SF New Tech

Mark ‘em down!

SF New Tech will commence on the following evenings …

4/11 – What’s the 411? with Storify, Planwise, PointBurst, AskOwls, Placeme, Mingly, inbenta, Vidcaster, and more
4/25 – Japan Night IV
5/9 – Details Coming Soon!  – Apply to demo!
5/23 – Details Coming Soon! – Apply to demo!
6/6 – Best of the French Tech Tour!
6/20 – Details Coming Soon! – Apply to demo!
7/11 - Details Coming Soon – Apply to demo!
7/25 - Details Coming Soon – Apply to demo!

Of course, we’ll be showcasing new tech from great entrepreneurs at all these events and may even announce a theme or two along the way.

Stay tuned!

Wow!  What a party!

We rolled the dice at our big Casino Royale holiday party at Sandbox Suites in December, where over 300 of y’all joined the fun over blackjack, roulette, and craps to not only have a ton of fun and to win some cool prizes — but to try to make the world a little bit better for those less fortunate.

* Train one woman as a community health worker in Afghanistan, who will assist 9,000 women annually, in turn, saving thousands of women who would have lost their lives or the lives of their babies during pregnancy and delivery (via Creating Hope International).

* Help provide a health worker with enough needles and syringes to provide over 1,000 vaccinations to children in clinics in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia (via Merlin’s emergency response in East Africa).

* Purchase a water treatment system for 2 families in earthquake and Cholera ravaged Haiti (via Haiti Hospital Appeal).

* Pay for books and a uniform for 1 war-torn and impoverished South Sudanese child for 1 year (via Omdurman Family Project).

* Support to civil society movements in Egypt, and protect citizen media and other independent news sources, as well as circumvent internet censorship in Egypt, Syria, and Iran by helping Access keep its servers  running on the Tor Network (via Access).

* Conserve 5 acres of the Tanzanian rainforest (about the size of 4 football fields) for one year (via Tanzania Forest Conservation Group).

We also donated food to families in need via the Marin Food Bank, and provided a box of toys for less fortunate children of Northern California.

Woot!

A big shout-out to our sponsors who helped us pull it off :   Thanks to Mediastay and OPOWER for all your support!

Our friends at Rockwall Wines invite you to use the special code “SFNEWTECH” for 15% off your next order and to enjoy free shipping.   You’re also encouraged to check out the awesome selection of wines at Cellar360 for a wonderful selection.   And, the next time you belly up to your favorite bar, please patronize Asahi Beer & Blue Angel Vodka, and your thirst will be quenched and your mood lifted!

Thanks for a great 2011!

We’re really looking forward to seeing you all in 2012!

Bring On The APIs is SOLD OUT.

If you must be there (& we don’t blame you) tix avail at door 5:45pm for $30.

We are pleased to announce our partnership with Udemy.

We wanted to thank you for being our fan by providing you more ways to learn and hone in your awesome skills! Udemy is offering two really sweet deals, just for SF New Tech fans.Check them out!

(Please click on the links below to see each course special)

Deal 1:

Dave McClure, Adeo Ressi, and Naval Ravikant – teaching you how to Raise Capital for your Startup. These guys are investors in Twitter, Foursquare, Mint, SlideShare (list goes on… way on), and they’ve run dozens of companies themselves (i.e. they know both sides of the table).

The problem is, you can’t learn from folks like this unless you know them. Luckily, problem solved because the guys at Udemy have put together a killer online course called  “Raising Capital for Startups. The course features Dave, Adeo, Naval (and more), and this week they’re hooking us up with 60% off (making it $39… retail price $99). Grab it while it’s hot.

Deal 2:

iPhone, iPad, iOS. It’s getting a little crazy out there with 187 million iDevices, more than 300,000 apps, and dozens making over $1,000,000 in revenue. That’s why I’m very excited to announce a deal from the guys at Udemy on their online course “Learn to Develop iPhone & iPad Apps in 4 Weeks.”

The course is taught by Bess Ho, who is quickly becoming something of a silicon valley legend given her ability to take business folks (with zero programming skills) and have them build real functional apps in less than 6 hours. She teaches at places like Hacker Dojo, but if you can’t make it to a class she’s put together an awesome version of her course online at Udemy.com. It retails at $250, but the Udemy guys are hooking it up with 60% off making it $99 for this week only. Enjoy!

Hey all! Well, tonight’s event is all sold out and Mighty is expecting to be rockin’ tonight.   To capture all the action on-line on USTREAM,  you can watch us on http://sfnewtech.com/live/.  If you feel like interacting with us, use the #socialdata hashtag and/or login to USTREAM.  See you there or on-line!

Do you have any burning questions about social data? We may be able to help! Go ahead and tweet them with the #socialdata tag and we’ll try to answer them LIVE at our Social Data Revolution on 2/23.

Robert Scoble joins the SF New Tech advisory board!

If you were at our last event you already know this. Scoble, aka @Scobleizer, one the most respected voices and opinion leaders in the tech world (and a big fan of SF New Tech for years!), joined us via Skype last week to say hello and share some insight on how startups can make 2011 a year that matters. We’re thrilled to announce Scoble has agreed to lend some of his brain to help us make SF New Tech even better. Welcome to the family Scobelizer! Hope to see you when you’re in town!

SF New Tech is proud to have helped 47 Haitian orphans secure a new, safe home.

Say hello! [PICS] Read more…

After reading about the amazing Emma Taylor, co-founder of the European Disaster Volunteers in FastCompany today, we were smitten.

Emma’s tireless work to bring some semblance of normalcy to dozens of orphaned children in earthquake-ravaged Haiti –by providing them safety and security, as well as education and support– is so incredibly inspiring, we decided we’d donate the entire $2000 in cash (plus a few hundred more) we raised at our Big Summer Social Event at Stonebrook Court to help her reach her goal to fund the creation of a brand new orphanage and school for these poor kids who’ve lost everything. (We didn’t include this donation in our email yesterday because we were still uncertain how we were going to distribute these funds and deadlines were looming …)

We’re always thrilled to meet people who seek to change the world by helping those who are less fortunate than others. You can read more about EDV’s efforts here.

Although Emma is stationed down in Port Au Prince –with her sleeves rolled up and her infectious smile– she and her team at EDV have an open invitation to share their experiences with our community anytime they’re available. I know we can all learn something from their perseverance in the face of challenge.

We’re thrilled to report our donation will not only help EDV meet their fund-raising goal, it will help put 8 kids through school for a year!

Thank you Emma! And thank you to the SF New Tech Community!

If you came out to party with us last week at our Holiday Bash @ Twilio (photos: http://on.fb.me/ecDnVN), then you already know how excited we are about our “little” tech community here. Thanks for coming out, it was a blast!

On top of all the fun, we collected a big box of food for those less fortunate here in the Bay Area and are helping to improve (and save!) the lives of hundreds more around the world.

Thanks to those who purchased tickets to our Holiday Bash, we are proud to announce the SF New Tech community is …

- Saving the life of a newborn by providing an Embrace Infant Warmer, an innovative low-cost warmer designed to provide thermal support to preterm newborns, in India this winter. (Via Embrace – http://www.embraceglobal.org)

- Providing a complete 2 month treatment of the revolutionary, nutrient-rich Plumpy’nut® food to 1 child in Niger who is suffering from the worst form of malnutrition. (Via Edesia – http://www.edesiaglobal.org)

- Paying for supplies for job training and support (stationary, books, training curriculum and pens) for one young woman who has been exposed to the foster care and the juvenile justice system in San Francisco. (Via Spark, http://www.sparksf.org/)

- Buying a Guatemalan family a goat to help and improve their children’s potential in life. (Via Save The Children – http://www.savethechildren.org)

- Providing 2 Rocket stoves plus hands-on training to 2 Haitian women who’s families were displaced by the devastating 7.1 earthquake so they may cook their family’s food safely. (Via Trees, Water & People – http://www.treeswaterpeople.org)

- Providing a loan for 1 impoverished woman in rural East Africa to start a business to help support her family. (Via Women’s Microfinance Initiative – http://wmionline.org)

- Purchasing 2,000 water purification tablets to treat 10,000 liters of water for at-risk communities in need of clean water. (Via UNICEF Tap Project – http://tapproject.org/)

- Providing 3 emergency clean birthing kits, including a bar of soap, clear plastic sheet, razor blade, an umbilical cord tie, cloth and latex gloves to help deliver safe babies in crisis situations and locales. (Via UNFPA – http://www.americansforunfpa.org)

- Helping to fight & end child sex slavery in the U.S by helping 3 Generations redesign & enhance their current website to fully utilize the latest social media tools & broaden their reach. (Via 3 Generations – http://www.3generations.org)

We’d like to offer up a BIG THANKS to our sponsors of the SF New Tech Holiday Bash who helped us pull it off:

- Alcatel-Lucent, and their world-class Open API team who love developers and welcome them with arms wide open (http://bit.ly/hRFSkn);
- Bullivant Houser Bailey, the preeminent west coast law firm representing technology companies large and small (http://bit.ly/EMyev);
- CALInnovates.org, giving a voice to technology companies by building a bridge from Sacramento to the Valley to DC — and back again (http://bit.ly/8drgH7);
- btrax, experts in UI Design, User Experience Consulting, Social Media, Branding and Identity, and helping companies become “Big in Japan” (http://bit.ly/bGKq32);
- Mylermedia, experts in getting you to read these SF New Tech emails, among other things (http://bit.ly/D2Fib);
- Twilio, who are changing the world with their web-service API for businesses to build scalable, reliable communication apps (http://bit.ly/fx5Ukx).

I’d also like to offer up an additional hug to Twilio for graciously hosting our bash at their awesome HQ. If you already know Twilio and have built (or are planning on building) something with their API for your startup, then buckle down and apply NOW before the 1/1 deadline to be considered for the Twilio Fund, a $250,000 seed fund by Dave McClure at 500 Startups (see http://www.twiliofund.com). It’s not too late!

If you didn’t make it out for the party, that’s OK! We hope to see you soon … we can’t wait for 2011 – it’s going to be a great year!

Our next event is scheduled for January 19th. (Apply to Demo @ http://www.sfnewtech.com/demo)

Cheers!

Myles, Matthew, Shiva & The whole SF New Tech Team