August Bendynews!
It seems like Bendyworkers are always out and about doing amazing things in the Madison community and beyond. I thought I’d start sharing what we’re up to and where we’ve been. It’s exciting stuff!
This has been a busy couple of weeks: it was Madison’s Forward Fest! 43 Events in 8 days. I was honored to present an award at the Wisconsin Innovation Awards, Forward Fest’s unofficial kickoff.
Bendyworks was nominated for a Most Innovative Company Award at the Greater Madison Chamber’s NeXXpo, and I’m happy to report that we won the first round and are Semi-Finalists! We’ll be squaring off on December 14th at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art for a chance to win!
Bendyworks was the primary sponsor of Maydm’s Code Madison Forward, and 2 of our developers, Ryan Corbin and Pearl Latteier were team coaches. We love Maydm and the great work they do connecting girls and youth of color with opportunities to learn and engage with technology. It fits exceptionally well with our mission, To SHARE JOY and SUCCESS in our CRAFT.
Bendyworks was featured as a success story on NBC15 when the Kauffman report came out, giving Wisconsin bad marks for entrepreneurship. I know a few people who would beg to differ! Boo, hiss, etc. But we love the positive mention for Bendyworks and our development team. Our “Square Room” is prominently featured in the clip!
We had a blast supporting our friends, Chins Up, Madison-Area Urban Ministry and the Doyenne Group at two fundraising listening parties for Live on King Street. It was a great way to take advantage or our great location, and we had a blast!
I spent some time with the UW’s IT Academy, a program for high school students interested in tech, giving feedback on team entrepreneurship projects. We also hosted some high school students from the Madison Public Schools for our in-house Technical Talk Tuesday just a few days ago. I also gave a talk on Diversity in Tech to the Madison PHP Meetup a few weeks ago.
Several Bendyworkers were also at MidwestJS in Minneapolis! It was a great conference- I would definitely go again!
No doubt, we’re pretty excited for the Labor Day holiday. A little time to rest, and then off to WindyCity Rails, WindyCity DevCon (where Abraham and Pearl will be presenting) and the Madison PHP Conference, (where Peter, Pearl, Abraham, and I will all be presenting). Bendyworks will also be hosting the Madison Women in Tech for a Networking How-to.
August was great. September is looking even better!
Follow my adventures on Twitter @AshleyPQPQP.