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Live from the PopTech Tour

Amy Benziger October 20, 2010

Following SOCAP, I hopped on a plane for an East Coast adventure to see what the other side of the states is talking about. I went to the Feast in New York City and am now starting my first PopTech tour. With SOCAP branching out to Amsterdam and DC as well as the development of the HubCap seed stage fund, we are exploring how to partner and/or create pipelines from the various accelerators and incubators in our field. After a beautiful drive filled with the Fall leaves of New England, I arrived in Camden, Maine. Last night, I went to the PopTech fellows dinner where the fellows officially “graduate” from the previous four day intensive program where mentors are flown in from around the world to help bring their ideas to scale. At my table, I was surrounded by a MacArthur Genius, a National Geographic Explorer and a science fellow looking at how to use mathematics to predict patterns in war. I sat next to Yasser Ansari of Project Noah, an initiative i’m fascinated by. He is harnessing the power of citizen scientists to use their mobile devices for spotting and identifying local wildlife as well as contributing to ongoing scientific research. The official conference kicked off today with attendees divided into special daytime sessions. I set sail with about fifty fellow attendees into the Camden harbor on an 80 ft schooner with David de Rothschild, creator of the Plastiki and founder of Myoo.com, the platform on which we ran our SOCAP challenge. As we sailed, David, along with Graham Hill, founder of Treehugger.com and crew member of the Plastiki, shared stories from their journey. I have been blown away by the breadth of people who come to this conference and the different stories they bring. Judging from the past 48 hrs, it’s going to be an amazing ride.
Reporting From PopTech
-Amy Benziger, SOCAP Producer

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