb-Edison", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 69, "created_at": "2019-03-25 21:32:41 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-27 03:45:32 UTC" }, { "id": 831, "participant_id": 442, "presenter_name": "Jason Hsu", "presenter_bio": "\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/jhsu802701)", "session_title": "But it works on my machine!", "summary": null, "description": "Imagine this scenario: You need to set up your software project on a different computer. How many times will you stumble along the way? How long will it take you to fully set up your project on this local machine? One hour? Five hours? Three days?\r\n\r\nHere's another scenario: You're working on your software project, and weird things are happening. Did you mess up your local development environment? Can you remember what you did wrong? Will you have to nuke your development environment and start over?\r\n\r\nHere's another scenario: A new member has joined your software project. You need to walk this person through the process of fully setting up the project on his/her local machine and having all of the tests pass. How many times will you or this new team member stumble along the way? How many hours will it take for the project to be fully up and running on his/her local machine? One hour? Five hours? Three days?\r\n\r\nIn this session, I will demonstrate examples of projects where I have implemented my safeguards against the infamous \"But it works on my machine!\" problem. With my safeguards in place, you never have to live in fear of the day when something happens to your development environment, you need to set up your project on a different machine, or you're responsible for walking a new member of your team through the process of setting up the project.\r\n\r\nWhat's the secret sauce? The two main ingredients in my secret sauce are a custom Docker image and comprehensive Bash scripts in the project. No, you don't even need to submit a pull request for this.", "room_name": "Nebraska", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 38, "created_at": "2019-03-23 01:44:22 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:42 UTC" }, { "id": 830, "participant_id": 2306, "presenter_name": "Andrew Haisting", "presenter_bio": "Andrew writes, reviews, and ships top quality code at [Livefront](https://livefront.com/).", "session_title": "Computer Science Education in MN", "summary": null, "description": "In this session, you'll learn about availability of Computer Science programs both in and out of the school day. You'll also learn what challenges students, schools, and programs face, and how you or your company might be an advocate for the cause!\r\n\r\nAndrew Haisting\r\nSoftware Engineer, Livefront\r\nCoding Facilitator, Project Success\r\n\r\nJames Rone\r\nProgram Manager - Project Success Institute\r\n\r\n", "room_name": "Florida", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 55, "created_at": "2019-03-22 00:29:02 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:42 UTC" }, { "id": 829, "participant_id": 2182, "presenter_name": "Eve Poeschl", "presenter_bio": "Eve thrives in the dynamic realm of technology and innovation, boasting a diverse career spanning roles as a Network Engineer, Software Developer, Product Owner, Business Analyst, and Solutions Architect. Presently, she spearheads digital teams at Boston Scientific, pioneering groundbreaking software for the revolutionary WATCHMAN Left Atrial Appendage Closure therapy.\r\n\r\nBeyond her professional endeavors, Eve dedicates her nights to serving as the Vice-Chair of the Board for Minnestar, alongside her role as a distinguished judge for the Minnesota Cup high-tech division. Her remarkable contributions have garnered recognition, including the prestigious \"40-under-40\" award from the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal.\r\n\r\nDeeply ingrained in the Minnesota Tech Community, Eve exudes a passion for fostering connections and innovation. When not immersed in the digital realm, she indulges in culinary adventures at the trendiest eateries, uses ChatGPT to generate her bio, explores the world through savvy travel-hacking, and tends to her impressive collection of over 200 houseplants—a passion that evolved into a successful business venture in 2020.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @leca.addict on Instagram and Threads", "session_title": "Korean Skincare Intro #SELFCARE", "summary": null, "description": "Do you want to know what the 10-step Korean skincare is? Do you want to know why the sun is bad and how you can avoid sun damage (other than not going outside)? \r\n\r\nWait what, why do you need 10 steps? \r\n\r\nWe will also take a look at the science behind how skincare ingredients work - pH levels, what works with what, and doesn't work with what, and why do people put snail mucus on their face?\r\n\r\nThere may be sheet masks and product demos. Like literally, putting stuff on your face. Come and put stuff on your face. (Putting stuff on your face is not required. 🤪)\r\n\r\n#selfcare\r\n", "room_name": "Nevada", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 57, "created_at": "2019-03-21 19:22:24 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:46 UTC" }, { "id": 828, "participant_id": 1805, "presenter_name": "Collin Flynn", "presenter_bio": "Collin is a Principal Software Engineer with Livefront\r\n\r\n**Links:**\r\n\r\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/cdflynn)\r\n- Twitter: @collin_flynn", "session_title": "When Will It Be Done? How Bad Questions Give You Bad Software (And What To Ask Instead)", "summary": null, "description": "If you're a stakeholder, you've probably asked some version of this question:\r\n*How much will it cost and when will it be done?*\r\n\r\nBusinesses plan budgets and need to time deliveries -- is a software project any different?\r\n\r\nBut like asking \"What is north of the North Pole?\" , it shows misunderstanding.\r\nAs a developer, I see this costly mistake repeated routinely. Your software is not a vehicle to transport your product. It *is* your product with additional hidden potential. And creating *useful* products is a process of discovery and adaptation. Misapplying these questions to a software project will prevent you from capitalizing on those discoveries while you waste time on first-draft features. Perhaps worse, deadline fixation can incentivize toxic internal politics instead of unity around a mission.\r\n\r\nRegardless, everyone has a budget. What should a stakeholder ask for if not a timeline and cost?\r\nIn this session you'll see how asking the right questions can deliver better software, grow your business, and build a stronger company culture.", "room_name": "Nokomis", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Design", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 97, "created_at": "2019-03-19 19:44:24 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:34 UTC" }, { "id": 827, "participant_id": 2925, "presenter_name": "Cari Tan", "presenter_bio": "[Cari Tan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/cari-tan-46772918/) is an accessibility engineer at [Accessible360](https://accessible360.com/) where she works everyday to make digital spaces more accessible to all. She does this in a variety of ways including testing, assessing possible risk in designs, and providing recommendations for accessible solutions to clients. Prior to entering the tech field, Cari spent years working in education and nonprofits, which still informs the work she’s doing today as she shares skills and knowledge in regards to digital accessibility. \r\n", "session_title": "Getting Started with Accessibility", "summary": null, "description": "There are many reasons to make your digital products accessible, but with all of the information and recommendations available, it can be hard to know where to start. In this session, we will cut through the noise and focus on the key areas that you can get going on right away. You will leave with tools, knowledge and resources to start integrating and implementing accessibility into your current processes and systems. ", "room_name": "Louis Pasteur", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Development", "Design" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 51, "created_at": "2019-03-19 16:55:57 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:52 UTC" }, { "id": 825, "participant_id": 1644, "presenter_name": "Kyle Smaagard", "presenter_bio": "Kyle Smaagard is a former Air Force Officer and self-taught programmer. His knowledge is all over the place including:\r\n\r\n* Satellite [Construction] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-221)\r\n* Supply Chain Management\r\n* 3d Printing\r\n* Android Development\r\n* Product Management\r\n* Machine Learning\r\n\r\nHe taught himself to code in the middle of the desert and has leveraged that knowledge to be effective in building Android Applications and a 3d Printing business. \r\n\r\nFor his real job he works at an awesome company called [Calabrio] (http://www.calabrio.com/) and for the last 3 years has been running an AI/ML research team.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/easycheese)", "session_title": "Beyond Tensorflow", "summary": null, "description": "Everyone knows about TensorFlow, it's the best thing out there for Machine Learning, right?\r\n\r\nWell....*maybe*...\r\n\r\nI'm going to demonstrate an alternative that gives the same or better results with less training time and **less code!!**", "room_name": "Georgia", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 43, "created_at": "2019-03-18 01:58:59 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:42 UTC" }, { "id": 824, "participant_id": 3070, "presenter_name": "Levi McCormick", "presenter_bio": "Recovering DevOp now cosplaying as a Director of Engineering.\r\n\r\nLevi has spend the last ~20 years in tech at various levels and roles, doing everything from phone support to training and mentoring, architecture and application design, requirements gathering and customer engagement, and even taking out the trash on Fridays. He is very passionate about developer experience and leveraging cloud platforms so that all engineers can be 10x engineers.\r\n\r\n**Links:**\r\n\r\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/levimccormick)\r\n- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/levimccormick/)", "session_title": "Personal Brand Development for Technologists", "summary": null, "description": "Do you have an awesome app, but nobody uses it? Want to get a new job without breaking a sweat? Need more donations to your open-source project? Before you can do any of these things, you need to capture attention.\r\n\r\nSession topics:\r\n* Learn how to use social media to build up attention and direct it towards your goals.\r\n* Understand how to build a content model from the Agile ceremonies and where to distribute your content.\r\n* Overview of social media platforms, algorithms, and how to make native content for them.\r\n* Cover tech specific platforms and how to use them as content funnels.\r\n* Learn about ad supported content and where it is cheap or overpriced.\r\n\r\nThis will be a slide lecture with opportunities for Q&A.\r\n", "room_name": "Discover", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 82, "created_at": "2019-03-17 16:02:54 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:34 UTC" }, { "id": 823, "participant_id": 1902, "presenter_name": "Chelsey McKinney", "presenter_bio": "Chelsey is a transplant originally from Tennessee. She started programming almost three years ago from tutorials, and local classes in the community. Chelsey believes that semicolons are really cool. She always **always** has a book on her, and loves watching Law & Order reruns.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @techchelsey", "session_title": "100 Days, Racism, and Starting Over: Finding faith in programming", "summary": null, "description": "What happens when a junior dev stops coding for 3 months? What really matters is what happens after the tech reprieve. Learn about how unplugging from technology allowed a junior developer to grow immensely, and how she regained her faith in programming after completing a coding challenge. \r\n", "room_name": "Learn", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 60, "created_at": "2019-03-17 15:09:35 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:39 UTC" }, { "id": 822, "participant_id": 859, "presenter_name": "Sara Cowles", "presenter_bio": "An advocate for the power of design thinking to help companies innovate and thrive, Sara leads design and engineering teams to collaborate, experiment, and learn toward a better understanding of the humans we serve.\r\n\r\nCurrently Director of Product Design at [When I Work](http://wheniwork.com). Formerly Director of UX and Engineering at enStratus and Dell Software.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @saracowles", "session_title": "Data-driven & Human-centered: Connecting the Dots for Maximum Impact", "summary": null, "description": "We all have unique backgrounds and perspectives that lead us to learn from data in different ways. This is fine, until biases start to creep in and limit the way we work and our ability to be effective.\r\n\r\nToo much obsessing over numbers can leave us blind to the human stories underneath. At the same time, failing to appreciate numbers like key business metrics can hamstring our ability to deliver experiences that matter.\r\n\r\nSo how can we avoid these common traps? In this talk we’ll cover tangible examples and strategies for delighting the humans behind the data... at scale.", "room_name": "Bde Maka Ska", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Design", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 71, "created_at": "2019-03-15 22:16:08 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:37 UTC" }, { "id": 821, "participant_id": 3038, "presenter_name": "Bury Huang", "presenter_bio": "A seasoned engineer, 17 years in the industrial, working on distributed storage, cloud service, blockchain. Specialized in system integration, bridging business and technologies.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/buryhuang)\n- Twitter: @buryhuang", "session_title": "There Is No Blockchain, Just Computer Science Engineering (Why blockchain is made for Non-Profit)", "summary": null, "description": "Blockchain may not be what you heard about.\r\n\r\nYou may be familiar with SHA-3, Kafka, Wasm etc. Do you know the \"blockchain\" umbrella is basically adding just one 40-years old technique to create a unique but powerful glue thus become a big thing? Other than that, there is NO blockchain. There is distributed database, messaging ordering, memory coherence protocol etc.\r\n\r\nAll the same old metrics apply: latency, concurrency and consistency etc.\r\n\r\nNow the real value of blockchain is about the balance between technology and economics, business. A fine balance of this solution creates a unique but powerful economics systems between engineering and real world. A good marriage.\r\n\r\nThere are public chains, private chains, permissioned chains. Blockchain is a gigantic umbrella for many CS technologies. Don’t get scared, don’t despise, they are made of what you already know and for a reason.\r\n\r\nJoin me to explore what is blockchain, really.\r\n​\r\n(Bonous) Why blockchain is made for Non-Profit.", "room_name": "Nevada", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Design", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 48, "created_at": "2019-03-15 21:43:24 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:47 UTC" }, { "id": 820, "participant_id": 18, "presenter_name": "Ian Fitzpatrick", "presenter_bio": "\r\n\r\nLet's make it weird.\r\n\r\n- I made you a video game\r\n- I made you a twitter bot\r\n- i made you a web site\r\n\r\n-- \r\n\r\n@ianfitzpat\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @ianfitzpat", "session_title": "Mega Minne Multi Indie Mini Arcade 4 (All Day)", "summary": null, "description": "\r\n\r\nBack for a fourth year!\r\n\r\nHello Computer Friends, what if I told you there was a vibrant community of independent game developers in your very own state of Minnesota (and surrounding principalities) making seriously excellent video games?\r\n\r\nYou would demand PROOF, as is your right.\r\n\r\n**Mega Minne Multi Indie Mini Arcade** is here to provide you so much proof that you are like \"Okay, okay, I get it. Enough already.\"\r\n\r\n*We got:*\r\n\r\n💪 3 big screen TVs running a selection of locally made games\r\n\r\n💪 This thing's going all day long\r\n\r\n💪 In the main hallway area of Minnebar\r\n\r\n\r\n--\r\n\r\n***FEATURED GAMES***\r\n\r\nHey! Click a game's thumbnail image to see its trailer!\r\n\r\nOR [watch this mega-trailer](https://youtu.be/I9btEQ6dys4) to get a taste of all games in the arcade.\r\n\r\n**Atmocopter** — *Will Tice / unTied Games*\r\n\r\n[![Atmocopter](http://img.youtube.com/vi/WU9WuWnLYoY/0.jpg)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU9WuWnLYoY \"Atmocopter\")\r\n\r\nAtmocopter is a retro sidescroller featuring a little helicopter robot who, upon waking up in a less-than-friendly factory, just wants to make it out alive! Navigate Atmocopter through hazardous electraps, bumpers, spider-bots, and more as you press switches, blast rogue robots, and solve puzzles!\r\n\r\nhttp://untiedgames.com/atmocopter\r\n\r\n
\r\n\r\n**HyperDot** — *Tribe Games | @TribeGames*\r\n\r\n[![HyperDot](http://img.youtube.com/vi/x2KElxlSkwQ/0.jpg)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2KElxlSkwQ \"HyperDot\")\r\n\r\nComing to Xbox One this year! HyperDot is an action arcade game rooted in minimalist design, maximum challenge, and infinite flexibility. Evade enemies and test your skills in over 100 trials in the campaign mode, outlast your friends in multiplayer battles, or build custom challenges with the level editor.\r\n\r\nhttps://hyperdotgame.com\r\n\r\n
\r\n**Joggernauts** — *Space Mace*\r\n\r\n[![Joggernauts](http://img.youtube.com/vi/bBmdMETwmYA/0.jpg)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBmdMETwmYA \"Joggernauts\")\r\n\r\nAvailable now on Nintendo Switch! Coordinate the crazy conga line of alien athletes in this Minnesota-made cooperative puzzle platformer for 1 to 4 players.\r\n\r\nhttps://spacemacegames.com\r\n\r\n\r\n
\r\n**plylp** — *@devjana DorkChocl8*\r\n\r\n[![plylp](http://img.youtube.com/vi/GcZZ8lfeUsE/0.jpg)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcZZ8lfeUsE \"plylp\")\r\n\r\nDigital catch! Two players hold the same controller and toss a \"ball\" to one another. It's kinda fun... give it a shot!\r\n\r\ntwitter: @devjana\r\n\r\n
\r\n**Tactics V: \"Obsidian Brigade\"** — *From Nothing Game Studios LLC paul@fromnothinggamestudios.com [Paul Metcalf]*\r\n\r\n[![TacticsV](http://img.youtube.com/vi/MaHieV6nrWc/0.jpg)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaHieV6nrWc \"TacticsV\")\r\n\r\nTactics V: \"Obsidian Brigade\" is a tactical RPG in homage to the classic 90's games in the genre. It uses in-house lore, with magic, and multi-classing. Coming out in Q3 2019\r\n\r\nhttp://fromnothinggamestudios.com\r\n\r\n
\r\n**Volcano Valley** — *Volcano Valley Team (Alex Carlson)*\r\n\r\n[![Volcano Valley](http://img.youtube.com/vi/x2mr4h6-G2A/0.jpg)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2mr4h6-G2A \"Volcano Valley\")\r\n\r\nSplatoon meets bumpercars. Have the most ground painted at the end of 90 seconds to win! Use fun items and watch out for volcanoes!\r\n\r\nhttps://volcanovalley.itch.io/volcano-valley\r\n\r\n
\r\n**West of Loathing** — *design by Asymmetric Publications (asymmetric.net), code by Victor Thompson (victor@caperacademy.com)*\r\n\r\n[![IMAGE ALT TEXT](http://img.youtube.com/vi/GDmOmxv2U4k/0.jpg)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDmOmxv2U4k \"Video Title\")\r\n\r\nAvailable now on Nintendo Switch (and other platforms)! Say howdy to West of Loathing -- a single-player slapstick comedy adventure role-playing game set in the wild west of the Kingdom of Loathing universe. Traverse snake-infested gulches, punch skeletons wearing cowboy hats, grapple with demon cows, and investigate a wide variety of disgusting spittoons.\r\n\r\nhttp://westofloathing.com\r\n\r\n
\r\n**Widget Satchel** — *Noble Robot*\r\n\r\n[![Widget Satchel](http://img.youtube.com/vi/DBlzKDwhAJ0/0.jpg)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBlzKDwhAJ0 \"Widget Satchel\")\r\n\r\nIn Widget Satchel, you are Sprocket, a pet ferret on a space station in the far future. Escape your playpen and make your way to the shuttlebay with the most stuff! Perfect for those who want a challenge, but also for those who just want to knock stuff over and get into trouble!\r\n\r\nhttp://widgetsatchel.com\r\n\r\n
\r\n**Wisper** — *Wisper*\r\n\r\n[![Wisperl](http://img.youtube.com/vi/c8aAPyPCbz4/0.jpg)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8aAPyPCbz4 \"Wisperl\")\r\n\r\nTake control of the wind and rise to the challenge of collecting and destroying the cursed fractions of a shattered storm to restore the tropical island of Sunshore. Your presence may be unseen, but your actions don’t go unnoticed.\r\n\r\nBeing a hero has never been more of a breeze!\r\n\r\nhttps://www.facebook.com/sunshorestudios/\r\n\r\n--\r\n\r\nAlso, would you like to get plugged into the local game dev scene?\r\n\r\n**Ice Cold Games**
\r\n[website](https://icecold.games)\r\n\r\nA one stop shop for upcoming game dev related events, game creators, organizations, and more.\r\n\r\n**Glitch Con**
\r\n[website](http://www.glitchcon.mn)\r\n\r\nDigital games festival run by Glitch.\r\n\r\n**IGDATC**
\r\n[website](http://www.igdatc.org)\r\n\r\nThe local chapter of the International Game Developers Association has monthly general meeting plus a VR meeting.\r\n\r\n**Nice Games Club Podcast**
\r\n[website](http://nicegames.club)\r\n\r\nThe podcast where nice gamedevs talk gaming. Nice! And, local!", "room_name": null, "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Design" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Zachary Johnson" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 724 ], "attendance_count": 54, "created_at": "2019-03-15 19:30:18 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 22:59:03 UTC" }, { "id": 819, "participant_id": 774, "presenter_name": "Jessica Meyer", "presenter_bio": "Jessica Meyer is a Senior Data Scientist at Optum with more than five years of experience in the field of data science, big data, and machine learning working in both retail and healthcare industries. In her spare time she is an Adjunct Associate at Columbia University in the School of Professional Studies Analytics Program. She holds an M.S. in Data Science from the University of St. Thomas.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @nerd_mn", "session_title": "Machine Learning: The Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything... or the End of Civilization As We Know It?", "summary": null, "description": "No matter your role we're all feeling the pressure to incorporate machine learning into everything we build with the promise of enhancing our lives and increasing the bottom line. While we work to understand the impact of machine learning some are already fearing the consequences. Join us for a live recording of the WiT Twin Cities Podcast where we discuss machine learning's impact on the world in a fishbowl format where the audience is invited to join the podcast and be apart of the conversation. For more information about WiT Twin Cities check us out here: [link](http://wittwincities.com) ", "room_name": "Bde Maka Ska", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:25:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Anna Bliss", "Dave Mathias", "Ethel He", "Rudy Agovic" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 214, 1319, 3265, 3270 ], "attendance_count": 106, "created_at": "2019-03-15 16:34:37 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:43 UTC" }, { "id": 818, "participant_id": 3056, "presenter_name": "Bart Gottschalk", "presenter_bio": "I've been involved in building web applications and digital products for more than 20 years. I've worn many hats, worked across a range of business and technical environments and been responsible for the full SDLC as an engineer and manager.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/bartgottschalk)", "session_title": "Building My Startup's Web Application using AWS + Django + jQuery + GitHub", "summary": null, "description": "I'm co-founder of a startup which\r\n\r\n1. Produces and sells a relatively small quantity of a relatively high number of customizable physical products, and\r\n2. Has future plans to build a complementary digital product. \r\n\r\nSoon after jumping into this idea it was clear we would need a web application to support our product's discovery, selection, customization, purchase and interactive experiences. We looked at using existing marketplaces and web-site building platforms such as Squarespace or Wix. These didn't work for us for a couple of reasons\r\n\r\n1. The customizable nature of our products\r\n2. The large number of individual skus we would be managing\r\n3. Our customers can create skus dynamically.\r\n\r\nThis made using “off-the-shelf” solutions unworkable, even for early prototyping and experimentation, and meant we needed to build a custom web application. Among our non-functional requirements were things like\r\n\r\n1. The ability to iterate quickly\r\n2. Security\r\n3. Reliability\r\n4. Support growth and scalability (reasonably)\r\n5. Support future iterative exploration of our digital product\r\n6. Can’t be so costly that it sinks the business. \r\n\r\nAs the only technical co-founder, it landed on me to \"figure this out.\" \r\n\r\nDuring this talk I'll describe how I landed on our solution, an open source version of our web application, and some information about our CI/CD pipeline and hosting infrastructure.\r\n", "room_name": "Pennsylvania", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Development", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 34, "created_at": "2019-03-15 14:38:12 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:46 UTC" }, { "id": 817, "participant_id": 182, "presenter_name": "Jeff Lin", "presenter_bio": "Jeff Lin is the founder of Pennant and Bust Out.", "session_title": "Why Diversity Matters", "summary": null, "description": "Come hear from and interact with a panel of people who work in technology and related fields and for whom diversity is not a metric or a goal, but a fact of everyday life. We will cut through buzzwords and catch phrases to stimulate discussion about what \"diversity\" means and why it's important in the workplace and in your community. With your participation, we will encourage new thought, challenge existing ideas, and talk about why - *really WHY* - you should care about diversity and what you can do about it.\r\n\r\n***\r\n\r\n**Panelists**\r\n\r\n* **Antoinette Smith** - Co-founder of [Techquity](https://www.techquity.mn) and full-stack developer at [Glitch](https://glitch.com).\r\n* **Philip Xiao** - Founder and CEO of [Homi](https://homi.io).\r\n* **Jenessa White** - Front-end developer at [Software for Good](https://softwareforgood.com).\r\n* **Elliott Payne** - Founder of [Sense Datum](https://www.sense-datum.com), a digital business consulting firm.\r\n\r\n*Moderated by Jeff Lin*", "room_name": "Theater", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Antoinette Smith", "Jenessa White", "Philip Xiao", "Elliott Payne" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 1383, 1844, 1171, 3303 ], "attendance_count": 174, "created_at": "2019-03-15 04:54:11 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:33 UTC" }, { "id": 816, "participant_id": 1847, "presenter_name": "Ben J MacKinney", "presenter_bio": "Hi! Thanks for checking out my bio. \r\nIm an entrepreneur and advise startups. More than anything, I love to help people bring their ideas to life and help with strategic planning. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, product owner or marketer I'd love to connect and jam with you after the conference!\r\n\r\nI love MINNESTAR and am a huge advocate for entrepreneurship and innovation as ways to change the world for good. \r\n\r\nLooking forward to chatting!\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @BenMacKinney", "session_title": "MinneNerds 🤓 - Community Discussion ", "summary": null, "description": "MinneStar has created an incredible ecosystem over the years. Many of us are committed to the success of the Twin Cities and the people in it. \r\n\r\nHow can we make Minnesota the best place to launch a startup by having the best early adopters, beta testers, \"social media influencers\" around? Having the most engaged community!\r\n\r\nThink of it this way, if you were launching a startup, wouldnt it be amazing to know there were 10,000 people out there that are willing to buy your app, give you detailed feedback, connect you with the people you need to take the next step?\r\n\r\nAre you willing to be a community ambassador? Mentor? Do you want to expand your resume by doing some work for an early stage startup?\r\n\r\nJoin us for our open discussion!\r\nShould this be an extension of Minnestar? \r\nDo we need a formal process to endorse a startup?\r\nWhat would be compelling enough to make you tweet about a new product?\r\nCan we extend this to big companies for their innovative work? \r\n\r\nCome with questions. \r\nLimit 1 ish minute per rant :)\r\n", "room_name": "Nebraska", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 23, "created_at": "2019-03-14 19:32:47 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:40 UTC" }, { "id": 815, "participant_id": 1847, "presenter_name": "Ben J MacKinney", "presenter_bio": "Hi! Thanks for checking out my bio. \r\nIm an entrepreneur and advise startups. More than anything, I love to help people bring their ideas to life and help with strategic planning. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, product owner or marketer I'd love to connect and jam with you after the conference!\r\n\r\nI love MINNESTAR and am a huge advocate for entrepreneurship and innovation as ways to change the world for good. \r\n\r\nLooking forward to chatting!\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @BenMacKinney", "session_title": "Find Your Co-Founder! Job Fair Edition", "summary": null, "description": "Last year was such a success we decided to bring this back and make it a more open format. \r\n\r\nIf you have an idea to pitch or an active startup looking to grow the team, this is the event for you! Side projects and non-profits are also welcome. \"Pitchers\" will post up at tables and seekers will connect with interesting projects. \r\n\r\nWe will have tables organized roughly by industry to add some structure.\r\nHealth and Wellness, Finance, Logistics, Marketplace, Entertainment, Hardware, Blockchain etc \r\n\r\nIt may speed up your communication to bring a resume and/or print a sheet with some highlights.\r\nStage of startup/Idea - Just a business plan, have a prototype, growth stage\r\nNeeds/asks - Want a CTO for a funded startup, looking for UX Designer for POC, Need a JS dev for a phonegap app\r\nGoal - Just for fun, Side Project, I will die on this hill, ETC\r\n\r\nI was so impressed with the caliber of people involved last year that I am very hopeful we will see Minnedemo presentations this year from people who attend! We had everything from CTOs at large tech companies to current CEO's of multi-million dollar business looking to start a software company serving their industry. \r\n\r\n\r\n", "room_name": "Georgia", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Design", "Hardware", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 56, "created_at": "2019-03-14 19:07:53 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:33 UTC" }, { "id": 814, "participant_id": 1198, "presenter_name": "Peter Vader", "presenter_bio": "I work with developers during the week and other times I advocate for friendlier, safer mobility on twitter @petervader, irl as a 3,000-mile annual walker, a transit app brown belt, and on the city of Minneapolis Pedestrian Advisory Committee.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/tw-peter)\n- Twitter: @petervader", "session_title": "The Bike, The Bus, The Boots — Tips and Tricks of a Car-free Life ", "summary": null, "description": "\r\nPeople bike, take transit, and walk to save money, reduce stress (on themselves and the planet), and make better use of their time. So much so that while over ten years Minneapolis increased in population by 30,000, total vehicle miles driven went **down**. \r\n\r\n**Un-conference, Un-session Features**\r\nParticipants here will be at anywhere on their journey to car-free-dom — from those setting out to reduce car trips to the all-in (anyone want to buy my two-car garage?). We will share gear, apps, and local knowledge that have helped us reduce car trips or even eliminate them altogether. \r\n\r\nTopics may and should include:\r\n\r\n* Bike commuting\r\n* Bike-share\r\n* Transit.app, the transit app\r\n* eBikes\r\n* Walking for health\r\n* Walking to get somewhere\r\n* Walkscore \r\n* Scooters and other new mobility\r\n* Bus Rapid Transit\r\n* Resources and support\r\n\r\nAs a session jumping off point I'll spend a few minutes on what I've learned over thousands of city miles walked and bused. Like how to keep warm and dry(ish) walking through whatever Minnesota weather throws and how to use apps to speed travel and minimize waiting on Metro Transit.", "room_name": "Discover", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:25:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 55, "created_at": "2019-03-14 18:23:25 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:29 UTC" }, { "id": 813, "participant_id": 1847, "presenter_name": "Ben J MacKinney", "presenter_bio": "Hi! Thanks for checking out my bio. \r\nIm an entrepreneur and advise startups. More than anything, I love to help people bring their ideas to life and help with strategic planning. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, product owner or marketer I'd love to connect and jam with you after the conference!\r\n\r\nI love MINNESTAR and am a huge advocate for entrepreneurship and innovation as ways to change the world for good. \r\n\r\nLooking forward to chatting!\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @BenMacKinney", "session_title": "Systematic Ideation 🚀Good Ideas Are Not Accidents!", "summary": null, "description": "Back by popular demand! Can you teach someone to have good ideas? What are the tools a professional ideator can use to come up with more and better ideas? We will be building off the legendary organization IDEO's brainstorming framework but filling in the gaps. \r\n\r\nFor: Product Owners, Marketers, Entrepreneurs, Creatives ETC \r\n\r\nNo complete model exists but after working on this for over a decade I can elucidate some of the mystery and give you some of the skills you need to succeed!\r\n\r\nThe Basic Process:\r\nGoal\r\nBrainstorming\r\nKnowledge\r\nCuriosity and Questions \r\n", "room_name": "Louis Pasteur", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other", "Design", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 66, "created_at": "2019-03-14 01:58:45 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:41 UTC" }, { "id": 812, "participant_id": 2382, "presenter_name": "Katie Kodes", "presenter_bio": "Once told, \"I've always imagined your brain is shaped like an old-fashioned library card catalog,\" Katie is thrilled by any chance to help others find -- and maintain -- order in their data.\r\n\r\nKatie blogs about SQL, Python, Salesforce, and other ways to deal with data at [https://www.katiekodes.com/](https://www.katiekodes.com/)\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @KatieKodes", "session_title": "Evangelizing Python For Business", "summary": null, "description": "Python's simple structure has been vital to the democratization of data science.\r\n\r\nBut as the field rushes forward, making splashy headlines about specialized new jobs, everyday Excel users remain unaware of the value that elementary building blocks of Python for data science can bring them at the office.\r\n\r\nJoin us for a conversation about bringing Python out of IT and into the business. We'll share challenges and successes from writing tutorials, teaching classes, and advocating adoption among new users.\r\n", "room_name": "Georgia", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Chris Moffitt" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 1023 ], "attendance_count": 40, "created_at": "2019-03-13 23:56:34 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:40 UTC" }, { "id": 811, "participant_id": 2382, "presenter_name": "Katie Kodes", "presenter_bio": "Once told, \"I've always imagined your brain is shaped like an old-fashioned library card catalog,\" Katie is thrilled by any chance to help others find -- and maintain -- order in their data.\r\n\r\nKatie blogs about SQL, Python, Salesforce, and other ways to deal with data at [https://www.katiekodes.com/](https://www.katiekodes.com/)\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @KatieKodes", "session_title": "XML and JSON for Total Beginners", "summary": null, "description": "`XML` and `{\"FileFormat\":\"JSON\"}`, even if you know nothing about programming!\r\n\r\nLike \"CSV,\" these two data standards are extremely important for representing data in plain text so that you can easily send it from one computer to another.\r\n\r\nBut they're so much more complicated and intimidating at a glance!\r\n\r\nLearn to recognize, decipher, and write them -- no experience needed.", "room_name": "Challenge", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Development", "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 52, "created_at": "2019-03-13 23:51:55 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:50 UTC" }, { "id": 810, "participant_id": 2, "presenter_name": "Adrienne Peirce", "presenter_bio": "I'm a Senior Product Manager at Credly, which was recently acquired by Pearson. I'm also a former board member of Minnestar. I'm a productivity tool enthusiast, a beekeeper, and a devout supporter of this tech community.\r\n\r\n**Links:**\r\n\r\n[LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriennepeirce/)", "session_title": "Let's Talk About Product Management at Different Local Companies", "summary": null, "description": "There are lots of questions about the role and how it differs between companies. Let's talk about what's the same and what's different in how we do Product Management where we work.\r\n\r\n**Adrienne Peirce** \r\nProduct Manager \r\nLeadpages \r\nCompany Size: 51-100 employees \r\nFounded: 2012 \r\n\r\n**Shawn Heller** \r\nSenior Product Manager \r\nSports Engine \r\nCompany Size: 501-1,000 employees \r\nFounded: 2008 \r\n\r\n**Jeremy Moede** \r\nLead Agile Coach \r\nTarget \r\nCompany Size: 350,000+ employees \r\nFounded: 1902 ", "room_name": "Harriet", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:25:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Shawn Heller", "Jeremy Moede" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 3097, 3382 ], "attendance_count": 119, "created_at": "2019-03-13 01:54:16 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:28 UTC" }, { "id": 809, "participant_id": 402, "presenter_name": "Tim Erickson", "presenter_bio": "I'm a long time resident of the Twin Cities who is very active in the local, national, and international Drupal community. I've presented at several regional Drupal camps and national conventions and recently I've become very involved in the Backdrop CMS community.\r\n\r\nI spent many years working in the area of online civic engagement with E-Democracy.org and have a strong interest in online communities. I'm a frequent participant at local hack-a-thons and Open Twin Cities. \r\n\r\nI am the owner of Triplo. Triplo is a local Drupal Development shop that also provides mentoring and support services to local freelance internet designers and developers.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/stpaultim)\n- Twitter: @stpaultim", "session_title": "Backdrop - A powerful open source CMS for small businesses and non-profits", "summary": null, "description": "[Backdrop](https://backdropcms.org) is an open source CMS that was forked from Drupal. Backdrop CMS falls somewhere between Wordpress and Drupal in terms of flexibility and features. \r\n\r\nBackdrop has a clearly defined [philosophy and principles](https://backdropcms.org/philosophy) targeted at small to medium sized businesses, non-profits, educational institutions, and companies or organizations who are in need of a comprehensive website, on a budget.\r\n\r\nThis will be a live demo of Backdrop CMS in action. On Jan 15th, 2019 we released the twelfth iteration of Backdrop and we've incorporated new features and usability improvements in every release.\r\n\r\nWe'll go over things like:\r\n\r\n* The awesome Layouts system\r\n* Config management\r\n* Similarities and differences with Drupal \r\n* What Drupal modules are available for Backdrop\r\n* How to upgrade from Drupal to Backdrop\r\n\r\nWe'll also talk about how to engage with the Backdrop community, get your questions answered, and how to contribute to this exciting project. ", "room_name": "Cabin", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 16, "created_at": "2019-03-12 23:27:12 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:49 UTC" }, { "id": 808, "participant_id": 1121, "presenter_name": "John Cosgrove", "presenter_bio": "immigrated to the Twin Cities from his native Northern Ireland in 1999. Starting his new life alongside the legendary pub (and now whiskey) mogul Kieran Folliard, he stepped out on his own in 2006 with an event services business. His experience as a presenter, emcee, and facilitator is as diverse as it is wide. He has hosted more than 300 corporate events, many for Fortune 500 companies. In addition, John has created a number of software applications including VoiceHive, to help facilitate more engaging audience participation that can be measured. \r\n\r\nTwitter @irishcosgrove\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @@irishcosgrove", "session_title": "Bootstrapping step by step", "summary": null, "description": "We will take you through our journey of being an idea to a prototype and finally to a fully fledged thriving business and what we learned on that journey that could help you bring your ideas to the world. No investors, no angels, just a belief and a willingness to listen to potential clients.", "room_name": "Learn", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 59, "created_at": "2019-03-12 15:49:07 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:53 UTC" }, { "id": 807, "participant_id": 2573, "presenter_name": "Katherine Frankowski", "presenter_bio": null, "session_title": "Your First Lean Step: How to Create a Lean Canvas", "summary": null, "description": "You know lean startup methodologies help businesses rapidly and efficiently validate new ideas, reducing risks and costs. But do you know how to start running lean? Join us for a rapid, one-hour session on how to create a Lean Canvas, the foundational document of lean organizations. You’ll leave this highly participatory session with: \r\n\r\n\r\n•\ta concise visualization of your business or product \r\n•\tan articulated Unique Value Proposition\r\n•\ta clear and testable business plan\r\n•\tnext steps to validate your business or product\r\n\r\n\r\nHosted by Modern Logic, a leading digital product agency, this workshop will be facilitated by Brian Krohn, PhD, an inventor and entrepreneur whose lean startup experience spans the renewable energy, medical device, and mobile application development industries. This event will help anyone—from business owners and dreamers to developers and product owners—who is ready to apply lean methodologies to their ideas. \r\n", "room_name": "Discover", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Brian Krohn" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 2436 ], "attendance_count": 49, "created_at": "2019-03-12 14:12:38 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:50 UTC" }, { "id": 804, "participant_id": 3, "presenter_name": "Ben Edwards", "presenter_bio": "Ben is a catalyst to the various tech, design, and entrepreneur communities of which he is a part. He currently serves as Head of Community at [Misty Robotics](http://mistyrobotics.com) and was formerly Co-Founder of [SmartThings](http://smartthings.com), [Minnestar](http://Minnestar.org), and [Refactr](http://refactr.ai). In addition, Ben is currently an Advisor at [Great North Labs](http://greatnorthlabs.com) and a Board Member at [Goodfolio](http://goodfolio.org), a non-profit based on the principles of effective giving. \r\n\r\nBen is particularly proud of his role in the genesis of the non-profit, Minnestar—fostering technology and startup activity in Minnesota since 2006.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/alttext)\n- Twitter: @alttext", "session_title": "Hands-on Workshop: Coding Robots with JavaScript 🤖✋🤖", "summary": null, "description": "A deep dive into programming on the Misty Robotics platform. (Double Length Session if the organizers allow for it - please plan for 1.5 to 2 hours)\r\n\r\nIf you are a wizard with JavaScript or a master of Python come by this multi-hour workshop where we'll challenge you to write a skill for a mobile robot—[this one](https://www.mistyrobotics.com/robots/). We'll connect you to a rolling bundle of sensor, capabilities, and promise—turning you loose with your favorite text editor or IDE, some user docs, and see what you can do. \r\n\r\nConnect Misty to your favorite API, create a sentry bot, or a new friend, the possibilities are endless. \r\n\r\nYou'll have more context if you also attend this [helpful intro presentation and live coding session](https://sessions.minnestar.org/sessions/742)", "room_name": "Zeke Landres", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "Advanced", "categories": [ "Development", "Hardware" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Justin woo", "Chris Meyer" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 3036, 3152 ], "attendance_count": 61, "created_at": "2019-03-09 03:29:04 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-27 03:48:33 UTC" }, { "id": 771, "participant_id": 2962, "presenter_name": "Ana Bahr", "presenter_bio": "Ana Bahr (soon to be Ana Dachel) is a former Target administrative professional who was onboarding 3 software engineers a week on average in 2014 when she saw a need for someone to take the lead on shaping and growing Target’s technical community. She officially became the “Tech@Target Community Advocate” in 2015 and has been busy fighting the good fight ever since. When she’s not attending meetups or conferences, Ana is home with her fiancé Jason and pups Jackson and Molly watching Star Trek\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/Ana-Bahr)\n- Twitter: @Ana_Bahr", "session_title": "DevRel@Target: Why Target needed DevRel to attract and retain engineers", "summary": null, "description": "In 2015 Target created a new role that would become the community hub and enable culture changes for our massively growing in-house team of software engineers. Our goal was to give awareness to Target’s tech brand and make Target engineers proud by supporting the things they care about. To achieve this, we gave Target engineer advocates a voice to reach the external tech community through our tech blog, support of local conferences, meetups, diverse groups, K-12 tech pipeline organizations, and opensource communities. We also focused on building up our culture with internal hackathons, conferences, lunch and learns, and demo days. Unknowingly, we had taken part in the growth of DevRel Industry. In this talk we’ll discuss the role of a DevRel and why it is valuable to Target and its tech team of approximately 4,000. We’ll also discuss what this means for the DevRel industry. There is a vast frontier of major retailers and other companies that are now realizing the truth that every company is a tech company and that technical community is the key to success.", "room_name": "Nevada", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 46, "created_at": "2019-03-08 20:33:58 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:53 UTC" }, { "id": 770, "participant_id": 3001, "presenter_name": "Joel Crabb", "presenter_bio": "**VP Architecture and Chief Architect**\r\n\r\nTarget Corp\r\n\r\nJoel joined the Target Technology team in 2016 in the newly created role of Chief Architect. Having worked in retail ecommerce since 2010, Joel was familiar with the difficulties of the retail environment, and the need for retailers to reinvent themselves as technology companies. Joel's interest in Blockchain is because it is one of those technologies that has a lot of promise, but not much reality yet. Prior to 2010, Joel spent the majority of his career as a software engineer and architect, building customer facing digital systems for large companies in healthcare, power systems, online banking, call centers, online education, logistics and medical devices. \r\n", "session_title": "Blockchain@Target: Distributed Ledgers in the Enterprise", "summary": null, "description": "After three years of meeting and pondering how a large company like Target might use Blockchain, there have been many learnings. This presentation is an introductory level to get you up-to-speed on the world of Blockchain in the Enterprise, and what's important for large entities. We will answer the common questions surrounding the usage of Blockchain in an Enterprise context, while introducing the basic concepts of Distributed Ledgers and Consensus Algorithms, and why Distributed Ledger Technology is the right terminology to use when discussing this technology.\r\n\r\nWe'll also jump into a few efforts underway at Target in the Blockchain space.", "room_name": "Louis Pasteur", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 69, "created_at": "2019-03-08 14:55:21 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:36 UTC" }, { "id": 768, "participant_id": 2999, "presenter_name": "Kate Kuehl", "presenter_bio": "Hey all! I'm a software developer with a love of good design.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/katekuehl)\n- Twitter: @KateKuehl", "session_title": "Designing Technology to Combat Poverty in sub-Saharan Africa", "summary": null, "description": "Cell phone usage, notably smartphone usage, is rapidly increasing throughout sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). These devices can be tools to combat poverty, if designed with users in mind.\r\n\r\nWe will discuss many topics including:\r\n- How to do user-focused design, and how to communicate with cultural considerations in mind while keeping in mind symbols across cultures have different meanings. \r\n- How to address various levels of familiarity with technology.\r\n- How to deal with unreliable internet.\r\n- How to redesign for an African context.\r\n\r\nWe will go in depth into these topics and more. There will be plenty of time for questions, discussion, and brainstorming about how we can use technology to combat poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. I invite those who are from who have visited or are from SSA to reach out or show up to lend their experiences. It's also a great intro session if you're not familiar with the topic at all and want to learn more.", "room_name": "Texas", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Design" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 55, "created_at": "2019-03-07 23:19:17 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:36 UTC" }, { "id": 766, "participant_id": 2296, "presenter_name": "Rob Weber", "presenter_bio": "[Rob Weber](https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertjweber/) is Managing Partner of [Great North Ventures](https://greatnorthventures.com/), an early-stage venture fund focused on helping founders launch and scale companies in Minnesota and across the U.S. Prior to Great North Ventures, Rob co-founded NativeX (formerly named W3i/Freeze.com) in 2000. Rob has been a successful entrepreneur since the age of 16 when he, along with his brothers, launched their first consumer app and media tech business. By the age of 20 the Weber brothers had turned their basement endeavors into a multi-million dollar business, and Rob became CEO. \r\n\r\nIn 2006, Rob shared the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award with his twin brother, and business partner, Ryan Weber. Rob was also named to the 2007 Inc. 5,000 CEO’s Under 30 list.\r\n\r\nRob received his B.S. in Entrepreneurship from St. Cloud State University. Rob has been one of the most active regional angel investors since 2005 when he co-founded the 32 Degrees angel fund. Rob previously served on the Board of Directors for Minne*, the 30,000+ member community of Minnesota tech enthusiasts.\r\n\r\n- Twitter: [@robertjweber](https://x.com/robertjweber)", "session_title": "VC Reverse Pitch- Learn a VC's investment criteria", "summary": null, "description": "Sick of pitching? Let's turn the tables so you can stop sweating it out over your pitch deck. We'll tell you what we look for, so you can decide whether your startup should get our investment.\r\n\r\nMinneDemo has been the first place where aspiring Minnesota tech entrepreneurs have publicly shared a demo of their project over the past 10+ years. Many of these projects have gone on to become the most successful growth companies in the state of Minnesota backed by millions of dollars in venture capital.\r\n\r\nThrough Rob Weber's 12+ years of experience investing as an angel investor in Minnesota startups, and now full-time role as managing partner of the new Great North Labs venture fund, he will share with you what he is looking for before making an investment. Mary Grove is Partner at Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund and previously spent 14 years at Google working with startups in over 100 countries. She’ll share with you what she looks for in making investments and supporting companies she invests in.\r\n
\r\n
\r\nTopics will include-\r\n
\r\n* Total addressable market. What is it and how to estimate your startups TAM.
\r\n* Team. Early stage VC's care about your team. What should you share and why.
\r\n* Traction/Product-market fit. At what point have you demonstrated enough progress to be ready for venture capital.
\r\n* Defensibility. At scale, how will your startup create a moat around it and produce a lasting, valuable business.
\r\n\r\n
\r\nAbout 1/3 of the session will be left open for Q/A.", "room_name": "Theater", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:25:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Mary Grove" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 3148 ], "attendance_count": 127, "created_at": "2019-03-07 10:44:26 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:28 UTC" }, { "id": 764, "participant_id": 323, "presenter_name": "Jenna Pederson", "presenter_bio": "https://www.jennapederson.com\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/jennapederson)\n- Twitter: @jennapederson", "session_title": "Shiny objects are cool, but so is building products people use", "summary": null, "description": "Technology is changing constantly, keeping us on our toes with new frameworks, features, tools, and hardware being released and improved. It gives us new choices and decisions to make that affect our product portfolio, our company’s success, our colleagues, our customers, and our bottom line. But what happens when we give in to all this change and start chasing after all these shiny objects without any sort of strategy or direction?\r\n\r\n**This session will be in a conversation format. Come ready to share your experiences, thoughts, and gripes on shiny object syndrome!**\r\n\r\n\r\n.", "room_name": "Theater", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Design", "Hardware", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 179, "created_at": "2019-03-05 20:54:01 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:30 UTC" }, { "id": 763, "participant_id": 2815, "presenter_name": "Tiffany L Brace", "presenter_bio": "I am a passionate commercial real estate advisor with Element Commercial Real Estate working with a diverse portfolio of clients. Element is a commercial real estate advisory firm that provides development consulting and leasing services for owners and entrepreneurs in walkable urban neighborhoods. I am extremely customer-centric, steadfast and diligent in assuring that I understand my customer’s needs, wants and desires in order to get them in the perfect location to start and/or grow their business or investment!\r\n\r\nI especially love working with start-ups, and entrepreneurs at any stage in their business. My approach is strategic - taking into account all of your potential needs now and in the future. I am also able to leverage partnerships to help you in any city you may need or want commercial space for your business. In addition I can help with other resources such as legal, lending, insurance, business plan, etc.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @golightly339", "session_title": "🏫🏪Leasing (or buying) Commercial Space for your Business", "summary": null, "description": "Are you currently searching for commercial space to lease (or buy) for your business or planning to start looking in the near future? Are you trying to decide if you should renew your current lease or look for a new space option? Are you contemplating seeking a real estate professional to help in your search, but are unsure how to find that perfect person to work with? Do you know what you should have prepared before you even start your search? Come and learn about all aspects of leasing (or potentially buying) commercial space for your business including all the resources you may need in support of this quest. \r\n \r\nFrom incubators to co-working and flex to warehouse and office to retail - are you struggling with understanding the different space types and which is best for you? Are you trying to decide the best neighborhood for now and the future of your business? Do you know how business plans and strategies can or should affect your commercial space decisions today? Are you confused by terms like holdover, incentives, tenant improvements, or gross lease? \r\n\r\nDuring this session I will break down what can often feel like an overwhelming process especially when you are running a business or trying to get one off the ground, all while juggling a side hustle and personal life! From search to negotiations to construction to the ribbon cutting ceremony, I will prepare you for every phase of finding the best digs for your business and brand and remind you how to have fun doing it!\r\n", "room_name": "Pennsylvania", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 17, "created_at": "2019-03-05 12:00:31 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:38 UTC" }, { "id": 762, "participant_id": 1, "presenter_name": "Luke Francl", "presenter_bio": "Luke was one of the co-founders of minnestar, the organization behind MinneBar and MinneDemo. He now lives in San Francisco, where he is a software engineer at [GitHub](https://github.com), which makes software you hopefully use.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/look)\n- Twitter: @lof", "session_title": "The Programmer's Notebook", "summary": null, "description": "For as long as I've been coding, I've been writing notes and sketching system diagrams in paper notebooks. But it wasn't until the last few years that I started systematically capturing day-to-day notes electronically. This simple technique can help you become a more effective programmer (and maybe even make the case for your next raise). Join me to learn about the tools to build your own programmer's notebook and how I use Emacs and org-mode for mine.", "room_name": "Theater", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": null, "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 161, "created_at": "2019-03-05 05:27:54 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:41 UTC" }, { "id": 761, "participant_id": 2457, "presenter_name": "Don Eitel", "presenter_bio": "Currently works at Veritas Technologies in Roseville, MN. Serves as a member of the Agile Practice Group and Scrum Master to three teams. Interested in systems thinking, our relationship with ambiguity, and always looking for ways to get to 'better.'\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @@doneitel", "session_title": "Delivering Smaller: Reducing Risk and Learning Faster", "summary": null, "description": "Your mission is to deliver a whole sandwich to your stomach. \r\n\r\nYou have two options: \r\n- Shove the whole sandwich in your mouth\r\n- take bite size pieces until the whole thing is delivered\r\n\r\nWhich is the healthier choice? Seems obvious doesn't it?\r\nThe same thing applies to how organizations and teams work. The problem is that the system is usually set up for shoving the whole sandwich in your mouth. \r\n\r\nLet's talk about breaking down our work into bite sizes. What are the benefits? Where do we start?\r\n\r\nWe'll look at some examples of work that has been broken down and, if time permits, show a live example of how to break it down with participants in the room.", "room_name": "Challenge", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Development", "Design", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 68, "created_at": "2019-03-04 23:04:40 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:35 UTC" }, { "id": 760, "participant_id": 1950, "presenter_name": "Lon Koenig", "presenter_bio": "Lon Koenig is a communications technologist with a broad background in education, advertising, and games.\r\n\r\nAnd he’s been at this awhile; writing his first programs on a teletype.\r\n\r\nBy day, he creates websites that scale, and manages Google Analytics and other integrations for commercial clients.\r\n\r\nBy night, Lon uses the constrained-resources skills he picked up “in the early days” to develop for Arduino and similar IoT microcontrollers.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/schnoggo)\n- Twitter: @schnoggo", "session_title": "Google Tag Manager and Friends", "summary": null, "description": "Google Tag Manager can drastically reduce the time you spend managing marketing code requests for websites and apps.\r\n\r\nThis is based on a presentation for non-developers, but with a more technical focus for the Minnebar crowd.\r\n\r\nThis presentation assumes a basic understanding of Google Analytics\r\n\r\nThe focus will be on web and PWA implementation, although most features are available to apps as well.\r\n\r\n\r\n**GTM Can:**\r\n------------\r\n - Make your life easier\r\n - Make your non-developer coworkers happy\r\n - Make you more popular at parties\r\n\r\n**GTM basics**\r\n--------------\r\n - General web implementation\r\n - WordPress\r\n - Apps\r\n - Migrating from existing Google analytics\r\n\r\n**Pre-packed goodies**\r\n-----------------------\r\nGTM comes with many sorts of marketing and conversion tags already defined. You simply need to fill in the templates\r\n\r\n**Workflow, roles, version control and testing**\r\n--------------------------------------------------\r\nWalk through the process of creating a tag, testing and deploying.\r\n\r\n**Teaching an old site new tricks**\r\n-----------------------------------\r\n - GTM can help enforce roles, permissions and accountability for code changes to an existing site\r\n - Add new sorts of tracking and even new features to existing site elements\r\n\r\n**Managing multiple sites**\r\n---------------------------\r\nShow techniques for deploying a single customized container across multiple properties\r\n\r\n**Best friends forever**\r\n-----------------------\r\n - Google Analytics events\r\n - Google AdWords\r\n - Google Optimize\r\n - … and the rest\r\n\r\n\r\n", "room_name": "New York", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 25, "created_at": "2019-03-04 21:01:13 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:46 UTC" }, { "id": 759, "participant_id": 1585, "presenter_name": "Thong Nguyen", "presenter_bio": "Thong is working on growing [Roomera](https://www.roomera.com), a B2B VR startup, [Wellbeats](https://wellbeats.com/), a virtual wellness company, and is also on a search for future [TedX speakers](https://tedxminneapolis.com/). You can connect with him [here](https://linkedin.com/in/instapreneur).\r\n \r\nHe's passionate about technology, innovation and leadership, and crafting prototypes under the influence of coffee.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @instapreneur", "session_title": "Can virtual reality change your mind?", "summary": null, "description": "\r\nI recently had the opportunity to speak at TEDxMinneapolis about virtual reality in a talk titled [\"Can Virtual Reality Change Your Mind\"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFHj8OVC1_s).\r\n\r\nThe talk covers how beneath the immense amount of hype surrounding VR over the past few years, there is data is emerging on how it's impacting training and health care, with tangible use cases that go beyond gaming and entertainment. Since being published on YouTube, it’s now been viewed over 150,000 times by people in over 50 countries around the world.\r\n\r\nIn this session I'll share some stories and learnings from going through the process. If there's enough time, I'll demo some of the tech itself, including:\r\n\r\n- developing avatar kinematics, and how this impacts user engagement\r\n- simulating facial expressions / uncanny valley\r\n- VR gloves & gestural interfaces\r\n- and more!\r\n\r\n![Thumbnail from YouTube](https://www.roomera.com/images/thumbnail.png)\r\n\r\n", "room_name": "Proverb-Edison", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:25:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Design", "Hardware" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 74, "created_at": "2019-03-04 20:47:33 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-27 03:43:19 UTC" }, { "id": 758, "participant_id": 508, "presenter_name": "Joelle Tegwen", "presenter_bio": "Joelle’s goal is to create an environment that supports and encourages high performing teams where they can learn and deliver value quickly. She promotes and advocates for an outcomes-based approach that supports teams finding the best way to solve their problems. Her focus on relationships and conversations bring people and their values front and center. She consistently looks for inspiration from other disciplines and industries.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @joelletegwen", "session_title": "Getting Your Way (Without Being a Jerk) ", "summary": null, "description": "At some point we’re all there: we want to get something done, we need others to accomplish it. But getting past differing opinions and competing self-interest is hard. How can we be more successful? We’ll cover some human traits and behaviors that keep us from reaching agreements and strategies to be more successful. You’ll have time to apply them to a situation in your own life giving you concrete actions you can use immediately. Psychology 1001 not required. ", "room_name": "Theater", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 168, "created_at": "2019-03-04 20:44:36 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:31 UTC" }, { "id": 757, "participant_id": 671, "presenter_name": "Albert Choy", "presenter_bio": "I have been code-slinging and designing software for over 30 years (before some of you were born). Particularly in computer field it has been languages, databases, AI and communication. My non-computing interests are wide, suffice to say it goes from reading (everything) to writing/storytelling (fiction, film-making, game-mastering).\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/achoy)\n- Twitter: @askchoy", "session_title": "Build Your Own Self-Driving Car or Advances In Computer Vision", "summary": null, "description": "Every car company (from Tesla to BMW) is trying to build a self-driving car. One of the major components is advanced computer vision. In this hour, we will look at convolutional neural networks and the latest in open source image processing libraries. This technology will allow the viewer to differentiate between pedestrians, motorcycles, larger vehicles and stationary objects. Feel free to come listen or bring your laptop, a strong beverage, and join in the coding fun.", "room_name": "Nebraska", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 30, "created_at": "2019-03-04 19:43:15 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:37 UTC" }, { "id": 755, "participant_id": 100, "presenter_name": "Mike Bollinger", "presenter_bio": "Explorer and entrepreneur. Founder & CEO at [Livefront](http://livefront.com).\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @mikebollinger", "session_title": "Using design to trick people into thinking your app is faster than it is", "summary": null, "description": "People expect mobile apps to be fast.\r\n\r\nThat means the Web Services powering the mobile app you're building need to be fast. \r\n\r\nBut if you have worked on, well, any app ever, you know that \"speedy and reliable\" are not how most mobile app developers describe the Web Services they're asked to use.\r\n\r\nSo, what to do if you're the mobile designer/developer, and not the Web Services engineer? In other words, what if you can't fix the root of the problem, and you're stuck just implementing what's handed down to you?\r\n\r\nIn this talk, Mike will share various UI/UX design techniques to trick people (in a good way) into thinking your app is faster than it actually is.\r\n\r\nThis is a design-focused talk for mobile product managers, mobile designers, and mobile engineers who like to create things that don't suck.\r\n", "room_name": "Nokomis", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Design" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 99, "created_at": "2019-03-04 16:37:06 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:47 UTC" }, { "id": 752, "participant_id": 2920, "presenter_name": "Marcia Stellpflug", "presenter_bio": "Opportunity and fun lie in finding the gaps. Finding the opportunity that isn't addressed. Tailoring the product with the benefits that people wants and no one is providing. There is so much push to find someone who wants what we are selling, but if we can tap into what people want and then give it to them it pulls us forward at an astonishing pace. That opportunity becomes a rocket ship when combined with the right timing. \r\n\r\nSpotting those gaps has led me on a wild ride of career. From acquisitions for a FMCG (fast moving consumer goods company) finding really cool technologies to turn into products. To connecting the technologies of several Silicon Valley startups to the unmet needs of some of the largest corporations. To the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina to real estate syndication during the last market downturn. And for the past 5 years riding the wave of opportunity selling products on Amazon. Which has led me to the biggest opportunity yet. Tapping into the power of people-based marketing and how it can give an exponential advantage of those who choose to ride the rocket ship.\r\n\r\nI'm fascinated with the world of exponential technology and how it will transform every aspect of our lives. I've seen the pace of change accelerate in my own career trajectory. I'm fascinated with the shift of power from the large corporation to the individual (who is only beginning to realize it). Combining machine learning with a focus on addressing the unmet needs to the customer will transform sales and marketing going forward.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @mstell", "session_title": "Machine Learning in Sales and Marketing - Beating Google and Facebook at Their Own Game", "summary": null, "description": "Machine learning is putting data once available to only the largest companies in the hands of smaller businesses. We'll discuss the impact that the ability to identify individual people that are in market for a product or service and run ads to all of their devices and email addresses on any online or offline channel has on winning sales and increasing profitability.", "room_name": "Nevada", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 51, "created_at": "2019-03-02 13:02:57 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:36 UTC" }, { "id": 751, "participant_id": 2955, "presenter_name": "Dick Polipnick", "presenter_bio": "Dick Polipnick is a serial entrepreneur and startup advisor. He has helped big-name brands turn their e-commerce businesses to profit and advised startups to win business competitions.\r\n\r\nDick is a tech hybrid that combines his business experience, marketing background, and software engineering education to solve tough problems.\r\n\r\nIn addition to being a developer and an entrepreneur, Dick is the host of Online Growth Systems- an online community of #growthers (or people that focus on \"growthing\" their health, wealth, love and happiness) by creating digital content including blogs, videos, podcasts, and a newsletter called \"The #Growther's Digest\".\r\n\r\nDick enjoys backpacking and traveling as well as board games.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/dpolipnick)\n- Twitter: @dpolipnick", "session_title": "Be the Scrum Master of Your Own Life 🔥", "summary": null, "description": "# Be the Scrum Master of Your Own Life #\r\n> How to apply agile software development principles in your daily life\r\n\r\nDo you have a to-do list that seems to be a black hole abyss with hydra-like characteristics? Every time you get something \r\ndone, two more tasks seem to pop up!\r\n\r\nHave you ever noticed that some people somehow get more done in a day than others? We all have the same 24 hours in a day, \r\nso how is it that the Elon Musks of the world seem to accomplish more in a year than most people do their entire lives?\r\n\r\nLearn how to be the Scrum Master of your own life and use the agile principles that the world's most efficient teams use to build the apps and products you use every day. \r\n\r\n### In this audience-interactive workshop, you'll learn: ###\r\n- [x] How I scratched my own itch to reach my goals faster in 2019\r\n- [x] How to get $530 worth of tools for $50\r\n- [x] What Scrum, Kanban, and other Agile methodologies are\r\n- [x] How to apply Wolf of Wall Street goal setting/achieving tactics\r\n- [x] Why I bolted a whiteboard into my living room wall\r\n- [x] ***Be the Scrum Master of Your own Life***\r\n", "room_name": "Harriet", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Design", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 129, "created_at": "2019-03-02 08:58:28 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:38 UTC" }, { "id": 750, "participant_id": 1569, "presenter_name": "David Peteler", "presenter_bio": "\r\nA native of Minnesota with over 30 years experience, starting in Silicon Valley in the 1980s, David Peteler has worked with tech companies in the start-up, growth, and exit stages. David has done over 200 private placements, as well as public offerings and mergers and acquisitions.\r\n\r\nDavid has a \"from the trenches\" view of what legal tools to use to position your business to move to the next level, and hopefully avoid pitfalls along the way.", "session_title": "Financing Your Emerging Tech Company: Legal Issues", "summary": null, "description": "This session is designed to give a high-level overview of important business and finance issues an emerging tech company faces in financing growth and expansion, and the legal questions involved. \r\n\r\nEntrepreneurs should gain a basic understanding of several types of financing, the legal and business issues involved, and how to navigate through them.\r\n\r\nBring questions and real-life situations you're dealing with, and we can work through them together.", "room_name": "Oregon", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 37, "created_at": "2019-03-02 02:30:02 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:37 UTC" }, { "id": 749, "participant_id": 2971, "presenter_name": "Benjamin Melançon", "presenter_bio": "A co-founder of [Agaric](https://agaric.coop), a web development and strategy consultancy which helps people create and use powerful Internet technology, Benjamin lives and works to connect ideas, resources, and people.\r\n\r\nBenjamin is a programmer and web application developer specializing in Drupal, an libre software content management system. As a worker-owner of the Agaric cooperative he has [worked on web sites](https://agaric.coop/work) for higher education institutions (Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), renowned for-profit companies (Studio Daniel Libeskind and Zeit Online), innovative social enterprises ([MASS Design Group](https://agaric.coop/work/mass-design-group), and not-for-profit health organizations (Partners In Health and the [National Institute for Children's Health Quality](http://agaric-com.test/work/nichq-collaboratory). He attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst on a Commonwealth Scholarship and studied journalism, economics, political science, and information technology. He was awarded a grant in the inaugural round of the News Challenge of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for 2008.\r\n\r\nA founding elected director of the Amazing Things Arts Center in Framingham, Massachusetts, Benjamin has supported numerous artistic, journalistic, and social ventures. In 2010-2011, he led 34 authors in writing of the 1,100 page Definitive Guide to Drupal 7. More recently, he has been helping build the [Drutopia](https://drutopia.org) platform.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/mlncn)\n- Twitter: @mlncn", "session_title": "Scaling Community Decision-making", "summary": null, "description": "Any libre software, volunteer, or even startup project will have elements of [do-ocracy](http://data.agaric.com/drupal-do-ocracy) (rule of those who do the work) but not all decisions should devolve to implementors. Rather, a basic principle is that decisions should be made by the people who are most affected.\r\n\r\nParticularly when a decision strongly affects more than those who carry it out, therefore, we need better ways of making decisions that give everyone their say. This starts by letting people by heard by everyone else. Fortunately, we can scale conversations and decisions in a fair and truly democratic way.\r\n\r\n * Learn why meritocracy (\"rule of those with merit\") is a completely bogus and harmful concept.\r\n * Gain a passing familiarity with various ways decisions are or have been made in Drupal.\r\n * Add sociocracy and sortition to your vocabulary and understand how these esoteric concepts can help our community scale.\r\n * See how [Visions Unite](https://visionsunite.org/) is putting more democratic decision-making approaches into practice.\r\n\r\nThe most important things we have to do need to be done together. Giving more power to our communities can help avoid [failure](https://agaric.coop/blog/short-sad-life-wirth-grocery) also. And our work together is most powerful when we make decisions about it together.", "room_name": "Nevada", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 35, "created_at": "2019-03-01 23:53:46 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:51 UTC" }, { "id": 747, "participant_id": 724, "presenter_name": "Zachary Johnson", "presenter_bio": "Zachary Johnson is a weird, web-obsessed artist and programmer from the midwest. He started his software consulting business Zachstronaut in 2011 and co-founded the game studio Space Mace in 2016.\r\n\r\nHe's worked on a Nintendo game called Joggernauts, a pixel art comedy RPG called The Legend of Equip Pants, a delicious indie arcade cabinet called The Donutron, and a haunted 8-bit NES.\r\n\r\nZach has spoken at events in Berlin, New York, Chicago, and many times at Minnebar and Minnedemo. He's also been on the committees for MinneWebCon and IGDA-TC.\r\n\r\nHe's great at remembering fish facts and only slightly obsessed with taking selfies with other people's cats.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/zachstronaut)\n- Twitter: @zacharyjohnson", "session_title": "Making a Nintendo Game: Four Years of Dev, Travel, Pitching, and Publishers", "summary": null, "description": "Minneapolis-based game development studio Space Mace released their first video game Joggernauts for Nintendo Switch in October 2018. What are some of the things they did in the four years they worked on the project? Well...\r\n\r\nBuilt a game development team. Found a lawyer and created the game studio Space Mace. Booth-ed our game at over 25 events including SXSW, GDC, E3, PAX West, and PAX East. Pitched to publishers and consoles for almost a year. Signed with a publisher. Went full-time. Hired contractors. Kept up morale for over four years. Shipped a Nintendo Switch game. Shipped a Steam game. Saw what indie game sales numbers look like in 2018.\r\n\r\nYou could say they learned a lot. Developer Zachary Johnson from the team is going to do his best to tell you everything important that he wishes he had known before the team started... if he can remember it.", "room_name": "Tackle", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 63, "created_at": "2019-03-01 21:46:29 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:54 UTC" }, { "id": 746, "participant_id": 1215, "presenter_name": "Lee Prinkkila - CPA, CGMA ", "presenter_bio": "Lee's mission is to leave this place better off than he found it. \r\n\r\nFor over 20 years Lee has read the Tax code filed thousands of returns and audited many times and does the fractional CFO thing for startups, established companies, and even a publicly traded CFO for a spell. \r\n\r\nAs a CPA and Fractional CFO, Lee gets in and builds financial statements to comply with the tax code so you can keep more of what you earn. Then you can help more people with it. Lee specializes in designing the strategy for the R&D tax credits and help comply with the tax code - the ever-changing tax code. In his spare time, he writes articles for Tax Preparers and will this year start a series of training classes for CPAs across the country on leadership, speed and innovation in the tax preparers world after the tax reform changes and Wayfair. \r\n\r\nTo quote the rule of acquisition number 255 A wife is a luxury, a smart accountant a necessity.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @LeePrinkkila", "session_title": "Creators + Money = R&D Tax Credits - Keep more of what you earn!! ", "summary": null, "description": "If you are a Coder, Owner, Startup investor, or just have an idea to improve this place, then this class is for you. \r\n\r\nLee is at it again. He will create an exciting learning opportunity about the 1981 law that takes your R&D costs and puts them in your pocket. \r\n\r\nThe R&D tax credit is for taxpayers of any size that design, develop or improve products, processes, techniques, formulas or software. \r\n\r\nIt is calculated based upon 4 steps that but the IRS muddled it up with ambiguity and conflict and think you can do it in 25 hours. \r\n\r\nI guarantee you will have fun learning tax law, or will not fall asleep.... \r\n\r\n", "room_name": "California", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:25:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 38, "created_at": "2019-03-01 21:39:17 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:29 UTC" }, { "id": 745, "participant_id": 2964, "presenter_name": "Matthew Hurewitz", "presenter_bio": "Matthew has a diverse work history, innovating in both an enterprise and startup environment. He has been with Best Buy for the last 7 years, 6 years in innovation and 1 year in cyber security. Prior to that, he has founded several startups; his current startup is iPrompted.com - that helps you follow through on tasks that are important to you. \r\n\r\nYou can follow Matt at:\r\n@matthurewitz on twitter\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/relaunched)\n- Twitter: @matthurewitz", "session_title": "Enterprise & Startup Innovation - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly", "summary": null, "description": "*Startups aren't just for college kids and garages anymore.* Whether you are building an product at night and on weekends or you are a CEO trying to figure out how to compete at the speed of the competition, startups & innovation are more popular now than ever.\r\n\r\nThis session focuses on how to launch a startup. It will include how you find a problem, build an iterative MVP, influence and validate customer problem and validate a market. At a high-level, this process should be the same in startups and corporate enterprises, but in practice, it isn't. **Companies of all sizes are trying to be more innovative than ever; the goal of this session is to talk honestly about how it is, how it could be, why it's that way and what you can do about it**.\r\n\r\nMatt and Jay have extensive experience innovating in both startup and enterprise environments. Collectively, both presenters have launched their own startups, attended startup incubators and worked in innovation at Best Buy.", "room_name": "California", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Jay Myers" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 649 ], "attendance_count": 68, "created_at": "2019-03-01 14:53:28 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:33 UTC" }, { "id": 744, "participant_id": 2295, "presenter_name": "Ryan Weber", "presenter_bio": "Ryan Weber is the Co-Ambassador for [SingularityU Minneapolis-St. Paul Chapter](https://global.su.org/chapters/minneapolis-st-paul) and Managing Partner of [Great North Labs](http://www.greatnorthlabs.com). Previously, Ryan was Co-Founder/Chief Product Officer for NativeX (FKA Freeze and W3i), a digital media company that scaled to 170 employees, and offices in Silicon Valley and Minnesota. \r\n\r\nGreat North Labs invests in technology startups across any industry that are based, or have meaningful operations, in the upper mid-west. We have assembled a team experienced in scaling technology startups across a variety of industries, along with individuals with strong expertise in exponential technologies, so that we can help regional startups achieve greatness!\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @mnvikingsfan", "session_title": "Developing A Moonshot Idea - Broadening Perspective & Thinking Creatively", "summary": null, "description": "Intel Co-Founder Gordon Moore famously predicted that computing power would grow exponentially by doubling every two years (“Moore’s Law”). The implications of such rapidly improving computing power are now evident all around us, but back when Gordon predicted such growth it was hard to imagine a future with such incredible computing power. There are now many exponential trends that are expected to disrupt us as much as the internet and mobile did over the past 20 years.\r\n\r\nMany of us are trapped in convergent thinking and need to strengthen our ability to utilize divergent thinking for exploring the future to improve our ability to adapt and innovate. This session is an interactive session designed to help you learn new skills to strengthen your adaptiveness! The two techniques you'll learn in this session are **Question Storming** and **Future Wheels** along with an intro to how these could be paired with exponential tech to come up with a Moonshot!\r\n\r\nQuestion Storming - Discovering problems actually requires just as much creativity as discovering solutions. There are many ways to look at any problem, and realizing a problem is often the first step toward a creative solution. \r\n\r\nFuture Wheel - The Future wheel is a method for graphical visualisation of direct and indirect future consequences of a particular change or development. The Futures Wheel is a way of organizing thinking and questioning about the future – a kind of structured brainstorming. \r\n\r\nNick Tietz, Serial Entrepreneur, former Director of Innovation at Lifetime Fitness and Sr. UX Designer at the Nerdery, and Ryan Weber will be tag-teaming on this session on behalf of the SingularityU Minneapolis-St. Paul Chapter to provide you a primer on coming up with the next MinneMoonshot! ", "room_name": "Bde Maka Ska", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other", "Design", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 131, "created_at": "2019-02-28 21:58:41 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:34 UTC" }, { "id": 743, "participant_id": 137, "presenter_name": "Patrick Donohue", "presenter_bio": "[LinkedIn Profile](www.linkedin.com/in/patrickedonohue/)\r\n\r\n[Hill Capital Corporation](http://www.hillcapitalcorp.com/)\r\n\r\n", "session_title": "Minne 1 Million Cups at Minnebar14", "summary": null, "description": "1 Million Cups (1MC) is a national event started by the Kauffman Foundation in 2012. 1MC events happen every Wednesday morning in over 200 communities throughout the United States! Every Wednesday one to two Entrepreneurs share their story in a safe environment. The community simply asks \"What can our community do for you?\". \r\n\r\n1 Million Cups Eden Prairie and local 1MC groups is hosting Minne 1MC at Minnebar14 with six lightening round updates from past 1MC presenters. This will give you a taste of what 1MC does every week!\r\n\r\nIt is organized by community volunteers and the events are free and host free coffee. Learn more and find a community by you at https://www.1millioncups.com. In our region we have Eden Prairie, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Eau Claire, Willmar, Rochester, Mankato, Winona, Des Moines, Fargo and many more that host 1MC! \r\n\r\n", "room_name": "Florida", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Ryan Furness", "Tony Collen", "Kevin McArdle", "Joel Ackerman", "David Peteler" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 1742, 447, 2452, 746, 1569 ], "attendance_count": 49, "created_at": "2019-02-26 15:02:57 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:36 UTC" }, { "id": 742, "participant_id": 3, "presenter_name": "Ben Edwards", "presenter_bio": "Ben is a catalyst to the various tech, design, and entrepreneur communities of which he is a part. He currently serves as Head of Community at [Misty Robotics](http://mistyrobotics.com) and was formerly Co-Founder of [SmartThings](http://smartthings.com), [Minnestar](http://Minnestar.org), and [Refactr](http://refactr.ai). In addition, Ben is currently an Advisor at [Great North Labs](http://greatnorthlabs.com) and a Board Member at [Goodfolio](http://goodfolio.org), a non-profit based on the principles of effective giving. \r\n\r\nBen is particularly proud of his role in the genesis of the non-profit, Minnestar—fostering technology and startup activity in Minnesota since 2006.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/alttext)\n- Twitter: @alttext", "session_title": "🤖Robots as a Development Platform + Live Coding on a Robot...with JavaScript", "summary": null, "description": "Check out this session if you are interested in the future of robots and how they may become the next platform for most software development to move to. The first half is big picture, non-Misty Robotics-focused and then a live-coding session will ensue...using code (JavaScript or Python) for something other than a web browser or mobile phone—you guessed it—on a robot.\r\n\r\nLike what you see? Interested? Want a challenge? Stay for the [follow-up session](https://sessions.minnestar.org/sessions/804) where you can get some up close and personal time with a Misty robot and try your hand at creating your own robot skills. \r\n\r\nPlan on spending 2 hours with us and these very cute robots!\r\n\r\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvZwryzJuv4\r\n\r\n", "room_name": "Zeke Landres", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:25:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Development", "Hardware" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Justin woo", "Chris Meyer" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 3036, 3152 ], "attendance_count": 79, "created_at": "2019-02-26 08:20:38 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-27 03:43:19 UTC" }, { "id": 741, "participant_id": 2661, "presenter_name": "Don Ball (old account 1)", "presenter_bio": "I'm a long-time Minnebar attendee and the occasional session-holder.\r\n\r\nI'm a writer by training. Enthusiasms include:\r\n\r\n* Cocktails\r\n\r\n* Cooking\r\n\r\n* History and archaeology\r\n\r\n* 1/35 scale military models\r\n\r\n* Genealogy\r\n\r\n* Abstract painting (no, really)\r\n\r\nThe tech that I enjoy most is of the mad-scientist kind. \r\n\r\nMy day job is co-founder and chief social officer at Fueled Collective, MN's original and largest locally-owned coworking space.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @donmball", "session_title": "Q&A Session for Wannabe Solopreneurs", "summary": null, "description": "Thinking about leaving your posh corporate job to become a freelancer, consultant or owner of a (hopefully) growing small business?\r\n\r\nFacing such a big decision you probably have lots of questions, like:\r\n\r\n**\"Can I get rich?\"**\r\n\r\nor\r\n\r\n**\"Will I die poor and destitute?\"**\r\n\r\nYou might also have how-to questions about how to set up your business, how to do marketing and sales, billing, payroll, contracts , etc. You know, the fun stuff.\r\n\r\nBring your questions to this session. I and a few solopreneur friends will be on hand to field any questions, point you to resources and help you make a better decision.\r\n\r\n\r\nNote: startup founders, you are certainly welcome, but just to be clear, we will not be discussing startup-specific topics like funding, scaling, recruiting, etc. \r\n", "room_name": "Texas", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:25:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 43, "created_at": "2019-02-25 19:47:42 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:30 UTC" }, { "id": 740, "participant_id": 1319, "presenter_name": "Dave Mathias", "presenter_bio": "Believer that the intersection of people, experience, process, data and technology drives maximum customer solutions. Entrepreneurial ventures around helping change data culture, [Beyond the Data](https://gobeyondthedata.com), and being customer focused, [Customer Focus North](https://CustomerFN.com). Otherwise doer of many things like MinneAnalytics, Ally People Solutions (soon to be CIP), Minnesota PDMA, Data Able podcast, Twin Cities Data Viz, Twin Cities Data Fluency, ProductCamp Twin Cities, and Customer Focus North. \r\n\r\nWant to connect? Reach out on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/davemathias1), [@davemathias](https://www.twitter.com/davemathias) or [dave@gobeyondthedata.com](mailto:dave@gobeyondthedata.com).\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @davemathias", "session_title": "📊📲 Better Products with Data Viz ", "summary": null, "description": "In this session we will get into how **data visualization** can be used to **tell a better story** and can be used to **make your product better**. We will make sure to hit on some tips to get you started or to advance from where you already are. Look forward to an *interactive session* because most of us have some data viz knowledge and what works and what doesn't.", "room_name": "Discover", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other", "Design", "Startups", "Development", "Hardware" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 64, "created_at": "2019-02-25 17:46:00 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:53 UTC" }, { "id": 739, "participant_id": 2661, "presenter_name": "Don Ball (old account 1)", "presenter_bio": "I'm a long-time Minnebar attendee and the occasional session-holder.\r\n\r\nI'm a writer by training. Enthusiasms include:\r\n\r\n* Cocktails\r\n\r\n* Cooking\r\n\r\n* History and archaeology\r\n\r\n* 1/35 scale military models\r\n\r\n* Genealogy\r\n\r\n* Abstract painting (no, really)\r\n\r\nThe tech that I enjoy most is of the mad-scientist kind. \r\n\r\nMy day job is co-founder and chief social officer at Fueled Collective, MN's original and largest locally-owned coworking space.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @donmball", "session_title": "Oh, the humanity!", "summary": null, "description": "Digital culture has me feeling grumpy these days. I have a list of complaints (see below). It could also just be winter.\r\n\r\nIf you’re feeling curmudgeonly for whatever reason, let’s help each other snap out of it. At this session, we will:\r\n\r\n* Make cocktails\r\n\r\n* Play vinyl \r\n\r\n* Have a conversation about the threadbare state of digital culture...\r\n\r\n* ...and how to cultivate our own humanity in all its non-digital, non-sequitur, illogical, unproductive and beautiful aspects. \r\n\r\nThat’s all you need to know, really. \r\n\r\nMy complaints? Well, if you insist, here goes:\r\n\r\n* Hustle porn – does anyone *really* need to work 80 hours a week?\r\n\r\n* Success & productivity porn - can we stop with the listicles that enumerate exactly how we need to be like other people to find happiness?\r\n\r\n* As long as we’re on the subject, this incessant focus on happiness certainly can’t be healthy.\r\n\r\n* Startup culture. Yes, be an entrepreneur. But does everything have to scale? Do we really need to grovel for venture capital? And talk about role models – is it just possible that many unicorn founders are imbalanced people who didn't get enough hugs in childhood?\r\n\r\n* Twitter has become toxic. As an early adopter, this makes me sad.\r\n\r\n* Social media influencers can just get the f*ck off my lawn.\r\n\r\nSo, what’s your take? Please come and share. But lest we descent into a grump-off, please also tell us about all the things you do and think about that make you human:\r\n\r\n* Do you have any weird hobbies? \r\n\r\n* Do you volunteer?\r\n\r\n* Do you read books *not* about coding, business and hustling?\r\n\r\n* Do you write or make art?\r\n\r\n* If you could time travel for a day, where and when would you go? \r\n\r\n* Do you play music? \r\n\r\n* Do you know your family history?\r\n\r\n* Have you tried a digital detox?\r\n\r\n* Have you tried psychedelics? \r\n", "room_name": "Nokomis", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 92, "created_at": "2019-02-25 17:17:46 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:38 UTC" }, { "id": 738, "participant_id": 917, "presenter_name": "Matt Decuir", "presenter_bio": "Matt (he/him) is a software engineer, entrepreneur, and Minnestar board member. Past projects include [Invisible Network](https://www.invisiblenetwork.com/), [Mpls Jr Devs](https://mplsjrdevs.com/), and [OMG Transit](https://omgtransit.com).\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/experimatt)\n- Twitter: @experimatt", "session_title": "Tactical Advice for Hiring Developers", "summary": null, "description": "The goal of this session is to provide tactical advice and recommendations for employers to improve how they hire developers.\r\n\r\nThis session is open to anybody who's interested. If you have strong feelings about the topic, we'd love for you to join us and share your perspective.\r\n\r\nThis will be a lecture-style presentation, with a good amount of audience participation.\r\n\r\n**Some of the things we'll talk about:**\r\n\r\n1. Coding exercises\r\n2. Hiring for diversity and experience at the same time\r\n3. How to structure the hiring process\r\n4. How to avoid needing to hire someone *yesterday*\r\n5. How to reduce bias while assessing for \"culture fit\"\r\n6. Why you should hire junior developers\r\n7. How to mentor, train, and onboard junior developers\r\n8. Where to find candidates\r\n9. Other advice", "room_name": "Zeke Landres", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 85, "created_at": "2019-02-24 01:35:22 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:28 UTC" }, { "id": 737, "participant_id": 2948, "presenter_name": "Michelle Smeby", "presenter_bio": "Michelle Smeby is CEO and Transformation Leader of wHolistic Change, Inc. with 20 years of experience implementing enterprise solutions at Fortune 500 companies. Michelle is an author, speaker, trainer, and consultant who specializes in helping corporations deliver transformational change.\r\nMichelle earned her Masters degree in biomedical engineering from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology and is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).\r\nPrior to founding wHolistic Change, Inc., Michelle held leadership positions at UnitedHealth Group, Target, and Best Buy. Michelle’s book, \"wHolistic Change: Delivering Corporate Change That Lasts\" is available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and Apple iTunes.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @WholisticChange", "session_title": "7 Skills of Successful Change Agents", "summary": null, "description": "Implementing change doesn’t happen with just one person. It takes a team.\r\nA change agent is a person who has the passion to make change work and to ensure that the change lasts. Being able to act as change agents is critical to successfully deliver today's complex technology and business products and to achieve their desired business value. \r\nChange happens because people recognize the value of making the change and then purposely decide to act. In order to convince people outside of your sphere of influence to change their behavior, you need to master the 7 change agent skills and to understand the pitfalls you will encounter if you or your team lacks those skills.\r\n", "room_name": "Challenge", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:25:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 84, "created_at": "2019-02-22 16:28:21 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:29 UTC" }, { "id": 736, "participant_id": 74, "presenter_name": "Jeffry Brown", "presenter_bio": "Jeffry Brown\r\nDreamer - Doer - Storyteller\r\nhttp://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrybrown\r\n \r\nTHINKING DIFFERENTLY - ENTREPRENEUR - CREATE POSITIVITY - INVESTOR\r\nJeff has spent his career starting, leading, leaving and coaching businesses, after first working at Apple in that company's early years where he worked directly with Steve Jobs on creating the companies future and culture. He is one of the founding members of Hill Capital and coaches entrepreneurial businesses in growth strategy and culture. \r\n\r\nLife long teacher and learner never looking back but always looking forward. \r\nNot retired but re-fired to help others find and enjoy their purpose.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @Ideawhiz", "session_title": "😃💥 Experience Happiness: From startup to a Million a month with no investors- you can do it too!", "summary": null, "description": "\r\nExplore the power of happiness, how it drives all aspects of wellbeing, and how it's influencing policy,economics, education, business and more. Plus you'll learn about a small Twin Cities startup that is going global, from startup to $million a month with one global contract, through happiness. \r\n\r\nJeff guides guides this session to show you how to create a competitive advantage for businesses through happiness. The Happiness Practice (THP) is an evidence-based mental health solution and a life-transforming and sustainable practice that mitigates and prevents stress and fear, while increasing happiness, mindfulness, and performance. THP empowers leaders to champion and cultivate individual and organizational happiness, while measuring Return On Happiness (ROH) tied to key performance measures. Jeff will share THP at minnebar, helping us all to be happier as individuals and more effective as leaders.\r\n\r\nAnd if you are already happy, the way this local startup is going global is a lesson in itself and will provide value to how you look at taking a product to market so you can accomplish this too. \r\n", "room_name": "California", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups", "Design" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 51, "created_at": "2019-02-21 22:14:10 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:51 UTC" }, { "id": 735, "participant_id": 289, "presenter_name": "Bridget Kromhout", "presenter_bio": "Bridget Kromhout is a Principal Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. Her CS degree emphasis was in theory, but she now deals with the concrete (if 'cloud' can be considered tangible). After 15 years as an operations engineer, she traded being on call for being on a plane. A frequent speaker and program committee member for tech conferences, she leads the devopsdays organization globally and the devops community at home in Minneapolis. She podcasts with Arrested DevOps, blogs at bridgetkromhout.com, and is active in a Twitterverse near you.", "session_title": "Kubernetes Operability Tooling", "summary": null, "description": "Artisanally hand-crafting our own container hosting solutions can be a fun learning experience, but for repeatable production use, let’s look at how to deploy and manage Kubernetes in a reproducible fashion.\r\n\r\nUsing Terraform, Helm, Draft, Brigade, Duffle, and more, we can deploy and update our Kubernetes clusters (AKS in my case; your mileage may vary!) and applications via a trusted, versioned, consistent process. The Kubernetes ecosystem is a complex space with a baffling array of options; we’ll look at a subset with an eye to repeatable “day two” operations.\r\n\r\nWith the practical application of open specifications like Cloud Native Application Bundles and open source tools to simplify cluster management and application development, we can more effectively use Kubernetes at scale.", "room_name": "Texas", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 56, "created_at": "2019-02-19 19:19:51 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:33 UTC" }, { "id": 734, "participant_id": 2481, "presenter_name": "Lou Abramowski", "presenter_bio": "Lou Abramowski or -- as he's known to many -- \"Hot Lou\" has spent the last 20 years building startups from OurFamilyWizard.com (the biggest family management tool on the web, acquired in 2020) to 8thBridge (MN Cup 2009 Grand Prize winner, acquired in 2014) to today [Evergreen](https://evergreen.app) (a social media automation tool for SMBs) and [Combat Candy](https://combatcandies.com) (a creatine gummies supplement DTC brand). \r\n\r\nHe's also helped build gigantic social media communities on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, etc. for billion dollar brands like Jack Link's Beef Jerky and the Minnesota Vikings, to just a couple thousand for small non-profits like Simon Says Give, to hundreds of thousands for obscure children's entertainers like Twig the Fairy.\r\n\r\nOutside of the software startup and marketing world, he's a national and world championship ultimate player and coach.\r\n\r\n**Links:**\r\n\r\n@hotlou everywhere on social media", "session_title": "Get Internet Famous or Die Trying", "summary": null, "description": "Once upon a time in a fairyland far far away, serial software entrepreneur “Hot Lou” helped children’s entertainer Twig the Fairy grow her Facebook audience to over 250k followers. Leveraging that audience, they self-published a line of children's books that would have landed them on the NYT Best Sellers list (had they not self-published) and a 6 figure business.\r\n\r\nHe later applied what he learned to help a billion dollar brands add millions of followers to their social media accounts, some non-profits add just their first 1000 followers, and everything in between.\r\n\r\nToday, he’s helping local YouTuber Shayla build her channel & brand “Living on a One Way” to similar heights. With 50k subscribers on YouTube and 10k followers on Instagram, her audience is already bigger than most hope to build and it continues to grow fast. \r\n\r\nJoin them as they talk about the actual, applicable tactics you can use to grow a large audience on the internet, pitfalls to avoid, and ultimately how you turn that into everyone's favorite objective: monetization. \r\n\r\nThis session isn't just for those wanting to be famous. It's for anyone who wants to build an audience. Personal or big brands with audiences large or small will get a ton of advice that you don't hear anywhere else, along with plenty of time for questions that Lou and Shayla will be happy to answer openly and honestly.", "room_name": "Discover", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Shayla Christine" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 2935 ], "attendance_count": 74, "created_at": "2019-02-19 17:34:56 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:47 UTC" }, { "id": 733, "participant_id": 2481, "presenter_name": "Lou Abramowski", "presenter_bio": "Lou Abramowski or -- as he's known to many -- \"Hot Lou\" has spent the last 20 years building startups from OurFamilyWizard.com (the biggest family management tool on the web, acquired in 2020) to 8thBridge (MN Cup 2009 Grand Prize winner, acquired in 2014) to today [Evergreen](https://evergreen.app) (a social media automation tool for SMBs) and [Combat Candy](https://combatcandies.com) (a creatine gummies supplement DTC brand). \r\n\r\nHe's also helped build gigantic social media communities on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, etc. for billion dollar brands like Jack Link's Beef Jerky and the Minnesota Vikings, to just a couple thousand for small non-profits like Simon Says Give, to hundreds of thousands for obscure children's entertainers like Twig the Fairy.\r\n\r\nOutside of the software startup and marketing world, he's a national and world championship ultimate player and coach.\r\n\r\n**Links:**\r\n\r\n@hotlou everywhere on social media", "session_title": "Anatomy of a Killer Social Media Strategy", "summary": null, "description": "After hearing last year that this session \"was the best social media talk I've ever been to\" from one of the attendees, I'm bringing this presentation back with a few new things that we've learned at Evergreen in the last 12 months by managing thousands of Facebook Pages and Twitter accounts.\r\n\r\nBottom line, many businesses are drinking from the fire hose that is social media marketing advice. So I'm going to share with you the most bizarre social media experiment you've ever heard and how it spawned multiple businesses whose existence was built on a foundation of social media marketing. Then, I'll follow up with how you can apply what I've learned to your own business or brand for setting realistic expectations in what social media marketing can do for you. \r\n\r\nThis is not your mom's social media talk. It won't be filled with platitudes about hustle and grind or make false promises. I'm going to share real tactics that anyone can start using -- some even before the session is over. Buckle up and get ready to hear some every day techniques I've used to help billion dollar brands add 1 million followers to their Facebook page, to guide non-profits to their first 1000 followers, or to usher in the most sought after objective of any audience: monetization.", "room_name": "Bde Maka Ska", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 97, "created_at": "2019-02-19 17:22:36 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:30 UTC" }, { "id": 730, "participant_id": 998, "presenter_name": "Michael Migliacio", "presenter_bio": "Michael \"Miggs\" Migliacio is a Software Engineering Coach in the Target Dojo with over 15 years of experience in software development. Previously, he held engineering roles at IBM, IGN Entertainment, and Best Buy, where he led the team responsible for building the API that powers shipping and delivery for one of the largest eCommerce platforms in the world. He is also JLPT-certified and serves as a Japanese-to-English interpreter for the Bloomington-Izumi Sister City Organization. Outside of Target, Michael co-founded video game development studio Intropy Games and worked closely with Japanese publisher CrossFunction in order to launch a localized title on Nintendo consoles in Japan. \r\n\r\nHe earned a Bachelor's in Computer Science with a minor in Japanese from Purdue University and is currently pursuing a Master's in Computer Science from Georgia Tech.\r\n\r\nContact [Twitter (@angstygaijin)](https://twitter.com/angstygaijin) | [LinkedIn](http://www.linkedin.com/pub/michael-migliacio/14/b42/126/en)\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @angstygaijin", "session_title": "What is Technical Coaching? The Art, Science, and Culture Of Engineering Enablement", "summary": null, "description": "井の中の蛙大海を知らず - \"A frog in a well does not know the great sea.\"\r\n\r\nSoftware engineering may be difficult, but fostering a working environment that enables skilled engineers to perform their best can sometimes seem downright impossible. Every day, many engineering teams are battling a messy whirlwind of forces like unmovable deadlines, impostor syndrome, psychological safety issues, personnel/leadership conflicts, fierce technological preferences, and more. With teams more distributed all over the world than ever before, cultural differences can exacerbate many of these difficulties.\r\n\r\nAs a software engineering coach, my job is to not only introduce new technology to software teams, but to strengthen their working relationships within their organization. Coaches aren’t simply technical instructors. Rather, they are change agents that guide a team towards better outcomes for their project as well as their interactions with one another.\r\n\r\nIn this presentation, I will discuss tips, tricks, and techniques that technical leaders and managers alike can utilize to better coach engineering teams, including concepts like the definition of empathy (and, more importantly, what doesn't count), the trust-influence relationship model, introducing new technologies in a meaningful and consumable way, and a 5-step process to provide teams confidence to own their new solutions moving forward.", "room_name": "Louis Pasteur", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 73, "created_at": "2019-02-15 15:23:21 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-27 03:43:19 UTC" }, { "id": 728, "participant_id": 2931, "presenter_name": "Andrew Schneider", "presenter_bio": "I've been involved in the Minnesota startup scene for the last 10 years. Currently, a Product Marketing Manager at When I Work and previously worked at Zipnosis, Optum and the University of Minnesota's Venture Center. Majored in entrepreneurship at the University of Minnesota.", "session_title": "How to Build Better Betas", "summary": null, "description": "There’s a lot of hype in startupland about the best way to beta test new products. \r\n\r\nAt When I Work, we beta tested two new products last year. What we learned during the first release made us more effective in our second, which resulted in two successful product launches and a practical playbook for how to launch better betas. \r\n\r\nDuring this session, we’ll share the battle-tested tools and techniques we used to increase engagement, gather more data and build confidence about where to go next on the journey to a successful commercial product launch.\r\n\r\nThis session is for the entrepreneur or product team that wants to learn a practical guide to building better betas.\r\n\r\n**About the Presenters**\r\n[Nick Wellner](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickwellner/) (Principal Product Designer), and [Andrew Schneider](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewschneiderwiw/) (Product Marketing Manager) were part of the team in 2018 that designed, built and launched two new products at When I Work - a scheduling, time tracking, hiring and messaging platform that helps hourly workers and businesses work better together.\r\n\r\n\r\n", "room_name": "Tackle", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Design", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Nick Wellner" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 2932 ], "attendance_count": 55, "created_at": "2019-02-14 18:02:38 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:52 UTC" }, { "id": 727, "participant_id": 156, "presenter_name": "Dan Lew", "presenter_bio": "Dan Lew has code in his DNA and has been speaking since he was two years old. He's focused these skills on software development for the past two decades, working on many large applications (FlightTrack, Expedia, Trello) as well as maintaining some open source libraries and applications. Currently he works on the energy efficiency in cold storage at [SnoFox Sciences](https://www.snofox.com/).\r\n\r\nWhen not speaking, he's silent.\r\n\r\nYou can [contact him on Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/danlew42.bsky.social), [read his website](http://danlew.net/), or [stalk his commit history](https://github.com/dlew).", "session_title": "Automated Tests Aren’t Enough", "summary": null, "description": "Sorry to break it to you, but if you’re writing software, then you’re writing bugs.\r\n\r\nYou want to find and squash as many of these bugs as you can before you release them into the wild, but how? Sure, you could hire testers to go out and find bugs - but that costs money and they might not even catch every bug!\r\n\r\nFaced with the costly uncertainty of testers, some people turn towards automated testing. If written correctly, automated tests can provide reliable and consistent checks across your codebase.\r\n\r\nAs beneficial as automated tests can be, **I am here to argue that automated testing alone will not save you!** No matter how much you automate, your product will suffer without sufficient manual testing to back it up.\r\n\r\nIn this talk I’ll explain why manual testing is necessary (no matter how many automated tests you have) and how you can best use manual and automated tests together.", "room_name": "Nokomis", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 89, "created_at": "2019-02-14 00:41:09 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:30 UTC" }, { "id": 725, "participant_id": 208, "presenter_name": "Paul DeBettignies", "presenter_bio": "Paul DeBettignies is the Founder of Launch Hiring and is better known as “Minnesota Headhunter.” Recognized as a Talent Leader, for 25+ years Paul has sat at the intersection of talent advisory and talent strategy building software, tech, product and digital teams with startups and tech companies throughout the country with a focus on Minnesota and the Midwest while creating recruiting strategies for Fortune 500 clients.\r\n\r\nHe is a regional and national writer speaker, trainer, subject matter expert and trusted media source on recruiter, HR, career, job search, networking and social media topics.\r\n\r\nBorn and raised in Minneapolis, Paul despises bios and does not take himself as serious as this all sounds. He loves sunsets, fishing, gardening and still believes that one day the Gophers will go to the Rose Bowl.\r\n\r\nStay in contact with him by clicking: [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mnheadhunter) | [@MNHeadhunter](https://twitter.com/mnheadhunter) | [Minnesota Headhunter Blog](http://www.mnheadhunter.com)\r\n", "session_title": "Managing Your IT Career v11 (Why do recruiters suck so bad?)", "summary": null, "description": "NOTE: before then I will be posting my Spring 2019 Minnesota Tech, Recruiting, IT Jobs, and Salary Report and will put a link here.\r\n\r\nFor this session a few slides and a lot of Q&A and discussion.\r\n\r\nFrequent conversations, questions and topics I have had lately at Minnedemo, user groups/meetups and a CTO round table (I'll likely add a few):\r\n\r\n- What the local job market is like right now\r\n- Why there seems to be more hiring and layoff announcements\r\n- Why salaries that had been stagnant the past 2 years may be increasing a bit\r\n- I don't have the years of experience a company is looking for, what should I do\r\n- How to network in the MN tech scene\r\n- How does the Minneapolis tech scene rank with other cities\r\n\r\nWhat is on your mind? Send me a note paul@mnheadhunter.com ", "room_name": "Nokomis", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:25:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 102, "created_at": "2019-02-12 20:06:22 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:44 UTC" }, { "id": 724, "participant_id": 1801, "presenter_name": "Adeel Ahmad", "presenter_bio": "Founder/Principal at [Lab 1908](https://lab1908.com), a startup studio in St. Paul. \r\n\r\nInvestor/advisor at a bunch of startups around Twin Cities and San Francisco. \r\n\r\n\r\n**Links:**\r\n\r\n- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/adeelahmad/)\r\n- [The Misophonia Podcast](https://misophoniapodcast.com)", "session_title": "🤫🤬 Misophonia - Coping With a Hatred of Sounds", "summary": null, "description": "Does the sound of people eating chips, clearing their throat, chewing gum, coughing put you in a rage? You might have misophonia.\r\n\r\nMisophonia may cause a reaction to sounds such as dripping water, chewing, snapping gum, or repetitive noises, such as pencil tapping. People with misophonia can become irritated, enraged, or even panicked when they hear their trigger sounds. Treatment might involve therapy or lifestyle recommendations, such as using sound protection or creating \"noise-free\" zones within living spaces.\r\n\r\n[NYT](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/health/sounds-people-hate.html)
\r\n[NPR](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/03/18/702784044/misophonia-when-lifes-noises-drive-you-mad)
\r\n[Harvard](https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/misophonia-sounds-really-make-crazy-2017042111534)
\r\n[Psychology Today](https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/brain-chemistry/201812/stop-noise)
\r\n[Quartz](https://qz.com/1256773/what-is-misophonia-when-sounds-cause-you-discomfort/)
\r\n[Misophonia Facebook group](https://www.facebook.com/groups/misophoniasupport/)\r\n\r\nA few months ago, the annual Misophonia Association conference took place in Bloomington and it was awesome. 200 people from all over the country gathered. I'll have updates from there.\r\n\r\nThis is relevant for the tech community because of the need for deep concentration, and the proliferation of \"open workspaces\".\r\n\r\n**If you think you have misophonia - this session may change your life.**\r\n\r\nAlso check out my talk on [Side Projects](https://sessions.minnestar.org/sessions/689).", "room_name": "Georgia", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:25:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 32, "created_at": "2019-02-12 17:57:50 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:44 UTC" }, { "id": 723, "participant_id": 12, "presenter_name": "Mark Gritter", "presenter_bio": "Mark Gritter is a Founding Engineer at Akita Software, his fourth startup experience, building API observability. Mark formerly worked at HashiCorp on the Vault team; co-founded Tintri, an enterprise storage company that IPOed in 2017; and was a day-one employee at Kealia, a video streaming startup acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2004.\r\n\r\nMark's previous Minnebar presentations have covered topics such as correctness of algorithms, combinatorial auctions, scaling a startup, building a file system, and procedural content generation.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/mgritter)\n- Twitter: @markgritter", "session_title": "Software Correctness Tools", "summary": null, "description": "Fuzzers, model checkers, and automatic test-case generators work. They find bugs; they expose security issues; they identify design flaws. So why don’t more people use them?\r\n\r\nThis session will be a tour of some of the tools available to automatically find correctness and security problems in software. We’ll talk about static analysis, property-based testing, and even automated proof assistants, and show real bugs that these systems have found. Come and discuss your experience with software correctness tools, or talk about the challenges you face in building and testing reliable software.\r\n", "room_name": "Minnetonka", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 84, "created_at": "2019-02-12 07:55:00 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:39 UTC" }, { "id": 722, "participant_id": 1796, "presenter_name": "Dev Jana", "presenter_bio": "By day, [Dev](https://twitter.com/devjana) is a *Director of Instruction: Full Stack Development* at [Prime Digital Academy](https://primeacademy.io), *Adjunct Game Professor* at Augsburg University, *Treasurer for International Game Developers Association, Twin Cities*, and *President of Code and Noises* at [DevNAri LLC](http://devnari.com) whose first release Newt One is available on [XBox One](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/newt-one/9pljwpmqjq18), [Nintendo Switch](https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/newt-one-switch/), [Playstation 4](https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/newt-one-ps4/), and [Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/842850/Newt_One/).\r\n\r\nFavorite Games: Arkanoid, Rocket League, Mario Series (specifically SMB & 64), Journey, X Wing, The Legend of Zelda, Dark Sun: Shattered Lands, Doom II, Red Dead Redemption, Tetris, The Last of Us\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/devjanaprime)\n- Twitter: @devjana", "session_title": "Indie Game Development Microtalks", "summary": null, "description": "Back again for another MinneBar the Indie Game Dev Microtalks is a parade of all star local Game Developers will each take the reigns for 6 minutes to present their experiences and learnings as Independent Game Developers in the Twin Cities.\r\n\r\nThe Minnesota independent game development community has been releasing more products than ever and 2019 is going to see even more releases by local teams. Join us for fun and informative lighting-round style session of stories and lessons learned from local game devs.\r\n\r\nPresenters:\r\n\r\n- Adia Alderson\r\n- Charles McGregor\r\n- Dev Jana\r\n- Ian Fitzpatrick\r\n- Martin Grider\r\n\r\n", "room_name": "Discover", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Design", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Martin Grider", "Ian Fitzpatrick", "Adia Alderson", "Charles McGregor" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 423, 18, 3314, 3278 ], "attendance_count": 76, "created_at": "2019-02-11 22:34:04 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-27 03:43:19 UTC" }, { "id": 721, "participant_id": 766, "presenter_name": "Andy Gikling", "presenter_bio": "I'm a computer/software/hardware/Linux enthusiast.\r\n\r\nI currently write medical device software for Minnetronix Inc. in Saint Paul.\r\n\r\n@SoundGains\r\nhttp://www.soundgains.com\r\n\r\n#GripAndRip\r\n#LinuxForTheWin\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/andygikling)\n- Twitter: @SoundGains", "session_title": "Blockchain/DLT Technical Primer 2019", "summary": null, "description": "Crypto Currency Bubble? What bubble? Blockchain is all hype? Think again. Ever heard of a \"directed acyclic graph\" or a \"zero\r\nknowledge proof?\" No? Then absolutely join us!\r\n\r\nDon't know anything about Cryptocurrency, Blockchain or Distributed Ledger Technology? Don't worry about it - we got your basics covered in this lecture - you'll love it!\r\n\r\nIn this talk I'll bring you the latest and greatest from the world of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) as it relates to business, cryptocurrency, IT and even IoT! \r\n\r\nYou would not imagine some of incredible technical and logical breakthroughs that are continuing to happen in this space - many of which the main stream isn't even talking about yet. In 2019, big industry is scrambling to keep up - be informed!\r\n\r\nThis talk will offer concrete examples of how real companies are leveraging this cutting edge software technology to realize new systems and even new markets that you never thought possible!\r\n", "room_name": "Nevada", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 53, "created_at": "2019-02-09 18:40:45 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:54 UTC" }, { "id": 720, "participant_id": 2924, "presenter_name": "Clark Varin", "presenter_bio": "A young Minnesotan entrepreneur whose biggest passion is to empower entrepreneurs. He does this in the states through mindset and marketing coaching and he pursues this passion worldwide through his microfinance bank in Uganda. Clark realized his passion for entrepreneurship when he was a college student and started his first business guiding his fellow students on high adventure camping trips all over the world. That experience taught him that entrepreneurship is all about turning your passion into your income, and with the right mindset, anyone can live the life that they want.", "session_title": "Intro to Microfinancing & How to Empower Entrepreneurs Worldwide", "summary": null, "description": "What can you do with $200 in the States? Perhaps pay rent for a week, but in Haiti a man currently earning $2/day can buy a fishing net with that money and start making $20/day. An unemployed woman in Uganda can buy chicken, vegetables, and rice and start a local market. Or perhaps start a drug store and start selling condoms, tampons, and birth control to the women in her village.\r\n\r\nDuring this session, you're going to hear the story of how a man in Uganda grew up as orphan and had to walk barefoot for 20 miles a day so that he could get an education and escape poverty. Fast forward 15 years and this man now runs a school and microfinance company to provide thousands of people in his village an opportunity to earn a higher income.\r\n\r\nHe has now teamed up with two Minnesotan entrepreneurs on a mission to provide economic opportunity to 1 million people in East Africa. Learn how the business works, how we're able to provide secure loans to even the poorest people in the world, and how we plan to 10X the economic growth of this Ugandan village within the next 5-10 years.", "room_name": "New York", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 17, "created_at": "2019-02-08 19:55:47 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:38 UTC" }, { "id": 719, "participant_id": 1368, "presenter_name": "Tea Dejanovic", "presenter_bio": "Streamlining the delivery and adoption of new technologies Monday - Friday, empowering young women in tech on the weekends! Passionate about growing community engagement and fostering the mindset of 'pay it forward' in the professional setting. \r\n\r\nhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/teadejanovic/\r\n", "session_title": "Agile & Web Accessibility 101 ", "summary": null, "description": "Have you ever wondered if the content and the functionality you are developing is actually accessible to all? Join us for an overview of best practices for design and development of digital content accessible to people with disabilities. Workshop will provide an overview of the current laws and guidelines, present some common UI challenges, and show examples on how to successfully incorporate accessibility requirements into every step of the Agile framework. \r\n\r\nJoint presentation by Nirajan Shrestha & Tea Dejanovic, Perficient, Inc.", "room_name": "Nebraska", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Design" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Nirajan Shrestha" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 3302 ], "attendance_count": 53, "created_at": "2019-02-07 16:41:17 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:48 UTC" }, { "id": 718, "participant_id": 1177, "presenter_name": "Lemon 🍋", "presenter_bio": "Working as the lead developer of a downtown agency, Lemon spends a whole lot of time making websites. Like, over a hundred of them. Large sites for clients like General Mills and the Minnesota Wild, and small sites like [damn.dog](https://damn.dog) and [idiots.win](https://idiots.win).\r\n\r\nHe also hosts a podcast called [The F Plus](https://thefpl.us/) which is probably not appropriate for your particular workplace.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/AhoyLemon)\n- Twitter: @AhoyLemon", "session_title": "Shrink The Web: How To Be Happier With Your Website By Removing The Crap", "summary": null, "description": "**Websites have doubled in size every three years**. For reasons both understandable and idiotic, web developers continue to create bigger and more complicated web projects, and now your node folder is mining bitcoin and the average webpage is bigger than the 1993 video game *DOOM*. This is a trend we can change.\r\n\r\n**🐁 Let's shrink the web!**\r\n\r\nIn this high-energy talk, we’re going to be looking at some easy wins for performance improvements like image optimization and javascript concatenation, that can actually make your users’ life better. In addition, we’re going to explore some very friendly process tools for doing all of that without days of editing config files.\r\n\r\nBecause a small website is an easy website, and an easy website means you can go home earlier.\r\n\r\n![Happy Hour](https://media3.giphy.com/media/Zw3oBUuOlDJ3W/giphy.gif?cid=3640f6095c5b656038774e64631d4f5b)\r\n\r\n\r\n", "room_name": "Zeke Landres", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Development", "Design" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 88, "created_at": "2019-02-06 22:55:22 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:35 UTC" }, { "id": 717, "participant_id": 2923, "presenter_name": "Mykl Roventine", "presenter_bio": "Mykl is a web designer and passionate community builder. As owner of [Orange Jackalope Creative] (https://www.orangejackalope.com), he specializes in the design and development of a variety of digital experiences for both local and national organizations. \r\n\r\nIn addition to building engaging websites with WordPress, Mykl is the director of [Social Media Breakfast - Minneapolis/St. Paul] (https://www.smbmsp.org), host of the Social Media Boombox podcast, and co-organizer of the MN Blogger Conference. He speaks frequently on the topics of design, typography, and social media.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/myklroventine)\n- Twitter: @myklroventine", "session_title": "More Than Words: The Power of Type 🔡🔠", "summary": null, "description": "Before the mind reads your message, it has already gathered information based on the visual clues from your type alone. Type is an extremely powerful design element that can literally transform the way people perceive your content. Type influences perceptions, emotions, and feelings of trust in the messages you are sending.\r\n\r\nHarnessing this power goes beyond simply selecting a typeface. It requires an understanding of typographic elements, history,\r\npairing, and application. Websites are just a jumping off point for applying these lessons. By the end of this session, you will be able to use type thoughtfully to communicate more clearly, visually differentiate yourself, and even control the way your message is received.", "room_name": "Florida", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Design" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 51, "created_at": "2019-02-06 16:19:53 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:46 UTC" }, { "id": 716, "participant_id": 2406, "presenter_name": "Adi Turlapati", "presenter_bio": "https://www.linkedin.com/in/aditya-turlapati/\r\n\r\nI’m a developer currently focused on Web Accessibility. I provide solutions for developers and designers to build accessible web pages.", "session_title": "Web Accessibility - Are you doing it right?", "summary": null, "description": "Would like to talk about accessibility for developers and UX.\r\nThis will be intermediate level where I can demo how subtle changes in code or design can have positive impact on people using assistive technology.\r\nI will also share some common tools that can be used in the process.\r\nYou will leave with some important concepts and solutions that will help you design and code accessible web pages.\r\n\r\n", "room_name": "Minnetonka", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Design" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 59, "created_at": "2019-02-02 01:49:28 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:50 UTC" }, { "id": 714, "participant_id": 2909, "presenter_name": "Victoria Schanen", "presenter_bio": "I am a recruiting and human resources professional specializing in startups. I grow, galvanize, and sustain strong companies. Opening doors for people to do their life's best work is my passion. On a volunteer basis, I co-lead a group called the People Operations Professionals of Minnesota, a peer-to-peer advisory group for recruiting and people operations (human resources) leaders working in high growth tech companies. Outside of work and volunteering, I am a comedy improv student, sometimes cyclist, and dance floor denizen.", "session_title": "Build Your Own Peer Advisory Group (it's easier than it sounds!)", "summary": null, "description": "This session is for you if any combination of the following apply:\r\n\r\n - The existing professional groups you've attended discuss topics that simply don't pertain to the challenges you face (10X true if you work at a startup)\r\n - You have found yourself in need of professional advice from someone who \"gets\" your particular challenge(s)\r\n - You could benefit from not having to recreate a proverbial wheel\r\n - You want to learn about better tools, processes, practices, etc. and are happy to share your faves in return\r\n - You can envision a point in time when you may be ready to explore outside opportunities by tapping into a trusted network\r\n - Your organization may someday like to hire a top-notch professional by tapping into a trusted network\r\n - You know at least a couple of professional peers whom you admire and trust (and who are willing to put up with you for an hour a month!)\r\n\r\nCome hear the story of how a few coffee meetings turned into a fully functioning peer advisory group for people operations professionals, the benefits this nascent group provides to its members, how it runs, and how you can build your own group too!\r\n\r\nThis session is being presented by: \r\nHeidi Balley (Director of Human Resources, InboxDollars), Kristin Dean (Vice President of People, Arctic Wolf), Natalia Trent (Chief Talent Officer, RightSource), and Victoria Schanen (Vice President of Talent, Kipsu)", "room_name": "Florida", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 59, "created_at": "2019-01-27 23:03:27 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-27 03:04:13 UTC" }, { "id": 713, "participant_id": 2529, "presenter_name": "Jacqueline Quintanilla", "presenter_bio": "Straightforward, strategic, and *just a bit sassy*, Jacqueline loves to work with the movers, the shakers, and the do-gooders. As a front-end engineer with a can-do attitude, deft googling chops, and a drive to dig deep, she works to build powerful tools, elegant solutions, and a more accessible web. Jacqueline is motivated to make stuff that matters. So, let’s get to work.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/@qjac)\n- Twitter: @@_qjac", "session_title": "Discover CSS Grid", "summary": null, "description": "CSS Grid is here! Finally, we can build flexible, accessible, and dynamic layouts without all of the tricks, hacks, or complicated frameworks. In this session, you’ll get a taste of the potential CSS Grid opens up, learn the basics of this new layout model, and modernize your web layout game. Explore this new world of layout possibilities and get comfortable with CSS Grid.", "room_name": "Louis Pasteur", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Design" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 65, "created_at": "2019-01-24 15:26:42 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:32 UTC" }, { "id": 711, "participant_id": 2906, "presenter_name": "Luke Schlangen", "presenter_bio": "I am a Developer Advocate at Google. I am a co-founder of Code Championship. Most of what I work on involves code and education. I believe learning follows excitement.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/lukeschlangen)\n- Twitter: @lukeschlangen", "session_title": "Competitive Computer Coding - Let's play a game and have some fun!", "summary": null, "description": "Telling a student that coding will help them immensely to find a career as an adult… doesn’t seem to motivate or excite. We invest so much time in making these classes fun, but they are still missing something.\r\n\r\nWe have been running computer classes for elementary to high school students through community education programs like Bloomington, White Bear Lake, Elk River, and 20 other districts. When you see “Computer coding for Kids” in your community education brochure, that’s us. These classes have been really successful, popular, and fun, but sometimes, we still get the question. *“When am I ever going to use this?”*\r\n\r\nDo you know who is never asked that question? A basketball coach. Some kids might not like practice, but they never ask, “When am I ever going to use this?” Because the answer is obvious! You’ll use this at the game on Saturday! You don’t need to know how to shoot a layup for 99.9% of jobs, and yet, a coach never gets this question.\r\n\r\nSo how do we bring that mentality to code? How can we make code more like a sport? We do it by making code competitive. We create the games that make practice worth it. That’s [Code Championship](https://www.codechampionship.com/), our new program for 2019.\r\n\r\nHow do we get kids excited about computer coding? The excitement kids experience while participating in Competitive Coding can be hard to explain, so here is [a video](https://youtu.be/_PMIsEst_hY).\r\n\r\nWe're going to be playing the game during this session, so bring your laptop to write some code and join in the action! You don't need to be a developer to join us!", "room_name": "New York", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 40, "created_at": "2019-01-24 01:41:39 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:48 UTC" }, { "id": 710, "participant_id": 122, "presenter_name": "Colin Lee", "presenter_bio": "Colin is an experienced software engineer specializing in Android development. He worked for Mozilla on the Firefox for Android rewrite. He has worked for many successful companies in the past fifteen years, including Amazon, Flipgrid (acquired by Microsoft), Cray, Pearson VUE, and When I Work. He runs the Twin Cities Kotlin User Group in his spare time. He now works full-time for Meetup and enjoys traveling the world during their generous paid time off.\r\n\r\nHe has been programming since he learned BASIC on the TRS-80 computer in his parents' basement at age six. He has been writing Android apps since soon after the first Android phone launched and has done so professionally since the last space shuttle landed. In that time, he's probably been pitched every silly app idea and been offered a percent stake in the zero dollars most actually earned.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/colintheshots)\n- Twitter: @colinmlee", "session_title": "Architecture for Mere Mortals", "summary": null, "description": "For decades, software architects had been a privileged few. Businesses once encouraged only the best developers to rank up to this elite class, like it was a natural evolution of a developer's D&D character sheet.\r\n\r\nEvery man is the architect of his own fortune, but few developers were the architect of their own software.\r\n\r\nAs time progressed, knowledge of software architecture has been shared more and more. Blogs on the Internet have allowed cross-pollination of ideas. Sharing architecture publicly has allowed small companies to hire better and wield an outsized influence. However, many engineers still keep a poor grasp on why architecture exists, how it works, and what needs it solves.\r\n\r\nI recently embarked on a voyage to define the software architecture of a substantial new Android project at Mozilla and reviewed many competing architectures employed at major tech companies. I evaluated the state of the industry and came up with an option that meets our needs best.\r\n\r\nCome learn what architecture is, why it matters, who is using what solution, and how to apply this knowledge for good.", "room_name": "Harriet", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "Intermediate", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 110, "created_at": "2019-01-20 19:17:58 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:32 UTC" }, { "id": 709, "participant_id": 2904, "presenter_name": "Andrew Miller", "presenter_bio": "With 25+ years of software development experience Andy Miller's expertise is both technical and organizational. Though he started his computing career using TECO macros to translate programs from PL/1 to VAX basic and spent many years messing around with CLOS, he has recovered and today his technical work most often focuses around the JS & JVM platforms.\r\n\r\nAndy received a B.A. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Gustavus and an M.S. in Computer Science from Kent State. He lives in St. Paul, MN and works at Target on their supply chain transformation. His professional interests include mentoring, getting the job done, and avoiding nasty surprises.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/onetribeyoyo)", "session_title": "Engineering (towards) Agile", "summary": null, "description": "What... it's 2019, and not everyone is totally in the agile groovy?\r\nHow can that be?\r\nAre we in the twilight zone?\r\n\r\nLet's review how we got here with a brief history of agile (and a few other meta-process themes) and then we'll take a hard look at why it's still critically important for all of us to use an engineering mindset to lead our teams (and/or peers and products and businesses) towards a more agile-ish way of life.\r\n", "room_name": "Maryland", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Development", "Design", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 37, "created_at": "2019-01-18 18:47:18 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:48 UTC" }, { "id": 708, "participant_id": 2303, "presenter_name": "Jennifer Simon", "presenter_bio": "Jennifer has been in sales for over 25 years, she focuses on partnering with clients to develop and maintain relationships. Jennifer takes care of her clients by listening to business needs, matching the correct consultant/team and continually works on creating deep partner relationships. She also has a passion for technology and continually wants to learn more. Jennifer is on the planning committee for Women Leading in Technology connecting women of all levels on the technology journey.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @@jenniferlsimon", "session_title": "Putting it All Together - Nail the Interview, Get the Job, and Deliver Value", "summary": null, "description": "Jennifer will provide tips to enhance skills in the areas of interviewing for success, securing the job offer, and consistently bringing value to the workforce. Specific topics of presentation will include: •\tHow to sell yourself and be your own advocate •\tNetworking for the benefit of yourself and others •\tInterviewing techniques to help land the job •\tOngoing habits to ensure your continued career success •\tBenefits of traditional fulltime employment vs. consulting", "room_name": "Florida", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 61, "created_at": "2019-01-18 15:14:12 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:27 UTC" }, { "id": 707, "participant_id": 323, "presenter_name": "Jenna Pederson", "presenter_bio": "https://www.jennapederson.com\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/jennapederson)\n- Twitter: @jennapederson", "session_title": "Minnestar Tech Roadmap and Call for Volunteers", "summary": null, "description": "A year ago we revamped our brand and our [core website](https://minnestar.org), leaving behind the [Minnebar sessionizer (this app)](https://sessions.minnestar.org) and our old wiki full of data. Today, we still have some remaining work to fully integrate the Minnebar sessionizer, to finish migrating some data, and to automate some tasks for our one employee, our volunteers, and our community. We'll use this time to talk through what we have on the roadmap, connect with volunteers who would like to lend a hand, and take your ideas on how we could level up our current tech offering.\r\n\r\nNote: This is not an opportunity for you to sell us your product :-)", "room_name": "California", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 14:50:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Design" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 42, "created_at": "2019-01-17 15:06:26 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:39 UTC" }, { "id": 706, "participant_id": 869, "presenter_name": "Zach Robins", "presenter_bio": "I'm a Securities attorney at Messerli & Kramer and co-founder of MNvest.org, promoting the state's investment crowdfunding law. \r\n\r\nhttp://linkedin.com/in/zjrobins\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @zjrobins", "session_title": "Why you need to tokenize your startup!", "summary": null, "description": "Digital assets like Bitcoin were just the tip of the iceberg. Blockchain based distributed ledgers can take the friction out of managing stakeholders and when applied to illiquid assets like private company stock - the benefits are manifold - from easing capital raises to streamlining transfers to onchain voting + dividends to liquidity and more. Learn about how you can tokenize your company!\r\n", "room_name": "Maryland", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "David Duccini" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 1910 ], "attendance_count": 22, "created_at": "2019-01-16 18:15:51 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:27 UTC" }, { "id": 705, "participant_id": 168, "presenter_name": "Damien Riehl", "presenter_bio": "Damien Riehl is a lawyer and technologist with experience in complex litigation, digital forensics, and software development. A coder since 1985 and for the web since 1995, Damien clerked for the chief judges of state and federal courts, practiced in complex litigation for over a decade, has led teams of cybersecurity and world-spanning digital forensics investigations, and has led teams in legal-software development. \r\n\r\nCo-Chair of the Minnesota Governor’s Council on Connected and Automated Vehicles, he is helping recommend changes to Minnesota statutes, rules, and policies — all related to connected and autonomous vehicles. \r\n\r\nDamien is Chair of the Minnesota State Bar Association's working group on AI and the Unauthorized Practice of Law (UPL). \r\n\r\nAt FOLIO, the legal ontology project from the ALEA Institute, Damien helps corporations, their law firms, and legal technology vendors implement legal data standards. For years, Damien led SALI, the legal data standard, where he developed and greatly expanded the taxonomy of over 18,000 legal tags that matter, helping the legal industry's development of Generative AI, analytics, and interoperability. \r\n\r\nAt vLex Group — which includes Fastcase, NextChapter, and Docket Alarm — Damien helps lead the design, development, and expansion of various products, integrating AI-backed technologies (e.g., GPT) to improve legal workflows and to power legal data analytics. \r\n\r\nIn 2019, Damien gave a TEDx Talk about his All the Music project, which to date has computationally composed over 400,000,000,000 (400B) melodies, has written them to disc (fixed in a tangible medium), and has given the public access through Creative Commons Zero (CC0), which provides rights similar to rights to works in the Public Domain. Arguably improving copyright law through legal decisions that appeared to draw upon his TEDx Talk's arguments.\r\n\r\n“This guy [Damien] rocks!” - Elon Musk\r\n\r\nLinkedIn\r\n\r\n**Links:**\r\n\r\n- Twitter: @damienriehl", "session_title": "TOP 10 TECH LAW DEVELOPMENTS", "summary": null, "description": "What are some of the most important technology law developments over the past year? Notable lawsuits and legislation span areas that include privacy, autonomous vehicles, social media, copyright, patents, trademarks, security, licensing, and biometrics. A technology litigator, cybersecurity, and computer forensics lawyer will discuss the evolving tech law landscape, as well as trends that will likely continue to affect technologists in the coming year. Attorney Damien Riehl frequently speaks and writes on legal topics that affect businesses, including the legal implications of the Internet and technology.", "room_name": "Harriet", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Design", "Hardware", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 103, "created_at": "2019-01-15 14:44:43 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:30 UTC" }, { "id": 704, "participant_id": 2295, "presenter_name": "Ryan Weber", "presenter_bio": "Ryan Weber is the Co-Ambassador for [SingularityU Minneapolis-St. Paul Chapter](https://global.su.org/chapters/minneapolis-st-paul) and Managing Partner of [Great North Labs](http://www.greatnorthlabs.com). Previously, Ryan was Co-Founder/Chief Product Officer for NativeX (FKA Freeze and W3i), a digital media company that scaled to 170 employees, and offices in Silicon Valley and Minnesota. \r\n\r\nGreat North Labs invests in technology startups across any industry that are based, or have meaningful operations, in the upper mid-west. We have assembled a team experienced in scaling technology startups across a variety of industries, along with individuals with strong expertise in exponential technologies, so that we can help regional startups achieve greatness!\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @mnvikingsfan", "session_title": "SingularityU Minneapolis-St. Paul Chapter Intro to Exponential Technology & Leadership", "summary": null, "description": "Singularity University is a diverse community focused on solving global problems using exponential technologies. Headquartered at NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley, and founded in 2008, there are currently 126 chapters in 63 countries. We believe that these technologies can create abundance for all communities around the world, and we pursue creating that abundance through leadership, education, and global grand challenges. \r\n\r\nHumans evolved based on a linear way of thinking and so it’s difficult for most to imagine the impact that will come along with each of these technologies. There are currently about 20 exponential technologies have the potential to disrupt our lives as much as the internet and mobile did over the next 20 years. While disruption is certain, the future is up to us, to define how these exponential technologies impact the world. These are a few bold predictions being made by futurists/innovators: \r\n\r\n– A colony will be built on the moon \r\n– 80%+ of the world’s energy consumed will use clean energy \r\n– 95%+ adoption of autonomous, electric vehicles \r\n– The majority of the known 30,000 diseases will be cured \r\n\r\nCo-ambassador of the SingularityU Minneapolis-St.Paul Chapter and a graduate of Singularity University’s Executive Program, Ryan Weber is also a managing partner of St. Cloud-based Great North Labs, an early-stage venture fund and startup school. \r\n\r\nWeber will present key takeaways from the Singularity University Executive Program that forward-thinking entrepreneurs and managers can use to plan for future innovation. He will also update local leaders on how the SingularityU Minneapolis-St.Paul Chapter is working to catalyze the region’s business and technology talent to produce global solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. \r\n\r\nThe topics covered will include: \r\n\r\n1. Intro To Exponentials \r\n2. Inventory Of Exponential Technology \r\n3. Tools For Being An Exponential Leader", "room_name": "Minnetonka", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 10:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Design", "Hardware", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 77, "created_at": "2019-01-15 13:42:41 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:30 UTC" }, { "id": 703, "participant_id": 2292, "presenter_name": "Bryce Howitson", "presenter_bio": "Bryce is obsessed with creating products that people want to use. He helps organizations of all sizes prototype and test their ideas. Sometimes called a designer, a developer, a strategist, a writer, or an artist, Bryce has led teams and worked in the trenches.\r\n\r\nBryce is a Google Developer Expert in UI/UX/Product/Web Technologies and a certified Design Sprint Master.\r\n\r\nHe shares his knowledge by mentoring and teaching from his homeland in the great frozen north of Minnesota.", "session_title": "UX Office Hours (get answers to your biggest UX questions) -- All Day", "summary": null, "description": "**Get feedback on your product/interface/idea from area designers and UX experts.** \r\n\r\nThese are one-on-one review and coaching sessions so bring stuff to show and discuss. In the past, we've fielded questions from prototyping an idea to audience definition to building out a design team. We'll have an area staffed by reviewers all day with sign-ups for various slots as well as an ad-hock whoever's free line.\r\n\r\nWhether you don't have a designer on staff or simply want another set of eyes, we'd love to see your stuff!\r\n\r\n**You Promise:** To bring questions or topics to get us started. Here are a few tips for \"[winning a critique](https://blog.prototypr.io/5-steps-to-win-a-critique-a982c8828828)\".\r\n\r\n**We Promise:** Candid, unbiased and confidential feedback following the \"rules of critique\" to help you level up. \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n**Rules of critique**\r\n\r\n1. Only the artifact is subject to critique, not the creator. Remember it's not personal.\r\n2. Seek to first understand the problem before offering suggestions\r\n3. Practice empathy - Think like the audience NOT like a maker.\r\n4. Be objective and provide suggestions that may be tested. Avoid statements of personal \"like\" or \"dislike\"\r\n5. Offer suggestions for improvement, don't dictate solutions.\r\n6. Listen, recognize achievement, then offer critique (In that order)\r\n7. Be Nice\r\n8. Have fun\r\n\r\n", "room_name": null, "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:20:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other", "Design", "Startups", "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Andrea Edstrom", "Michael Arney", "Jason Spidle", "Shashi Lo", "Anthony Molzahn", "Nick Wellner", "Leana Stone", "Tom deBruyn", "Nils Hansen", "Rima Reda", "Melissa Lahn", "Leslie Mollner" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 2900, 2488, 1859, 380, 2480, 2932, 3190, 2979, 3225, 3166, 3197, 3185 ], "attendance_count": 43, "created_at": "2019-01-14 17:06:50 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-25 20:18:16 UTC" }, { "id": 702, "participant_id": 695, "presenter_name": "Jeff Pesek", "presenter_bio": "Co founder at [TECHdotMN](http://tech.mn)", "session_title": "The State of Minnesota Tech - 2019", "summary": null, "description": "Another year, another Minnebar, another fresh set of facts and discussions around what's happening in Minnesota Tech. \r\n\r\n\r\n ", "room_name": "Harriet", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 165, "created_at": "2019-01-12 17:33:42 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:33 UTC" }, { "id": 699, "participant_id": 2308, "presenter_name": "Joe Karlsson", "presenter_bio": "Joe Karlsson (He/They) is a Software Engineer turned Developer Advocate. He empowers developers to think creatively when building web applications through demos, blogs, videos, or whatever else developers need.\r\n\r\nJoe's career has taken him from building out database best practices and demos for MongoDB, architecting and building one of the largest eCommerce websites in North America at Best Buy, and teaching at one of the most highly-rated software development boot camps on Earth. Joe is also a TEDx Speaker, film buff, and avid [TikToker](https://www.tiktok.com/@joekarlsson) and [Tweeter](https://twitter.com/JoeKarlsson1).\r\n\r\n- My Website - [https://www.joekarlsson.com](https://www.joekarlsson.com/)\r\n- Weekly Newsletter - [https://joekarlsson.substack.com](https://joekarlsson.substack.com/)\r\n- Twitter - [https://twitter.com/JoeKarlsson1](https://twitter.com/JoeKarlsson1)\r\n- TikTok - [https://www.tiktok.com/@joekarlsson](https://www.tiktok.com/@joekarlsson)\r\n- LinkedIn - [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joekarlsson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/joekarlsson/)\r\n- YouTube - [https://www.youtube.com/c/JoeKarlsson](https://www.youtube.com/c/JoeKarlsson)\r\n- Mastodon - [https://hachyderm.io/@JoeKarlsson](https://hachyderm.io/@JoeKarlsson)\r\n- GitHub - [https://github.com/JoeKarlsson](https://github.com/JoeKarlsson)\r\n- Twitch - [https://www.twitch.tv/joe_karlsson](https://www.twitch.tv/joe_karlsson)\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/joekarlsson)\n- Twitter: @joekarlsson1", "session_title": "JS and Parallel Processing(!?)", "summary": null, "description": "For a long time, JavaScript was missing any kind of processing threads. While the single-threaded model added to developer comfort, it also made the platform unable to do serious and time-consuming calculations, and the only way to circumvent it was to do it on a remote server.\r\n\r\nLuckily, with the introduction and widespread adoption of Web Workers, we can now do resource-intensive calculations on background threads. A Web Worker allows you to run JavaScript in the background, without affecting the performance of the page. Even if you are running really resource intense code in the browser, you can continue to do whatever you want: clicking, selecting things, etc., while the Web Worker runs in the background.\r\n\r\nIn this talk, we will explore:\r\n\r\n* Web Workers, how and when you can use them, and their peculiarities.\r\n* Polyfilling for naughty browsers\r\n* Future: WebGL, Canvas2D, and other marvels browser vendors are cooking up.", "room_name": "Florida", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 45, "created_at": "2019-01-07 21:13:48 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:51 UTC" }, { "id": 698, "participant_id": 1270, "presenter_name": "Daniel Feldman", "presenter_bio": "I'm a software engineer working on open source network security stuff. Follow me @dfeldman.org on BlueSky.\r\n\r\n**Links:**\r\n\r\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/dfeldman)\r\n", "session_title": "💰💵📈Personal finance for programmers", "summary": null, "description": "What will be covered:\r\n\r\n**What is special about programmers (from a financial perspective)**\r\n\r\n **Basic accounting**\r\n\r\n * Double entry bookkeeping\r\n * Assets and liabilities\r\n * Cash flow vs balance sheet\r\n * Depreciation\r\n * Calculating present value of future income & expenses\r\n * Taxes \r\n * Opportunity cost\r\n\r\n**Basic finance**\r\n\r\n * Volatility & risk aversion\r\n * Economic factors:\r\n - Inflation\r\n - Interest rates (real vs nominal)\r\n * Bonds & debt\r\n * Stocks\r\n - Dividends and buybacks\r\n - PE ratio\r\n * Other kinds of investment\r\n - Cash & CDs\r\n - Index funds\r\n - Bond funds\r\n - Real estate\r\n - Employee incentives\r\n * Leveraged investments\r\n * Efficient market hypothesis\r\n * Long term investment results\r\n - CAGR\r\n - CAPE ratio & business cycle\r\n - Real estate\r\n * Efficient frontier/CAPM\r\n\r\n**Applications to making decisions**\r\n\r\n * Evaluating job offers\r\n * How much college education to buy\r\n * When to have kids\r\n * Can I afford a Tesla\r\n * FIRE (does it make sense?)\r\n * Learning & using technical skills\r\n\r\n**What will NOT be covered:**\r\n\r\n * Any kind of life guru/Dave Ramsish stuff\r\n * Difficult life situations (that are usually specific to one person)\r\n * Anything political\r\n * Any specific tips on how to make more money or spend less money\r\n * Cryptocurrency \r\n\r\n**Inspired by:**\r\n\r\nMoneychimp.com (which is great) http://moneychimp.com\r\n\r\nStanford's Personal Finance for Engineers class https://cs007.blog\r\n\r\nThe blog Philosophical Economics http://www.philosophicaleconomics.com/\r\n\r\n^ Check these out if you can't make it to the talk", "room_name": "Proverb-Edison", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 73, "created_at": "2019-01-07 17:12:24 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:53 UTC" }, { "id": 697, "participant_id": 1270, "presenter_name": "Daniel Feldman", "presenter_bio": "I'm a software engineer working on open source network security stuff. Follow me @dfeldman.org on BlueSky.\r\n\r\n**Links:**\r\n\r\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/dfeldman)\r\n", "session_title": "⚡⚡⚡⚡Lightning talks ⚡⚡⚡⚡", "summary": null, "description": "The amazing, incredible, annual Minnebar lightning talks session!!!\r\n\r\nAnyone can talk. Shorter talks go first, so that if we run out of time, longer talks will get cut off. Most talks are 2-5 minutes.\r\n\r\n(In the past, we've had plenty of time for everyone.)\r\n\r\nYou don't need to prep. But if you have any questions please email me at dfeldman.mn@gmail.com.", "room_name": "Harriet", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Design", "Hardware", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 102, "created_at": "2019-01-07 17:07:58 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:35 UTC" }, { "id": 696, "participant_id": 2611, "presenter_name": "Joshua Sheppard", "presenter_bio": "Josh is an enthusiastic software engineering manager with over 15 years working on web applications of different flavors. He cut his teeth on regular expressions in Perl for a meta search engine and had the misfortune of porting those to Java in 2001. Lately he's happy to be building a data science team, writing Python, and exploring the benefits and challenges of container orchestration with Kubernetes.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/joshuasheppard)\n- Twitter: @joshualsheppard", "session_title": "Kubernetes: A Cautionary Tale", "summary": null, "description": "The gap between Minikube and Kubernetes in production is vast and full of pain. Want to know what it's like to implement Kubernetes in production for the first time before you collect the bumps and bruises yourself? Join me to learn about the ups and downs of one company's initial experience - including who was involved, the scope, and what was intentionally deferred.\r\n\r\nWe will cover:\r\n\r\n* Why even consider Kubernetes (Hint: you might not benefit from it!)\r\n* How a real company approached their first proof-of-concept\r\n* How goals changed during implementation of k8s\r\n* What we learned so far\r\n* What we still need to learn", "room_name": "Minnetonka", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:25:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 96, "created_at": "2019-01-06 19:49:29 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:28 UTC" }, { "id": 695, "participant_id": 2094, "presenter_name": "Eric Tsai", "presenter_bio": "I make things talk to stuff. Wirelessly. From far far away.\r\n\r\nI'm interested in wireless technologies (Bluetooth, LoRa, WiFi, cellular), low power connected device design, and open source tools and platforms that make IoT easier.\r\n\r\nhttp://twitter.com/eric_1100\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/TsaiTsai)\n- Twitter: @Eric_1100", "session_title": "You Make Connected Gadgets", "summary": null, "description": "Yes, **you**! You can build connected gadgets to solve life's minor challenges.\r\n\r\nThe stack of skills needed to make end-to-end IoT projects is very broad: wireless protocols, hardware, embedded firmware, mobile apps, databases, data analytics. Let's talk about tools and platforms to manage that complexity and make each piece of the IoT stack easier and more accessible. This will be a technical talk with real demos. We'll walk through the architecture and mechanics of making low power wireless sensors to solve practical problems. From simple sensors that monitor doors/windows to geolocating your dog inside the house.\r\n\r\nCome with ideas for problems that you want solved. Make the IoT you wish to see in the world.\r\n\r\n\r\nTopics:\r\nWiFi, Bluetooth, LoRa, MQTT, Raspberry Pi, Arduino, mBED, ESP8266/32, Nordic, NodeRED, InfluxDB, Grafana, OpenHAB, Home Assistant\r\n", "room_name": "Tackle", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Hardware", "Development", "Other", "Design" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 71, "created_at": "2019-01-03 17:14:54 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:49 UTC" }, { "id": 694, "participant_id": 2891, "presenter_name": "Peter Leppik", "presenter_bio": "Peter Leppik is an experienced entrepreneur with a passion for using data-driven methodologies and a scientific approach to solving business problems.\r\n\r\nPeter founded Vocal Laboratories Inc., in 2001, focused on building effective customer feedback programs for Vocalabs clients. While at Vocalabs, he has established himself as a thought leader in the field, including developing the principles of Agile Customer Feedback.\r\n\r\nPeter is also active in the community, serving on several nonprofit boards related to science and technology education.", "session_title": "What It's Like to Shut Down", "summary": null, "description": "17 years after founding a startup that didn't quite set the world on fire, last fall I made the decision to shut down my company.\r\n\r\nThe experience held surprises, both good and bad, and I'll share them in this session along with my views on corporate end-of-life planning, serving customers in a bad situation, the role of venture capital, and when to think about starting the next venture.\r\n\r\nThis is the unsexy side of being a founder, and the things you want to know before you launch your first business.", "room_name": "Georgia", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:00:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 43, "created_at": "2018-12-28 21:24:52 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:36 UTC" }, { "id": 693, "participant_id": 2602, "presenter_name": "Austin Kettelhut", "presenter_bio": "\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @AustinKettelhut", "session_title": "Low-cost validation: what we've learned from helping 100+ startups.", "summary": "", "description": "If you're serious about your startup idea, it's critical to prove it's viable before spending the big bucks to develop it. During this informal session, we'll dive into the mindset of investors and share scrappy validation tips + examples from our experience working with early-stage founders.", "room_name": "Harriet", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Design", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [ "Joseph Schlichting", "Matt Geiser", "Richard Anderson", "Todd Churchill" ], "other_presenter_ids": [ 2890, 1962, 3110, 3247 ], "attendance_count": 120, "created_at": "2018-12-26 20:17:18 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-27 05:47:24 UTC" }, { "id": 692, "participant_id": 2889, "presenter_name": "Erica Prairie", "presenter_bio": "Erica is passionate about growing a growth mindset in herself and others and believes that everyone can get better at what they do with the right practice and focus. This belief has lead Erica to help bring a learning culture to life for engineers at Target where she has worked in Technology Learning & Development for Target for almost five years. During Erica's time supporting engineers she has helped the technology org moved from waterfall project management to agile product management, transformed technology team member onboarding and served as product owner for an innersource learning and development bot.\n\n**Links:**\n\n- [GitHub](https://github.com/eprairie)\n- Twitter: @EricaPrairie", "session_title": "Better Every Day - Growing a Learning Culture at Target", "summary": null, "description": "Over the past three years, Tech at Target has shifted from an outsourced, waterfall model to an in-house Product model leveraging Agile and DevOps practices on teams across Minneapolis, Bangalore and Sunnyvale.  As part of this shift, Target rolled out the \"Better Every Day\" learning culture campaign.\r\n\r\nBetter Every Day encourages tech talent to continuously learn, drive innovation and share their knowledge across the org. Since 2015, Tech at Target has achieved a nearly 20-percentage point increase in learning culture satisfaction on Target's annual team member survey and regularly get feedback like, “Working in a true learning culture has been an unbelievable experience, in addition to the growth it has provided for my career.”", "room_name": "Bde Maka Ska", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 15:45:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 78, "created_at": "2018-12-24 15:37:31 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:41 UTC" }, { "id": 691, "participant_id": 2885, "presenter_name": "Darrin Levine", "presenter_bio": "In 2015-- I Founded the concept of what is now called, ASDAL. Here at ASDAL, Through the use of subscription-based software, we provide a robust Infrastructure with automation and reporting that allows brands to streamline management on Amazon & Walmart stress-free. Our Software will be open for public use August, 1st, 2019. \r\n\r\nAs a marketplace expert, I have successfully managed and launched small and large company accounts. I have brought in nearly 5.4 million for a 7-month project and 600K for a 4-month project, etc.. Between 2017 & 2018, and with the use of our software, my company ASDAL was responsible for 9 Million in managed revenue sales.\r\n\r\nIn 2018 & 2019 ASDAL was selected as one of the top 300 early-stage\r\nStartups to present at Startups Grind Global Conference powered by Google for entrepreneurs. In 2018, the national blacks in tech 'BITcon' selected ASDAL as one of the top 3 pitch contestants\r\nentering 2019. In 2019, ASDAL has been invited to exhibit at Collisions Global tech conference. \r\n\r\nFollow our startup traction: https://www.f6s.com/asdal - Review our videos, recommendation, discussion, updates, etc\r\n\r\nAritlce: https://lnkd.in/gbziG9V How This Young African-American Entrepreneur went from Throwing Baseballs to Betting Big on The future of retail \r\n\r\nAritlce: http://jjhill.org/sellers-daily-amazon-life/ - How this Entrepreneur became one of Minnesota's own original thinkers\r\n\r\nTwitter/Insta @darrinstag\n\n**Links:**\n\n- Twitter: @darrinstag", "session_title": "The building blocks - why organizational structure sucks but wins", "summary": null, "description": "Every startup has those \"gut check\" and \"oh no\" moments. During this session, we are going to explore the fundamental steps that every founder and/or startup needs to determine in order to effectively build organizational structure. Additionally, we are going to discuss why and how startups and founders can win investments with a healthy organizational structure. ", "room_name": "Nevada", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 09:25:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Other", "Startups" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 33, "created_at": "2018-12-12 03:03:17 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:28 UTC" }, { "id": 690, "participant_id": 2884, "presenter_name": "Rebecca McCann", "presenter_bio": "", "session_title": "A brief oral history of JavaScript", "summary": null, "description": "New to front-end development? Working on a side hustle and have the back end all done and need to figure out the front end, but confused about all the jargon? Are you a new web developer, and not sure if what you're doing counts as working on JavaScript or not (it doesn't look some other JavaScript)? This is a talk for you. \r\n\r\nI've done web development on and off since the late 90s, and have been following the trends and the pain points. Expect this to be a talk on what was before, what currently is, and what's coming up next. ", "room_name": "Tackle", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 11:15:00 -0500", "level_name": "Beginner", "categories": [ "Development" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 61, "created_at": "2018-12-11 17:51:14 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:47 UTC" }, { "id": 689, "participant_id": 1801, "presenter_name": "Adeel Ahmad", "presenter_bio": "Founder/Principal at [Lab 1908](https://lab1908.com), a startup studio in St. Paul. \r\n\r\nInvestor/advisor at a bunch of startups around Twin Cities and San Francisco. \r\n\r\n\r\n**Links:**\r\n\r\n- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/adeelahmad/)\r\n- [The Misophonia Podcast](https://misophoniapodcast.com)", "session_title": "👩🏽‍💻🚀 Side Projects for Fun and Profit - 2019 Edition", "summary": null, "description": "This is the third year doing this talk and will be packed with new tips, project hacks, anecdotes and #realtalk to inspire you to start (and finish) that project.\r\n\r\nThis talk is always fast-paced, fun and informative...\r\n\r\nI'll go over things like:\r\n\r\nWhy do a side project?\r\n\r\nWhat if I don't have the coding skills?\r\n\r\nHow can I learn what I need to code?\r\n\r\nHow should an experienced coder approach side projects?\r\n\r\nWhat if I don't have the money?\r\n\r\nHow do I get users?\r\n\r\nHow do I validate it?\r\n\r\nHow much time will this take?\r\n\r\nWhat about XYZ myth that says I can't do this?\r\n\r\nWhat about XYZ reason to keep procrastinating?\r\n\r\nI'll also go over my own progress on projects since last Minnebar.", "room_name": "Theater", "panel": false, "projector": false, "starts_at": "2019-04-27 13:55:00 -0500", "level_name": "All levels", "categories": [ "Development", "Other", "Startups", "Design", "Hardware" ], "other_presenter_names": [], "other_presenter_ids": [], "attendance_count": 214, "created_at": "2018-12-10 20:49:26 UTC", "updated_at": "2019-04-26 21:37:32 UTC" } ]