Los Alamos National Laboratory DisrupTECH
Tech On Tap Thursday April 28th with Steve McKee on SaaS and Passare
About Passare
Passare is an innovative, Cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that helps funeral service professionals connect and collaborate with families anytime, anywhere, from any connected device. The company was founded in 2012 to meet the changing needs and preferences of today’s funeral consumers. Passare offers funeral homes increased efficiency and accuracy while enhancing the customer’s buying experience. Through the cloud-based funeral arrangement platform, families are able to collaborate with one another and their funeral director. By mid-2015, Passare transitioned from a tech start-up into a fully operational company, growing its customer base by over 300% in six months. Passare is redefining and reinvigorating one of the last industries to be transformed by the digital revolution.
Steve McKee, Co-Founder of Passare
In addition to being the co-founder and member of the board of directors of Passare, Steve is president of McKee Wallwork + Company (MWC), Advertising Age’s2015 Southwest Small Agency of the Year and the firm out of which Passare emerged. He is the author of When Growth Stalls: How it Happens, Why You’re Stuck and What To Do About It, and Power Branding: Leveraging the Success of the World’s Best Brands. His firm specializes in revitalizing stalled, stuck and stale brands across the U.S. and made the Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America its first year of eligibility. A marketing strategist for nearly thirty years, Steve has held executive positions at several notable international agencies. He was a popular Businessweek.com columnist for more than a decade and currently writes a monthly column for SmartBrief on Leadership. He has been published or quoted in The New York Times, USA Today, Forbes.com, Investor’s Business Daily, the Los Angeles Times and is a frequent contributor to Albuquerque Business First. A popular speaker at corporate and association events, he has appeared on CNBC, ESPN2, CNNfn, Bloomberg, and network television affiliates across America.
Brain Hackers Neuro Expo at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History
NeuroExpoABQ is a festival celebrating the brain, its many curiosities and the emerging, readily accessible technologies for studying the brain. NeuroExpoABQ brings together the next generation of scientists, engineers and innovators to share their interests.
NeuroExpoABQ emphasizes the work of middle and high school-aged youth, yet welcomes college students, professionals and hobbyists who are actively exploring brain science and related neurotechnologies. Exhibits will cover a range topics which includes:
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Virtual reality and augmented reality visualization of the brain
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Brain-controlled robots, games and devices
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Neural- and biologically-inspired robotics and computing
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Measurement of brain and related physiological processes
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Innovative human-computer interfaces
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Demonstrations of brain and behavioral phenomenon
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Brain-inspired art and film
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Brain science-based analysis of popular culture
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Practical applications of brain science and neurotechnologies
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Innovations in teaching brain sciecne
There is no cost to exhibit. To register an exhibit, visit the event website.
Student Research Day at the University of New Mexico
Student Research Day will be held on April 16th at the University of New Mexico Student Union Building.
Student Research Day is a student run and organized event oriented towards providing a rare opportunity for our graduate students to present their innovative work to the general public. This is an opportunity for students to interact with the local community to create lasting connections and collaborations. There will be a scientific conference style 15 minute presentation and poster session, and more entrepreneurially focused five minute talks.
Gary Oppedahl, serial entrepreneur and Director of Albuquerque’s Economic Development Department, will give a keynote speech at 1 PM, as well as several local scientists from Sandia National Laboratories and the Air Force Research Laboratory to introduce topic sessions for oral presentations. Dr. Ronen Polsky from Sandia will lead off with a presentation on Transdermal Microneedle Sensors, and Dr. Kyle Hornton from AFRL concluding the morning session. The poster session will follow after, allowing small group interaction with students, as well as a catered lunch. Dr. Eric Spoerke and Dr. Gabe Montano will follow Director Oppedahl in our afternoon session. The evening will conclude with lightning talks and a catered banquet.
The Nanoscience and Microsystems Engineering and Chemical and Biological Engineering Graduate Student Associations are organizing Student Research Day this year, and are sponsored by four departments at the University of New Mexico, including the Nanoscience and Microsystems Engineering (NSME), Biomedical Engineering (BME), Chemical and Biological Engineering (CBE), and Chemical and Chemical Biology (CCB). They are providing our judges, as well as helping fund food and free parking.
The event will take place at the UNM Student Union Building (SUB), 3rd floor, in the following meeting rooms: Acoma A & B for the poster session, and Fiesta A & B for our oral presentations. The SUB is located in quadrant M16 as building 60. Parking will be provided in lot A which is located in quadrant O17.
Please RSVP here to attend
Take this opportunity to enjoy the food and bar, take in the current research, and network with the local science and business community. If you are planning to attend either lunch and/or dinner we would like for you to RSVP at the following link.
The ABQ Homeschool Engineering and Robotics Team Needs Your Support
Recently, the Albuquerque Home School Engineering and Robotics Team (AHERT) Ravens – FIRST FTC team #5132 was very successful winning the AZ/NM FTC State Championship as part of the winning alliance scoring the highest score of the day and beating out more than 30 other teams.
The program can be summarized as a challenging STEM program that is a sport for the mind where 100% of the team can and will go pro, entering our workforce and helping to shape the future of New Mexico. We’re sure many of our NMTC members would like to show these talented future leaders that we support them and that New Mexico stands with them to help them reach their potential.
The team is now heading into the broader series of competitions that take them from California and the Super Regional Tournament to St. Louis Missouri and the World Championship. This community based team needs help to get there and to have the parts, tools and equipment that they need to compete against the best in the world.
Any level of support would be greatly appreciated, no donation too small or too large. Donations can be made online here.
The budget for their upcoming events is:
$7,000 for Oakland CA competition March 24-26 (help needed as soon as possible)
$12,000 for St Louis World Championship April 23-26
This funding goes to support the robot parts, tools, technology equipment and travel for these things to and from the tournaments. The program also offers scholarships for students who cannot otherwise attend without financial support.
This is an opportunity for the NMTC business community to show how we value high achieving dedicated students. This team does not come from any one school or city. They represent students from Rio Rancho, Bernalillo and Albuquerque. They come from a variety of local schools and independent education options. A true representation of our local talent. This support will create the change that we seek for education in New Mexico.
If you have any questions or would like to learn more about the program, visit their website or contact Manny Barrera, PE – Head Coach mannybarrera@forestcity.net
Presidential Innovation Fellows Seeks Entrepreneurs, Innovators
The Presidential Innovation Fellows (PIF) Program launched three years ago by US CTO Todd Park is one of the greatest programs we’ve seen to help transform government by applying some of the knowledge and approaches used by our private sector’s top entrepreneurs and innovators. It’s one of the best examples of large scale “Open Gov” approaches, making public data available and useful in a range of key areas.
What’s particularly interesting – and close to our hearts and minds – is that this year’s announcement includes a specific call to help make the national labs’ technologies and research more available in a user friendly way to US business and entrepreneurs. Los Alamos and Sandia National Labs are actually among the leaders in tech transfer, but we all recognize the process can be improved. While this PIF program will be headquartered in DC with the NNSA, we expect both labs to play key roles in this initiative.
Since many in our communities have already been thinking – and working – on these very issues, we’d love to see some NM applicants to this important program!
I’ve included the basics below, but for the announcement and more information, please visit:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/
PRESIDENTIAL INNOVATION FELLOWS PROGRAM
The Presidential Innovation Fellows program brings the principles, values, and practices of the innovation economy into government through the most effective agents of change we know: our people. This highly competitive program pairs talented, diverse individuals from the innovation community with top civil servants to tackle many of our Nation’s biggest challenges, and to achieve a profound and lasting social impact. These teams of government experts and private-sector doers are using approaches like design thinking and lean startup to achieve results for the American people in months, not years.
Data Innovation
The Data Innovation projects focus on accelerating and expanding the Federal Government’s efforts to make information resources more accessible and usable for companies, entrepreneurs, citizens, and others to fuel the creation of new products, services, and jobs. Also within this effort are projects that focus on empowering Americans with secure and useful access to their own personal data—such as their own health or energy usage information—as part of the Administration’s MyData initiatives. The Data Innovation Presidential Innovation Fellows will serve in the following agencies for the following projects:
- The U.S. Department of Energy
is working to accelerate the commercialization of National Laboratory-generated technologies, in part by making information about those technologies more easy to find and use.