Actionable Insights

Collaborative Robots: Living Amongst Us

I’m going to program a robot to do my laundry and dishes for me, and be my personal butler. Unless some enterprising entrepreneur builds one and sells it to me first. May 29’s VLAB on collaborative robots showcased robots that can work side by side- collaborate- with humans. The industrial robots of the past remain [...]

By | 2017-05-18T17:47:12-07:00 September 16th, 2014|Event Summary, VLAB|Comments Off on Collaborative Robots: Living Amongst Us

Algorithm Alchemy: Turning Talent Search Into Gold

How much do companies spend on people? Trillions of dollars… Winning or losing your market is based on whether or not you have not just good, but amazing people. -Dan Shapero, VP of Talent Solutions, LinkedIn As of today, no one’s found a scalable* way to provide general recruiting options. So far a cadre of startups [...]

By | 2017-05-18T17:47:12-07:00 July 16th, 2014|VLAB|Comments Off on Algorithm Alchemy: Turning Talent Search Into Gold

Click to Fit: How Startups are Personalizing Fashion

http://youtu.be/kI_o3ls_mNo Scalable Fashion and Personalization. What is personalization? Fabric? Check. Tailor? Check. Fashion, particularly men’s fashion, started out highly personalized. After choosing fabric from a vast selection, the clothes were tailored to a perfect fit, after which personalized changes could be made to the design before the product was hand delivered. By the late 18th [...]

By | 2017-05-18T17:47:12-07:00 May 4th, 2014|Fashion|Comments Off on Click to Fit: How Startups are Personalizing Fashion

Ambient IQ: Intelligence Anywhere and Everywhere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXwo8Zc78o0 "If Terminex uses connected mousetraps… they could send [staff] directly to traps that have experienced a “Downed Mouse Event… They no longer have to send staff to empty mousetraps. ” -Hugo Fiennes, Co-Founder and CEO, Electric Imp Early-Stage Connection Imagine if Home-brew Computer Club members of the 1980’s took their products directly to market [...]

By | 2017-05-18T17:47:12-07:00 April 7th, 2014|Uncategorized|Comments Off on Ambient IQ: Intelligence Anywhere and Everywhere

Innovations in Food Technology

http://youtu.be/Bk-9ndL3ykM At VLAB’s February 2014 event on “Where’s the Beef: Startups Disrupting the Food Chain,” moderator Stacy Feld, Partner at Physic Ventures, broke the ice with a survey. Only one vegan raised her hand. “How many of you are meat eaters?” Over half the crowd. “Vegetarians?” Less than half. “Vegans? … Well at least we have [...]

By | 2017-05-18T17:47:12-07:00 March 8th, 2014|Food Technology|Comments Off on Innovations in Food Technology

Young Entrepreneurs Are Human, Need Guidance, and Will Succeed By Force Of Will

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f01M6Q0Ot04 Adam Draper, moderator of the recent VLAB event on Young Entrepreneurs, had his work cut out for him. We may as well call him “Wrangler.” His panelists, through sheer force of personality, turned a collaborative Q and A into a Gen Y style debate. Or perhaps spirited and civil “battle of wits” would be [...]

By | 2017-05-18T17:47:13-07:00 February 1st, 2014|Uncategorized, Young Entrepreneurs|Comments Off on Young Entrepreneurs Are Human, Need Guidance, and Will Succeed By Force Of Will

4 Ways Driverless Cars will Disrupt the World

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nL-CqMenOqQ Forget about self-parking vehicles, hands-free highway travel, and automatic braking. Driverless cars could change the entire car industry, car ownership, and anything connected to transportation. What’s more, such vehicles should arrive by the end of this decade.   "Disruptive innovations... don’t attempt to bring better products to established customers… they are simpler, more convenient, [...]

By | 2017-05-18T17:47:13-07:00 December 30th, 2013|Autonomous Vehicles, Uncategorized|1 Comment

Revolutionizing Aerospace: For The Non-Rocket Scientists

Panelists contend that innovators from other industries can disrupt aerospace the same way Apple overturned music distribution. "You have to know absolutely nothing about helicopters to work with a company like Sikorsky," said Jonathan Hartman, Disruptive Technologies Lead of Sikorsky Innovations. His statement set the tone for VLAB's aerospace event on September 24. Two other [...]

By | 2017-05-18T17:47:13-07:00 October 7th, 2013|Aerospace|Comments Off on Revolutionizing Aerospace: For The Non-Rocket Scientists

Education Technology Tsunami: Common Core Disrupts K12

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmqErLWoqyg On Tuesday, September 17, VLAB kicked off the 2013-1014 season premiere with an evening program on the Education Technology Tsunami: Common Core Disrupts K12. The event started with a one hour networking session, with demonstrations by six up and coming startups. The main highlight of the evening, however, was the debate and insights provided by [...]

By | 2017-05-18T17:47:13-07:00 October 1st, 2013|Education|Comments Off on Education Technology Tsunami: Common Core Disrupts K12