Innovation Thriving in Roxbury -- Recapping #MIN111

On Wednesday June 13 Mass Innovation Nights returned to Roxbury following on the success of last year's first ever event in Roxbury. Once again Greater Grove Hall Main Streets hosted us at the Thelma D Burns building for an African-American and African tech themed event. An enthusiastic and diverse crowd checked out tables showcasing 12 startups, consulted with experts in the Experts Corner, and networked with each other. There was a wonderfully lively vibe circulating through the space.

MIN111 Crowd Beginning to Build

Products ranged from health care analytics to a mobile barber shop, so there was a lot to take in. The format for the presentations was different this time. Instead of four presenters chosen ahead of time by voting on the website everybody got to do a 1-minute pitch. I managed to talk with most of the presenters at their tables beforehand.
The audience choice winners were

• Eden GeoPower
• Amooti
• AfyaKit
• Vinylmint -- Grand Prize

AfyaKit aims to bring cutting edge analytics capabilities to health facilities throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.  Afya's comprehensive health facility supervisory tool, deployed on both web and mobile, provides in-facility analytics to assist decision making by public health managers. This is an impressive project. Naturally they were one of the audience choice vote winners.

Vinylmint is a marketplace that connects video producers to musicians and voice actors around the world to create custom sounds on demand. Its huge community of creators ensures that producers will find the right match for their projects. It was generating so much enthusiasm that I wasn't surprised when Vinylmint won the grand prize in the audience choice vote.

Vinylmint

Amooti is an e-commerce platform that enables African artisans, artists, and fashion designers to sell their wares to people living in North America -- basically, expanding the global market for African design. It was great to see Amooti again -- I remembered them from MIN93 (yikes, that was a long time ago). Once again, they had a table full of beautiful goods. The necklaces were particularly gorgeous and very popular. The table was constantly busy. Amooti won second place in the audience choice vote.

Diane from Amooti Posing with Cool Guys

Eden GeoPower is on a mission to generate megawatts of renewable energy by converting oil and gas wells that are no longer used into sources of geothermal power. Their unique technology transforms low-grade heat from depleted oil and gas reservoirs into geothermal power using the existing infrastructure.  Their method greatly reduces cost. Do take a look at their website. The technology is fascinating. I thoroughly enjoyed talking with them. Their table was very popular and I was not surprised that they won an audience choice prize.

Note that they've chosen California as the first place to deploy this but they have also had interest from Texas. Note to self: tell my Texas oil and gas brother about this.

They had cool T-shirts too, so I got a couple of them to pose wearing the shirts so I could award them Best Costume of MIN111.

Eden GeoPower

Best Costume of MIN111

Ganderflock is a marketing and technology company that covers all the bases: content strategy, website design, and omnichannel marketing. They offer an integrated customer experience solution that brings together usability, diversity, and strategy to help your company establish and nurture deeper and more meaningful relationships with your customers.

Ganderflock

CyberHabits is a cybersecurity awareness system that helps your company manage the shift to a cybersecurity conscious culture. More than half of cyber threats result from a company's own employees either through lack of awareness or a company culture that undermines security. Training,  personalized learning, and analytics combine with cybersecurity advice and insight to engage all your employees in the solution.

Vibechain is a peer-to-peer platform for making playlists and sharing music for party organizers and their guests. Connecting friends around music and dance brings good vibes to the party. Who knew you could use the power of the internet to bring people together and to make a good time even better? Vibechain CEO Donaldy Salvant gave the most enthusiastic 1-minute pitch of the night.

FRWD (pronounced forward) is an automated savings app that helps consumers build an emergency fund and reports positively to credit bureaus. More than half of the people in the US don't have enough savings to handle a $400-$500 emergency. That can mean more debt for even a fairly small financial emergency. That realization inspired FRWD founder Savant Moore to teach himself coding so he could develop an app to make the process of saving automatic and setting and meeting savings goals easier.

Savant Moore FRWD Founder

Through their mobile application, ExpressCuts allows barbers to connect with the clients right where they are. The app makes getting a quality haircut simple. Just select your barber, choose your hairstyle, time, date and location. A professionally licensed barber will come to the specified location and deliver an exceptional haircut experience.

ExpressCuts

Mobile Cuts offers a men's haircutting service for professionals during the work week (Monday-Friday) out of a custom-designed state-of-the-art recreational vehicle built specifically for this purpose. It's a barber shop that comes to your office. They travel to corporate locations, working with the property managers and companies to secure permission to serve the tenants and employees.

Mobile Cuts

It was great to see so many exciting entrepreneurs and such an enthusiastic audience. Just seeing everybody lined up on stage after the presentations while they awaited the awarding of prizes was inspiring. So much energy! So many great ideas!

What a group of entrepreneurs!

The Experts Corner wasn't really a corner, more like tables in the center of the room and roving experts circulating around the showcase. Our host Ed Gaskin, Executive Director of Greater Grove Hall Main Streets, introduced the experts, who told us about their agencies or services.

Expertise Flowing in the Experts Corner

As always, I'll end with an Expert Looking Expert. This month's Expert Looking Expert is Damon Cox, Assistant Secretary of Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Expert Looking Expert