Last night was the tenth installment of Mass Innovation Nights, the free monthly event that continues to showcase new and upcoming Boston-based tech companies. Though it’s been held at the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation the last couple months, MIN 10 goers enjoyed a change of scenery at the IBM Innovation Center, also in Waltham, Mass. The IBM center granted a much more comfortable and spacious venue for the newest Boston start-ups to strut their stuff, and it seemed the IBM name drew a larger audience — and a lot of new faces, too. As usual, Bostinno has you covered in case you didn’t make it to the latest episode of Mass Innovation Nights, so read on for a recap of the featured presenters and other demos that were there.
Mass Innovation Nights Presenters
The deal was the same as usual, several new companies were given ten minutes or so each to present their company and product. Here’s who threw down:
Aprigo
Aprigo kicked things off, featuring their software as a service-based data management system, Aprigo Ninja. Launched in March ’08, the application is designed for mid-sized businesses’ data and IT management. With Aprigo Ninja, you can keep tabs on all your data through a rich graphical user interface that somewhat resembled the Safari “favorite sites” page. Instead of sites, however, Aprigo Ninja lets you manage who has access to what data, what data is taking up the most storage, what is most expensive and more. Aprigo Ninja is a great example of how SaaS continues to provide powerful tools for small to medium sized businesses.
PMP HQ
Launched this past October, PMP HQ is a project management system that helps you get stuff done. Though the system itself was unclear in the presentation, the concept was solid and after I poked through the website demo, I saw a friendly user interface tabulated by project activity, files, and overview (to name a few). Basically, it’s a system that lets you manage projects on a who’s-doing-what basis. Supposedly cheaper than other similar services, PMP HQ allows better team collaboration, budget management, task assignment, and overall project visibility. Not a bad idea for those of us that are always worrying about time spent on work projects.
Taste of Chocolate
Founder and entrepreneur David Goldstein has already had success working on companies like Teambonding, but now he’s bringing his expertise to a true passion: chocolate. Taste of Chocolate provides chocolate tours of Boston. Participants get to taste, and even make their own chocolate at various Boston shops. Having experienced similar tours in New York and other places, David is bringing to Boston the fun and delicious way to “taste your way through the city.” Though this wasn’t the typical kind of start-up we see at MIN, it was a crowd favorite and their table demo proved there’s little better you can do for attention than offer free gourmet chocolate.
Vuuch
Vuuch had a tough act to follow after the tantalizing chocolate slide show, but they met the challenge with a demo of their business communication platform that brings social media elements to the business world — not in a LinkedIn kind of way. Rather, with Vuuch, individual projects can be shared with and collaborated on by multiple users. Sounds a bit like PMP HQ, but it definitely looked different. Vuuch was stylishly demonstrated with the very PowerPoint presentation we were seeing as the sample project. From each slide you could view notes and comments, allowing you to connect and compare notes with others working in that space. PowerPoint is just one example of a project you can integrate with Vuuch, and it offers ways to invite, discuss, and share a variety of projects with multiple users.
Table Demos
After the presenters there is always some fun stuff to see at the table demos. See below for a list of the table demo companies:
Holistic Technologies
Holistic technologies was showcasing SleepGuard, a kind of techno headband designed to stop clenching and grinding of teeth while you sleep. I got to chat with inventor Lee Weinstein about how this little guy works. It beeps when you clench your teeth, and after conditioning yourself to stop clenching when you hear it, you can prevent clenching and grinding subconsciously during sleep. Mr. Weinstein was also one of the first inventors of laser tag, too — sick!
Pad n’ Click
Pad n’ Click demoed a line of gel pads that stick to your mouse for added comfort. Varying degrees of finger elevation can even alleviate pain resulting from unnatural joint movement while clicking. Carpal tunnel and other injuries are alleviated, plus they feel cool.
Green Machine (Small Biz Computing)
Mark Beckley knows his computers, and knows how easily they break down. So he decided to make one that would last forever (comparatively). Green Machine defies “disposable” computers that are thrown into a landfill every few years. The hardware is built to withstand and prevent failure due to heat, power outages and electro-static discharge, granting it a superior lifespan. It also has multiple removable drives so that any drive failure is a quick fix.
Tweet Extra
Tweet Extra gives you a way to organize and transcribe conversations you engage in on Twitter. It’s a good tool for conducting interviews that you can organize and view later. The people behind TweetExtra have also come up with DigitaLeopard, a system that gives you a clear overview of all your Twitter relationships — that’s one I could definitely use.
Oneforty
So if TweetExtra and DigitaLeopard are Twitter apps, Oneforty is the place you go to find and download these apps and others. Started under the wing of TechStars, Oneforty has gotten a lot of press lately, and they busted out their e-commerce platform today. Twitter apps are a must these days, and with so much API available to developers, people are finding new uses for it on an almost daily basis. I’m eager to see what Oneforty does in the next few months.
Black Screen Studios
These guys flaunted their video production skills by video-interviewing MassInno goers on the spot. Black Screen Studios provides a full service for video and film production, audio, VFX, animation and more. They had a pro setup and I had a good time giving my thoughts on MIN10 in front of the camera.
That was it for this month’s Mass Innovation Nights event. I’d say between the new venue and solid turnout it’s the best I’ve been to. What do you think? Drop any questions or comments below.
