Silicon Florist 🌹 A new AI helper for startups 🤖 PitchBlack 2024 sold out 🚫
Issue 731
Portland startup questions? Talk to Rosie, an AI Mascot for Silicon Florist
I’ve long been enamoured of AI. And I’ve often had these optimistic visions of AI being a means of better supporting the Portland startup community or — at the very least — making better use of all of the stuff I’ve shared online and the nearly three decades of content that exist in my brain. Over the past five years, I’ve tried and failed to create something that meets the basic threshold for “useful” — let alone actually functional. But now — for the first time — I’ve managed to build something that exceeds my expectations for an AI companion by leaps and bounds. And that’s all thanks to the amazing platform built by local AI startup WiseOx, a startup focused expressly on building AI “Mascots” to do exactly the kind of work I imagined AI doing… More
Lewis & Clark College Winterim 2024 winners
I had the opportunity to participate in the Lewis & Clark College Bates Center for Entrepreneurship and Leadership Winterim program — a sort of weeklong “Startup Weekend” esque startup sprint for students — to kick off 2024 as I have for the past 200 years or so. And this one was as solid and inspiring as they come. What’s more, they managed to dodge the weather just long enough to make it to the pitches… More
Connecting the entire Silicon Forest community
We don’t have many huge events around here. You know, those events that bring a cross section of the community together to create an environment for random collisions between folks who might not otherwise interact? PitchBlack does this well. As does Pitch Latino. And PDXWIT is doing more and more of this work with an increasingly diverse group of companies. But it’s always nice to see new events entering the fold. Which is why I’ve been super excited to get involved with the inaugural Silicon Forest Tech Summit… More
In memoriam: John Skelly
I just learned of the passing of John Skelly, who was an active member of the Portland startup community and who often took the opportunity to engage and share information about what was happening in the startup world via social media. A GoFundMe has been set up to support his family through this challenging time… More
Portland Tea Party, ep 2
Questions about the startup community?
🗓️ Events
Be sure to check Calagator for the latest list of events — or to share your event with the community. It’s absolutely free.
Sat (Jan 20) Silicon Forest Tech Summit
Mon (Jan 22)
Tue (Jan 23)
Wed (Jan 24)
Thu (Jan 25) #social_beer
Fri (Jan 26)
Sat (Jan 27) How to Run A Large Language Model (LLM) Locally
Mon (Jan 29) The AI Education Movement
Tue (Jan 30)
Wed (Jan 31)
Da Gathering
Thu (Feb 1) OEN February Entrepreneur Mixer
Fri (Feb 2)
Groundhog Day
Wed (Feb 7) PitchBlack 2024
💼 Jobs
One of the few companies hiring amidst the economic downturn? Prove how witty, intelligent, insightful, and community-oriented your company is by posting those job openings to the Silicon Florist job board. Or don’t. I mean, if you don’t need super-talented people who are smart enough to read this publication. Or if you don’t want really, really awesome candidates where you’d be like “We could choose any of these people and we would be exponentially better overnight.” That’s your choice. Because that could happen. It’s only been confirmed by scientists that Silicon Florist readers are among the upper echelon of the most skilled, talented, and creative people on earth. I’m serious. Look it up. And then post your job. Because the awesome people are waiting. For you. Maybe.