 SAN FRANCISCO, May 4, 2017 /Halcyon TV/ -- AT&T welcomes 8 innovative ed-tech startups, including 4 organizations from the San Francisco Bay Area, to the AT&T Aspire Accelerator 2017 class. The program is in its third year and is part of AT&T's $400 million commitment since 2008 to help students succeed. The Accelerator supports for- and non-profit organizations driving student success and career readiness.
The Bay Area organizations selected for this year's program include:
They'll also have access to resources and mentors from AT&T and across the education and technology industry. The organizations will become part of the broader AT&T Aspire initiative, which is committed to driving innovation in education. "When you combine education with technology you can really make a difference," said Ken McNeely, President, AT&T California. "AT&T welcomes this year's Aspire Accelerator class and is proud to support these game-changing solutions for students and teachers in the Bay Area and across the state and nation." Aspire Accelerator members will also get to work with powerful industry minds. The AT&T Aspire Accelerator's board of advisors includes leading education and technology innovators such as Charles Best, founder and CEO of DonorsChoose.org, and Sebastian Thrun, founder and president of Udacity. "I've loved the opportunity to work with the Aspire Accelerator startups and serve as a mentor for the founders as they continue to grow their organizations and bring new initiatives and products into the ed-tech space," said Kimberly Bryant, founder of Black Girls CODE. "I know this year's class will bring more innovative ideas to the table and I look forward to continuing to collaborate with AT&T to help the ventures succeed." Aspire Accelerator members remain in their home cities during the length of the program. They will meet with AT&T and their class members several times at key industry events, such as ISTE. The program will kick off this weekend in conjunction with the ASU GSV Education Technology Summit in Salt Lake City. In addition to the 4 Bay Area organizations selected for the program, other members of the 2017 Aspire Accelerator class come from across the country, represent diverse backgrounds and leadership, and include:
 Heat Agency (PRNewsFoto/Deloitte Digital) source: Deloitte Digital  Heat Agency (PRNewsFoto/Deloitte Digital) source: Deloitte Digital NEW YORK, Feb. 29, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Deloitte announced today that it has acquired substantially all the assets of Heat, an award-winning, full-service advertising agency based in San Francisco. The addition of Heat continues a series of strategic Deloitte investments evolving its Deloitte Digital practice. The result is the world's first creative digital consultancySM, a model which transforms the way C-suites approach business in the digital age; the result is greater ownership of, and return on, end-to-end customer experience. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Heat will continue to operate within Deloitte Digital as a full-service advertising agency, working across traditional, digital, and social media. Heat's delivery of authentic engagements between consumers and the brands they love complements Deloitte Digital's deep industry knowledge, business transformation, organizational change and versatile technology experience. The result is a transformative perspective that guides chief marketing officers to reimagine their customers' experience comprehensively and answers businesses' needs for a holistic connection between their brands and the consumer. "Deloitte Digital has created a new market category called creative digital consulting," said Andy Main, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP, and Deloitte Digital's chief executive. "Adding Heat's extraordinary and award-winning creative capabilities is the perfect complement to our market-leading and long-established digital business. We are the single place for our clients to go to connect business strategy with creative strategy and content, customer experience, core business operations, transformational technology, and campaign execution. We combine creative chops with the powerful Deloitte platform to help our clients find their own disruptive advantage." Deloitte's creative digital consultancy model was founded from the desire to provide clients with a full-service solution for their business needs. Clients no longer have to work with multiple agencies and consulting firms, as both creative and business strategy will now come from the same team. The acquisition will allow for the creation and execution of more strategically-driven engagement that C-suite executives are asking for, and enable delivery of comprehensive end-to-end offerings that are designed to help CMOs and all members of the C-suite reimagine the business and customer experience. "After an amazing 2015 we had a big decision to make – stay the course or shoot for bigger, more immediate creative opportunities. We picked the latter," said Steve Stone, chairman and executive creative director, Heat. "Joining forces with Deloitte gives us a ton of opportunities. It allows us to showcase our work on a bigger stage, provides us with greater resources, and gives us access to client relationships that will allow our creatives to do the best work of their careers. Others have approached us over the years, but nothing felt right to us. We're really fired up for this. Deloitte understands the importance of our brand and culture and will help us protect it as we grow together." Heat was founded in 2004 and has grown exponentially in its 11-year history. In 2015, Heat won eight Cannes Lions and was named Adweek's "Breakthrough Agency of the Year." President John Elder, founder Steve Stone, and Managing Director Mike Barrett will continue in their current roles with Heat. About Heat Heat is a full-service creative agency that believes in the power of surprise to build brands, solve problems, and kindly take over the world. Based in San Francisco and founded in 2004, Heat develops traditional, digital and social content for a wide array of brands including: Electronic Arts, Dolby and Hotwire. The internationally recognized award-winning agency won 70 awards in 2015 with eight Cannes Lions to their credit. In addition to their Lion wins, Heat is the only advertising agency on San Francisco's Best Places to Work list two years running and is one of the Effie organization's top 10 Most Effective Independent Agencies in North America. Visit www.sfheat.com. Record Numbers Turn Out for Localwise Startup Job Fair Localwise's Startup Job Fair Over 1,000 enthusiastic job seekers, showed up on Thursday evening at Berkeley's NextSpace for Localwise's Startup Job Fair. With over 30 startups, 19 partners and 3 organizers – This event was purely a success. NextSpace, a local community outreach accommodated five meet & greet areas including the first when you walked in – Meet our Partners, followed by a Resume Review area inside a bank vault (amazing!), locally made Food & Drinks, an area for professional headshots and of course the main floor where thirty startups were ready and eagerly awaiting a diverse crowd of passionate job seekers. This event collaborated between Localwise, the City of Berkeley's Office Economic Development and NextSpace was focused on one thing - diversity in tech. The fair featured additional services to aid job seekers such as a free resume review and photographers from upstart Passion Projects Productions provided free headshots. Reps from Code Berkeley & Telegraph Academy were also on site to help educate and answer questions pertaining to the job market. Code Berkeley, is one of the first state-funded tech bootcamp in California and is on the leading edge of the digital revolution. Alumni have received positions at top tech companies around the area such as Tesla and board of directors includes executives currently working at places such as Google, SkyCatch, Adobe and many others in the Silicon Valley. One of the first startups we visited was Black Girls Code – Founder Kimberly Bryant. Kimberly launched Black Girls CODE to meet the needs of young women of color who are underrepresented in the exploding technology field. Their mission is to introduce programming and technology to a new generation of coders, putting them on a new path to becoming the leaders and creators of tomorrow. With only 3% of African American women earning Bachelor's degrees in computer science – Black Girls CODE envisions a world where girls of color are empowered to become innovators in STEAM fields, leaders in their communities, and builders of their own futures through exposure to computer science and technology. www.blackgirlscode.com Kuli Kuli, a food company seemed to be another popular stop for job opportunities – Meet Founder & CMO, Valerie Popelka – Her Mission Statement: Giving Everyone Access to the nutritional power of Moringa. Moringa is a new leafy green superfood more nutritious than kale, an ancient green that has been eaten by indigenous cultures worldwide for thousands of years which can be used to combat malnutrition worldwide. Both nationally and locally distributed, Kuli Kuli is on the road to success. Q: How did you get your first round of seed funding? A: “With friends - we each put in a couple thousand just to test out the concept at farmers markets. After selling out every weekend, we became very excited and said this is a great idea. We wanted to do this on a larger scale. We did a campaign with Indi Go Go and raised over $50k. This allowed us to move over to a food packer and get regional distribution such as Whole Foods and locally Sprouts & Molly Stone. With the next round of funding we were able to raise over $500k. The idea came from Co Founder & Friend Lisa Curtis who was working in West Africa with the Peace Core, teaching women how to cultivate Moringa and add it to what they were already eating to increase their nutrition.” Both teamed up when Lisa came back to the states to make this success story into a reality. www.kulikulifoods.com One of our last stops for the evening was at the booth of Tyler Santoro, the brand manager of Black Medicine – Iced Coffee, pressure brewed in Oakland. Founder – Chris Cooper with a background in Chemical Engineering fell in love with coffee about 5 years ago. He set out to create a way to make & brew a new type of coffee. He opened a cafe in Oakland and was able to start tinkering around with roasting coffee. By doing so he invented a brew method called, “pressure brewing”. So they brew it hot under nitrogen pressure before cooling it down & bottle it up. Selling it at the cafe, it did so well Chris sold the cafe and started Black Medicine. Self funded, the coffee beans come from all over the world. Roasted and brewed in house in Oakland. Black Medicine is different from their competitors because of their brewing method, where as currently the trend for this is cold brewing. Black Medicine started its facilities in East Oakland in a 2,000 square foot warehouse and now has migrated over to a much larger scale 18,000 square foot warehouse which is opened to the public. Great flavors including: Iced Coffee / Iced Latte / Iced Mocha / Concentrate and Kegs are available. www.blackmedicine.com To view all of the photos taken click here. To obtain photos click here. For more information about Localwise and their next event, go to www.localwisejobs.com. -Halcyon |
