Last weekend, TechRaising — a local group that promotes technological collaboration and innovation — held a three-day symposium where community members gathered to “share ideas and build them,” according to TechRaising’s website. This is the first event the two-year-old group has held.
On Friday night, 35 pitches were made, which were later narrowed down to eight demos with multiple members, including UCSC students. These demos formed teams to meet their objective: to create a portion of a larger idea by the end of the weekend and present it to colleagues at the symposium on Sunday.
“We were overwhelmed,” said Margaret Rosas, a member of TechRaising’s founding group. “[The event] exceeded our expectations.”
The teams had help from expert entrepreneurs who provided consultation on startup law, user experience, management, publicity and several other subject areas, according to the website. Then on Sunday, all the teams regrouped and presented their innovations.
Rosas said she spoke with many people at the event about expanding further on the student population from UCSC’s relationship with mentors in the Santa Cruz area.
“That’s definitely what we want to see more of in the future,” Rosas said. “There were students who were able to take advantage of our mentors and that’s the kind of thing that we want to promote and encourage.”
The eight pitches presented on Sunday included a “client and website project management tool” called “All Together Now,” an “augmented reality shooting game” called “blam — Boys Like Augmented Mayhem,” and a “clothing brand sizing app for Facebook” called “Sizemyc.”
Rosas said she was pleasantly surprised with the success of the event.
