Month: February 2015

Toni Oloko is one of the most successful young people in New England, and was also the subject of the October Youth CITIES entrepreneur spotlight. He also just gave a TEDx speech at the TEDxYouth series hosted by the TEDxBeaconStreet organization. His TED talk focused on two major themes; that to become smart, you need to listen to and surround yourself with smart people. The other is that ‘smart’ people aren’t always the ones in suits making all the money. In his talk, he advised that everyone has a story to tell and something to teach, and we need to learn from them. He ended on a call to action; to crowdsource the changes that will occur to our collective future by giving the stage and the mic to everyone,…

This month, our spotlight is moving to one of the facilitators utilized by Youth CITIES. Chris Wolfel has been involved in our community for several years as a mentor in the YC March-to-May Bootcamp and occasionally as a mini-hack facilitator. Going into college, Chris had always thought he would end up being a lawyer. Fortunately for us, after working at the Northeastern University Law School and another separate internship , he was turned on to the field of entrepreneurship. After taking a few classes, he realized his passion was in the challenge that working for a start-up poses; he loved the idea of taking something small, and growing or building it into something huge. He was with Northeastern’s Venture Accelerator from almost the very beginning, and became it’s CEO until…

For the month of December, we chose an extremely local entrepreneur, Tim Rowe. Tim is the founder of Venture Cafe and the CEO of the Cambridge Innovation Center (home of the YC Mini-Hack series). Tim’s career as an entrepreneur started when he was in middle school, selling software and computers to the parents of his friends. A few years later in high school, he was employing six of his friends at his Tech Consulting firm, with his biggest customer being the original Empire Collateral pawn shop. Next, Tim went to college to (in his words) “not miss out on the opportunity of being a rounded person.” As an already successful businessman, Tim found that college is most rewarding when your goal is to learn who you are and to learn…

This month’s spotlight features Joshua Summers, a Boston entrepreneur that works in the ad-tech industry. Joshua was a Paypal executive in Boston before leaving at the end of 2012 to found Clypd, where he is currently CEO. Clypd is a company that is trying to bring advertising in TV into the forefront of technology; using easy-to-access data such as demographics and major purchases, Joshua and Clypd hope to target advertising with both cable and satellite providers. This will create a better experience for the viewer and more effective advertising for the companies that are paying to be on air (very similar to what Google and Facebook are doing with user generated data driving online advertising). After a Series-A funding round in early 2013 that went well into seven figures, the…

This spotlight will be on one of YC’s most notable alumni, Toni Aloko. Toni is a young entrepreneur that has taken his love for tennis and turned it into a business. Practicegigs.com is a platform that athletes can use to set up either friendly or competitive matches with people of different skill caliber. How did he get it started? Through Youth CITIES. Practicegigs began in the annual March to May incubator. The network, mentorship, and resources that were made available to him have landed him in Atlas Ventures, where he now is the head of a five person team coming from three countries and four universities. With his product launch ten weeks away, Wharton is going to have to wait another year for this one.