On Dec. 9, The Atlanticand the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation hosted a special “Pop-up Pitch Session” before a full audience at the Light Box in Miami’s Wynwood Arts District. The event featured eight entrepreneurs in a lightning round of four-minute “mini-pitches” followed by three minutes of questions from a panel of expert judges. Urban affairs expert and co-founder of The Atlantic Cities’ Richard Florida gave introductory remarks on the rise of urban technology hubs and then moderated a brief panel with judges Robb Hilson of Bank of America, Andres Moreno of Open English, and Steve Repetti of CrunchFire Technologies. The line-up of entrepreneurs ranged from Brian Brackeen, who is well known in the local startup community as the founder of facial recognition software Kairos, to newcomer Natalia Rodriguez who presented the instant coffee venture Jiva Cubes in her very first live public appearance. Also on stage throughout the evening were entrepreneurs Amanda Anthony of FlyInStyle, Vicente Fernandez of Sportsmanias, Eli Mohamad of Walkmore, Michael McCord of LearnerNation, Antonio Otalvaro of Raw Shorts, and Nestor Villalobos of Elebev.
The winning entrepreneur was Michael McCord, Founder and Executive Director of LearnerNation, a startup dedicated to developing meaningful content for training and educational programs through a unique cloud-based software. After careful deliberation, the judges made the announcement at a networking reception that followed the pitch session. As his reward for earning the top spot at the pitch session, McCord will present at Startup City: Miami, a day-long event that will return to Miami on February 6th, 2014. A joint venture between The Atlanticand The Knight Foundation, Startup City: Miami 2.0 will build on the success of last year’s program which drew an audience of more 1,000 and featured top-notch speakers including Steve Case and Tony Hsieh.
Recap by Natalie Raabe, communications driector of The Atlantic
View video of Start-Up City: Miami Pitch Sessionfrom TheKnight Foundation**.
Posted: Dec. 13, 2013