Venture CaféIn the cafe this week we welcomed a number of newcomers, including Joe Bates from MIT’s Media Lab, James and Mark from Square 1 Bank (a new CIC client! and ‘creative lender’ to startups), Rory O’Connor (The Essay Exchange) and some regulars like David Im (Mercavo), Tom Waggoner, Eric Braun (South Shore Innovation Center), Samuel Chow and Mark Soper (rallyplan.com).
Part of the intimate crowd this week included appearances by Galen Moore (Mass High Tech staff writer) and Greg Huang (Xconomy Boston editor), who scheduled a meeting at the Cafe with each other (!), Bobbie Carlton (Mass Innovation Nights organizer), and Joost Bonsen (MIT ‘minion’).
A piece of our mission is to be a window into Kendall Square’s buildings, to benefit the Kendall community as well as the Greater Boston community. This week we hosted the MIT VentureShips Club to talk about the opportunities for startups to work with teams of MIT grads and undergrads during the term. (“VentureShips” is a mash-up of venture and internship – i.e., internships at startups.) Taroon Aggarwal, Vice President of External Relations, as well as two of his colleagues chatted with attendees about their startups and about the program from 4-6pm.
As I’ve done in the past – an incentive to connect your LinkedIn profile to your nametag is getting listed here. Here are the stars for this week, in order of check in: Matt Hodgson, Ben Hron, Michael Cohen, Chris Myles, and Amy Tindell. I’d love to be able to mention you in a future week! All you have to do is connect your LinkedIn profile, visit the cafe on a Thursday when we’re open, and sign in to the virtual nametag system. Email info@venturecafe.net if you have any trouble connecting your profile.
Thanks again to all of our visitors, this week and every week, and to our 801 (!) Twitter followers! You are what makes Venture Cafe the place to be on Thursdays… well, that and our great beer 
- Carrie
