SEAD Academy is pleased to announce the addition of NEST Kids to their summer programming. NEST Kids is a one week crash course in entrepreneurship. Using the project management tools of today’s technology leaders, the NEST Kids staff will guide teams of children ages 12-16  as they turn ideas into prototypes.

NEST Kids was founded by NEST’up, a technology accelerator program and incubator space located in Wallonia, Belgium. NEST Kids Co-Founder, Marc Lainez, has served as an instructor and project mentor since it’s founding in 2013. This summer Marc has joined forces with the Innovation Underground team in Historic Downtown Bryan to put on the very first US edition of NEST Kids.

The Innovation Underground is a privately owned business incubator located in Historic Downtown Bryan, 216 W. 26th Street. The Innovation Underground was established in 2011 by AdventGX . Since it’s founding, The Innovation Underground has successfully graduated four start-up companies and remains at full capacity with current small businesses while continuing to support new clients through virtual, off-site incubation.

SEAD Academy is a project that aims to integrate Science, Engineering, Art and Design into camps and classes for kids grades K-12. SEAD Academy was founded in 2013 by the AdventGX. Last summer, SEAD Academy hosted 150 students as they participated in immersive interdisciplinary classes.

NEST Kids is a one-week course for children aged 12-16 and will run from June 23-27. This program gives participants the opportunity to learn from experts and software developers. Kids will use tools from the startup world to bring ideas to life. NEST Kids aims to help children express their creativity and develop their ability to solve the problems that surround them.

Relevant Web Links:

– SEAD Academy –http://bit.ly/SEAD-Summer

– Innovation Underground – iu.adventgx.com

– NEST Kids – http://www.nestup.be/

Last Tuesday, the Grand Stafford Theater welcomed bright minds from Central Texas for the inaugural meeting of the newly created Software Developers Cartel.

http://vimeo.com/87169887

The Cartel aims to gather passionate developers from Central Texas to share their personal and professional experiences. By creating a space where hackers can interact, the Cartel hopes to grow and maintain a community of curious and passionate developers while fostering and promoting best practices.

This very first event had two local speakers lined up. Mike Abney, VP of consulting at Improving Enterprises and Manoj Prasad, doctorate candidate at the Sketch Recognition Lab from TAMU.

Mike introduced the audience to the SOLID principles, a set of architecture design principles which, when followed, help produce cleaner code that is easier to read and maintain. The SOLID principles were first introduced by Robert C. Martin, a famous character from the software community that described them in detail in his book “Clean Code” and his screencasts at http://cleancoders.com/ To learn more about SOLID principles check out Mike’s presentation at http://www.slideshare.net/mikeabney/1-solid, http://vimeo.com/87169888

Manoj then took the stage for a totally different topic. At the Sketch Recognition Lab, he worked on an interactive vest that can give gps-based direction instructions through vibrators positioned at different strategic spots. The whole technology is based on the Arduino platform and interacts with Android devices. Manoj gave the audience a demo of the vest and showed some of the code controlling the Arduino part. You can read more about Manojs’ vest on the CSNet news feed (http://www.cse.tamu.edu/NewsFeed/?id=3626), http://vimeo.com/87169889

The event ended on a lighter note as Cartel founder, Marc Lainez, led the group in a discussion of potential future events. Different activities were proposed and attendees voted.

The vast majority voted for two specific activities:

– Meet-ups with guest speakers

– Teaching kids how to code

The two activities that came second are:

– Organizing coding dojos (http://codingdojo.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WhatIsCodingDojo)

– Setting up an openhack community (http://openhack.github.io/).

Following the result of last week’s vote, we can already announce that the next meeting of the Software Developers Cartel will be next month, March 18^th at 6pm, and will follow the same mini-conference format.

Want to get involved? Let us know by filling out this online form! http://bit.ly/1bTrVsq

The Cartel is an initiative of Innovation Underground and AdventGX, supported by local organizations such as Improving Enterprises, Capsher, TAMU Product Innovation Cellar, HTRI and the ISSA. Should you want to support the Software Developers Cartel, drop us an email at developerscartel@adventgx.com

On November 15, more than 100 guests gathered at Grand Stafford Theater in Historic Downtown Bryan for the first Voices for Children Benefit Concert produced by Advent GX. With generous underwriting from Fred Davis of Davis & Davis Lawyers, Advent GX produced the event that raised funds to help Voices for Children and their staff provide court appointed special advocates for children in the foster care system in the Brazos Valley. The evening featured the Latino rock of Texas’ own Del Castillo at Grand Stafford Theater, Downtown Bryan’s premier live music venue. Guests started the evening with Latino dance lessons donated by Dr. Susan Quiring from Susan’s Ballroom Dance.

“We are always looking for ways to put our heritage assets, such as Grand Stafford Theater, to work to benefit local economic development,” explains Advent GX Managing Partner Joan Quintana. “In this case, we were able to work with generous local businesses and patrons of the arts to create a cultural arts event that was incredibly fun and supported some of the most vulnerable members of our community…kids in foster care.”

The event raised funds and, thanks to promotional support from arts and community advocate Denise Bermudez, raised awareness of Voices for Children’s mission through advertising and social media campaigns produced by Advent GX Media.

Fred Davis of Davis & Davis Lawyers supported the Voices for Children, Inc. benefit concert as part of the firm’s campaign to commemorate their 50^th Anniversary in 2013 by donating $50,000 to local charitable organizations. Celebrating 50 years of Texans helping Texans, Fred Davis chose Voices for Children, Inc. as one of these organizations, understanding the importance of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) in representing neglected and abused children in our community.

In FY 2013, Voices for Children’s 101 CASA volunteers advocated for 242 abused and neglected children in Brazos, Burleson, and Grimes counties, placing 80 children in safe, permanent homes. Each CASA volunteer serves as Guardian ad Litem for one child or sibling set throughout the child welfare court system. CASAs provide the detailed information necessary for judges to safeguard the children’s best interests and ensure they are placed in safe, permanent homes as quickly as possible.

Advent GX opened the 100-year-old Grand Stafford Theater in Fall 2012 as a community development project showcasing the economic potential of the arts and heritage preservation. The theater now features state of the art sound and lighting and has been host to Grammy-award winning artists, up-and-coming talent and local musicians across a wide variety of genre. Advent GX is a community and economic development consulting firm headquartered in Texas A&M University’s Research Park. Advent GX owns the Innovation Underground, a business and technology incubator in downtown Bryan, and serves rural and small urban communities throughout Texas and North America.

Advent GX is proud to announce the Voices for Children Benefit concert coming to Grand Stafford Theater on November 15th. The benefit concert will feature the music of Del Castillo. Tickets go on sale September 20th with proceeds benefiting Voices for Children, Inc.

Voices For Children is a non-profit organization that protects abused and neglected children by pairing them with trained child advocates. These advocates follow children through the long and difficult journey of the court system to safeguard the child’s best interests and ensure they are placed in safe, permanent homes as quickly as possible. Last year Voices For Children’s 106 volunteers advocated for 247 abused and neglected children in Brazos, Burleson, and Grimes counties, placing 81 children in safe, permanent homes.

Special thanks to Fred Davis of Davis & Davis Lawyers for underwriting the Voices for Children Benefit Concert as part of the firm’s campaign to commemorate their 50 years of serving the BCS community and to AdventGX for production support.

Del Castillo has toured nationwide with such diverse acts as Styx, Los Lonely Boys, Ozomatli, Don Henley, Los Lobos and Willie Nelson. Their music has become a symbol of the cross-cultural power of music with their eclectic blend of Flamenco, Rock, Latin, Blues, and World music.

The Grand Stafford Theater is an award winning music venue located in Historic Downtown Bryan and an incubated member of the Innovation Underground. Since opening their doors almost a year ago, The Grand Stafford has featured great musicians like Kopecky Family Band, Dave Ramirez and Ben Rector. This Fall they are honored to welcome Del Castillo as they preform a concert benefiting Voices For Children.

Ticket proceeds will directly benefit Voices for Children, Inc. in their mission to serve the neglected and abused children of the Brazos Valley. Tickets will be available for purchase at grandstaffordtheater.com starting September 13. General admission pricing is $30.00. A limited number of reserved seating benefactor tables for four are available for $200.

If you are a small business owner, entrepreneur or freelancer you have probably found yourself overwhelmed by the multitude and variety of skills required to run a business in today’s highly competitive marketplace. From budgeting time and money to knowing how and when to advertise, the demands on your finite resume of skills and abilities never seem to let up. Just when you think you have a little breathing room, you realize there is some other facet of owning a small business that you have been neglecting.

You are not alone. At the Innovation Underground we have made it our mission to help passionate individuals maneuver through the often-confusing journey to success. We do this by complementing the skills and resources already available to our clients– essentially we fill the gaps. After opening our doors two years ago, two things have become quite obvious. First, small business is thriving in the Brazos Valley and these businesses need more resources. Second, many of the needs these small businesses experience are commonly shared.

These two observations have led the Innovation Underground to launch the Small Business Development Series. Each installation of the series will touch on topics that are relevant to success in business today. Each installment will not only be delivered by leading experts, but also serve as a networking opportunity for the innovators in our region.

The Small Business Development Series kicks off September 17th and will address the importance of social media in business today. Please join us as we bolster and encourage the community of innovators located here in the Bryan/College Station area.

Register before September 1st to receive a $50 discount.

https://iu.adventgx.com/small-business-development-series/