Hello, March! Have you felt it in the air? Spring has sprung and we've got the fever.  Cool (and new) events are popping up all over Pasadena.  Whether it's hitting up the Google Ingress Anomaly and the General Assembly Startup Session or throwing your hat in the ring for the NASA Space Apps Challenge and Hackaday Prize we say pick one and go!  Our days fill up fast from sunrise to sundown and what we do in between and with our time makes for the good stuff!

Spread the Word!  Innovate Pasadena is currently recruiting for the position of Director of Operations.  Read more about the position here: Innovate Pasadena Operations Position

Have a story to share about happenings in Pasadena?  We’d love to hear from you!

In this Issue:

Things To Do: Tech + Design + Science + Entrepreneurship

• Friday Morning Coffee Meet-up: Speakers, Locations Announced
• Innovate! SoCal 2015
• Google Ingress Coming to Pasadena
• General Assembly Intro to the LA Startup Community
• NASA International Space Apps Challenge coming to Pasadena
• Art Center Grad Show for Industry Professionals

What's New #AroundPasadena

• The Hackaday Prize is back! Win a trip to space (for real)
• Welcome Impact Health!  And, P.S., They’re Hiring!
• Rexter Featured in Inc. Magazine 
• Petnet.io Acquisition
• 17 Hats Achieves $1.25 Million Seed Funding
• Innovator Spotlight:  High-tech Verrix Affords Planetary Protection

Did Ya know?

• Art Center Celebrates 10 Year Partnership with INSEAD

Things To Do: Tech + Design + Science + Entrepreneurship

Grab a cup of coffee every Friday at 8:15am and mingle with like-minded innovators at the Friday Morning Coffee Meet-Ups.   This Friday hear from brand strategist Kevin Susman on how to perfect your pitch.   Locations rotate so check out http://fridaycoffeemeetup.com/ for more information.

Hear from experts on Thursday, March 26th who will lend their perspective on future technologies that will shape our world and strategies for strengthening our entrepreneur base in Southern California.  Network with key decision makers, dealmakers, rule breakers and power brokers from around the region who are leading efforts to make Southern California one of the nation's best hubs for innovation and entrepreneur success. Pasadena City College’s Small Business Development Center is a presenting partner of the conference. Read More

The world around you is not what it seems. Statues, public art, and historical sites have been activated as Ingress Portals around the world. Imagine a capture flag game in the real world where two teams, the Resistance and the Enlightened, battle over Exotic Matter (XM) penetrating into humanity. Join Agents on Saturday, March 28th and explore your city through Ingress and battle over control of Portals in the downtown Pasadena area. Agents will meet at Memorial Park in Old Pasadena at 12 pm for game instruction and gather again at 5PM for an after party at the Pasadena Convention Center to hear the score announcement for the day, meet new game recruits and connect with old friends. New to Ingress? Read More

General Assembly, Innovate Pasadena and Oxypreneurship present: Intro to the LA Startup Community on Wednesday, April 1st from 7:00-9:00pm at Choi Auditorium located at Occidental College. This free class is an orientation to help newcomers to the startup scene get acquainted with the exciting world of tech in Los Angeles, with special focus on the Pasadena community.  Do you want to know about the key events/meetups to attend, people, companies, VCs, blogs, hot issues and more in the Northeast Los Angeles area?  Then this event is for you.  With a special focus on the Greater Pasadena area, this event will afford networking opportunities with the movers, shakers, and disruptors in the area. Read More + RSVP

Technologists, scientists, designers, educators, developers and students from across the globe will participate in the 2015 International Space Apps Challenge April 11-12th.  You can join them at the newly opened Cross Campus where Pasadena will serve host to the NASA-based event. Read More

Art Center cordially invites you to attend the graduation show for the Art Center Class of 2015.  This is an amazing opportunity to meet young designers.  Complimentary valet parking and shuttle between the campuses available.  RSVP required by April 12th. Read More

What's New #AroundPasadena

Pasadena-based Supplyframe just announced the return of the Hackaday Prize.  Following the success of their 2014 contest which drew entries from 55 countries, awarded over $350,000 in prizes and saw the creation of hundreds of truly excellent open hardware projects, the 2015 Hackaday Prize boasts the richest and most compelling prize pool ever!  The grand prize winner will receive a ticket into space along with other astounding prizes up for grabs with a total value of over $500,000. Read More

Impact Health was born from the belief that healthcare information shouldn’t be as confusing and convoluted as it is today. Imagine how empowered a consumer would be if they were in charge of their own healthcare costs rather relying on options a broker has signed up to sell on behalf of a plan.  Impact Health does that for you through a unique and intelligent platform built on robust algorithms and data analysis. Read More

"I have 6,000 contacts. Which ones should I be talking to?" asks Andy Wilson, co-founder and CEO of Pasadena-based startup Rexter. "It used to be answered by intuition, but intuition doesn't scale. "Rexter's answer is to plug into users' social media profiles, Microsoft Exchange servers, and phone conversations and start listening. There, running silently, it reads emails, logs chats, and keeps tabs on calendars. Once you program Rexter with stated objectives--find new hires; raise more funding--algorithms that analyze the quality and fre¬quency of your communications hunt for patterns buried in your exchanges with connections and suggest whom you should contact. Read More

Petnet, the maker of the Smart Feeder, an appliance that feeds your dogs automatically and measures health metrics, has acquired SlimDoggy to gain access to a big pet-food database and proprietary technology.  Petnet is based in Pasadena and has plans to expand their business model to include pet food sales and more pre-related smart products over time. Read More

Pasadena-based 17hats recently announced it has raised $1.25 million seed round to expand its business automation for micro-businesses or what 17hats likes to refer to as a business of one.  From it’s launch in October of 2014, 17hats has exceeded its growth expectations and appears to have quickly achieved broad acceptance from its target market. Read More

As a spin-off from JPL/Caltech, the formation of Verrix was inspired by NASA’s investment in planetary protection. Every NASA space vehicle destined for another planetary body is subjected to a rigorous process of sterilization.  JPL investigator and Verrix co-founder Adrian Ponce developed a new technique to improve the speed of this process. Subsequently, Dr. Ponce founded Verrix using funds from the Environmental Protection Agency and private investors to expand this technology into the realm of environmental monitoring and medical sterility assurance. Read More

Did Ya Know?

What at first felt like a total culture clash just a decade ago is now standard practice in most top-earning companies.  The idea of blending design innovation with business strategy has quickly evolved from a seedling, to a trend and now to a “must have.”

Art Center alumni and friends reunited in San Francisco on February 28 to celebrate the 10 year partnership of the College and INSEAD, one of the world’s leading and largest graduate business schools.  Close to 150 industry leaders gathered at posh play-inducing headquarters Airbnb to toast the success of a concept early adopters admitted seemed wacky. Read More
 

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