2018 Schedule

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Maker

Tuesday, Sep 25
8:00am — 9:30am
Sherman & Howard in Block 162
169 attending

There's no I in Team: Learning to build a product and team bigger than you

So you have a great idea and can work the tech behind it, now what? Join two local hardware founders as they discuss their journey to bring their ideas to life. You will learn different approaches to building a small hardware team, and dive into the lessons each entrepreneur and their team learned along the way.

Panel includes members of Gadgettronix,Alkyhaul, PuppTech, and Specdrums, startups that have made use of cutting edge sensors and technology, and have backings of different companies such as Arrow, Indiegogo, and Sphero.

Moderator:
Lindsey Cross: Mechanical Engineer, Sphero and Owner, Luhu Design LLC
Lindsey worked in the aerospace industry for over 5 years, learning the ins and outs of taking a product from customer requirements to launch. She has used that strong engineering background to start her own consulting company, Luhu Design, where she helps startups to get their ideas off the ground, or over that production hump. Currently, she works on robots that help teach kids STEAM concepts and coding and hopes to continue to inspire others to take the leap into hardware.

Panelists:
Anthony Dobaj: Founder, Gadgettronix
A self-described geek, open source evangelist, STEM advocate and technology wonk, Tony Dobaj has been developing electromechanical gadgets for around 35 years for such companies as Boeing, Nokia and IDEXX to name a few.

He formed Gadgettronix in 2010 to pursue opportunities in the IoT and wearable electronics, a burgeoning field fueled by some really cool innovations.

Since getting the green light to run Gadgettronix full time in 2012, Tony has dabbled in the semantic web, assisted in technical and business development for a web-based cyber security SaaS product, and iterated several times on a system architecture for wireless, autonomous sensor nodes using open source hardware and firmware and associated business development, and is having the time of his

Wil McCarthy,: CTO, Alkyhaul
Wil McCarthy is a former contributing editor for WIRED magazine, and an occasionally bestselling author who has been nominated for 11 national awards, and published hundreds of articles in places like Discover, GQ, Popular Mechanics, IEEE Spectrum, and the Journal of Applied Polymer Science. He holds patents in 7 countries, including 29 issued U.S. patents. He is presently, among other things, the CTO of AlkyHaul -- his sixth startup.

William Loopesko: Founder, Pupp Tech
William Loopesko is the Founder/CEO of PuppTech an emerging IoT startup dedicated to creating technology to help dog owners care for their dogs. William is a Denver native and Graduated from Bates College in Maine with a degree in geology before coming home to get his MS in Civil Engineering at The Colorado School of Mines. William spent three years as a water engineer with Leonard Rice Engineers in Denver before leaving to work on PuppTech full-time in Spring 2016. He was inspired to start PuppTech out of a desire to be able to safely be able to spend more time in the mountains with his dog Clovis. In 2017 PuppTech was named one of the top 50 startups in the world by TiE Global. Since then PuppTech has closed a first round of angel funding for $170K and recently completed a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo where they were able to hit their goal in just 3 days.

Steven Dourmashkin: Founder, Specdrums
Steven earned his B.S. and M.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University, where he founded Specdrums. He then moved to Boulder, CO to start a PhD in Aerospace Engineering at CU Boulder. A year into his PhD, he launched a successful Kickstarter campaign for Specdrums, raising $188,911 to begin large-scale manufacturing. Steven then worked full time at Specdrums as the CEO and head of product development, until Specdrums became acquired by Sphero in June 2018. Steven enjoys entrepreneurship, developing new products, and solving challenging problems.