13 Jul Civic Tech Startup Weekend Recap
What an awesome turnout for our Startup Weekend event! We had a lot of invested teachers, students, and entrepreneurs trying to make a difference in our community; can’t wait to do it again! Here are the winning team ideas for the first-ever Civic Tech Startup Weekend:
First Place: Urban Paws
Urban Paws seeks to solve numerous community challenges by bringing shelter animals into businesses to help combat mental health issues and decrease stress in the workplace. Originally pitched by San Antonio teacher, Brandeis Stubbins, the Urban Paws team consisted of fellow teachers from the partnership with Youth Code Jam and two students from Trinity University currently serving in the Students + Startups program at Geekdom. As first-place winners, the team received:
- 3 months free membership at Geekdom
- Pre-incorporation founders agreement, formation of Texas LLC, and 3 hours of consulting with Innocenti Jones, PLLC
- Patent strategy roadmap document, outline of draft of provisional patent application, and 2 hours of consulting with Shah, IP
- $1,000 in development hours from Innov8 Place
- 1 year free WordPress hosting with Pressable
Second Place: Cell 2 Cell (C2C)
Cell 2 Cell is a unique idea pitched by Kyle Sherman that helps improve connection between incarcerated peoples with their family by taking on the hassle of managing written communications for the families. Each facility has different requirements regarding letters and other posted mail to prisoners, creating unnecessary hassle for families just trying to stay in touch with their loved ones. Cell 2 Cell seeks to handle the postage and negotiate those posting requirements on behalf of the families. As winners, Kyle and his team will receive:
- 2 months free membership at Geekdom
- Pre-incorporation founders agreement and 2 hours of consulting with Innocenti Jones, PLLC
- Patent strategy discussion and 1 hour of consulting with Shah, IP
- $500 in development hours from Innov8 Place
- 6 months free WordPress hosting with Pressable
Third Place: CityFix
CityFix is meant to serve as an internal dashboard to inform City Council members and other City decision makers with up-to-date information on what is occurring in their districts. Knowing that there is a lot on the plates of City leadership, CityFix would like to work with existing applications like City Flag’s 311 citizen-facing application by providing an internal communication tool for San Antonio’s public servants. Initially proposed by Filip Luchianenco, the CityFix team married civic engagement with data for the win! As third-place recipients, the team will receive:
- 1 month free membership at Geekdom
- Pre-incorporation founders agreement and 1 hour of consulting with Innocenti Jones, PLLC
- Patent strategy discussion and 1 hour of consulting with Shah, IP
- $250 in development hours from Innov8 Place
- 3 months free WordPress hosting with Pressable
Honorable Mention: Beacon
While this team was not centered around Civic Technology, all of the judges were in agreement that they provided a strong business case that several judges felt they would use personally. Two Trinity University students, Alexander Hicks and Jack Janezic, put together an application that would better connect and incentivize patrons to local restaurants and bars, as well as build better relationships among friends and families. Essentially, send out a “beacon” to your friends of where you’re going to be and for how long, friends can RSVP and then get rewarded by the establishment for showing up; the larger the party the bigger the rewards. Not letting any of our winners leave without a little something, the Beacon team received:
- 1 month free membership at Geekdom
- Pre-incorporation founders agreement and 1 hour of consulting with Innocenti Jones, PLLC
- Patent strategy discussion and 1 hour of consulting with Shah, IP
- $250 in development hours from Innov8 Place
- 3 months free WordPress hosting with Pressable
What’s Next?
One of the coolest aspects of this Startup Weekend was our partnership with Youth Code Jam, a non-profit that puts on the largest coding event for students in Texas. Through our partnership, we put 12 San Antonio teachers through the weekend as Entrepreneurs, and the majority of winning teams had our teachers involved, including Urban Paws!
Moving forward, CivTechSA will continue to work with Youth Code Jam and host a follow-up work session with those teachers to discuss their ideas on how to bring what they learned during Startup Weekend into the classroom with a focus on solving Civic Challenges and Entrepreneurism.