Tagged: entrepreneurship

It was his 22-year-old niece that gave Amir Cohen the inspiration to quit his job working in Israel's tech sector and start his own company.

Every time she gets in a taxicab in Israel she has her cell phone in-hand, ready to call her father in case of an emergency.

"This was the original trigger," Cohen recalls. "Letting people feel safer and be safer on their daily routine - when they're going to a party, getting in a taxi, whatever."

The end product: a smartphone app called Guard My Angel that allows users to pre-program a list of emergency contacts. If you feel threatened or are in an accident, an alert is sent out with your location.

When the first StartFast Venture Accelerator begins this morning in Syracuse, the clock will start ticking for nine startups hoping to turn their big idea into a profit maker.

Modeled on similar accelerators around the country, the teams have 100 days to soak up as much advice and support as they can. They're also given seed money and workspace.

StartFast is the creation of two local entrepreneurs, Chuck Stormon and Nasir Ali. In return for the investment and admittance into the program, Stormon and Ali get a small stake in the company.

Trust us: Running an online news operation can be hard work.

That's especially the case in the cash-strapped newsrooms of small newspapers across the country.

But what if the work of producing a news website could be outsourced? What if having an online presence required no additional effort from your paper's precious few reporters?

That's where Our Hometown comes in.

"It's really a complete turnkey service," says CEO and founder Steve Larson. "Our key is, Let us take care of it and get every bit of usefulness out of what you're producing - without having to change your process at all."

The recession brought widespread unemployment across the U.S., but it also prompted a spike in the number of freelance or independent workers.

More than 30 percent of the nation's workers now work on their own, and the research firm IDC projects the number of nontraditional office workers — telecommuters, freelancers and contractors — will reach 1.3 billion worldwide by 2015.

Typically, freelancers get to choose when and where they work. Many opt to set up shop in "co-working" arrangements, where they can rent a cubicle and other office resources by the day or the month.

It was once a relatively simple process to sign up with a co-working site.

Walking into the warehouse of Crazy Dog T-shirts is like walking into a weird library of pop culture references.

Chunk from The Goonies is on one shelf; Baby Carlos from The Hangover sits on another. There’s thousands of shirts stacked across the length of the company’s Village Gate headquarters.

Owner Bill Kingston explains: His company’s bread-and-butter is funny t-shirts inspired by internet memes and blockbuster comedies.

“Hangover, Anchorman - there’s probably eight shirts in here right from Anchorman,” Kingston says. “Concepts like ‘I’m kind of a big deal,’ ‘Milk was a bad choice.’

“Stuff that people find hilarious can be put on a shirt so easily.”

For reasons both economic and strategic, universities around the country are increasingly trying to woo international students.

Last year, SUNY announced plans to boost international enrollment by more than 75 percent. California's public university system is in the midst of a similar recruiting push - which has been met with bumpy results.

Playing matchmaker to thousands of international students and their institutional suitors has its share of challenges.

That's where PlanetGPA comes in.

"We call ourselves 'the eHarmony of education'," says CEO and founder Uma Gupta. "[We] really help both sides find each other and be the perfect match."