Thanks for joining us and our friends at ACM Design last week to talk about branding! Here’s a recording of the Weekly Night if you missed it :)
If you have a pitch presentation for us swing by tomorrow! We’ll be doing a chill presentation & feedback type situation at tinyurl.com/BEweeklynights.
1000 Pitches
Congratulations to our 1000 Pitches first place winner, Tony Jiang. Tony pitched his idea Toddler Talk, a messenger app for kids that utilizes natural language processing to automatically flag harmful messaging and notify the parents, and won our $300 grand prize!
Also, special shoutout to founder Lance Ding for winning second place with his company Mastered Tutors, a humanitarian-focused platform for connecting college student tutors with paying customers. We want to express our gratitude to the audience members who came to watch and especially all of our contestants for pitching their amazing ideas throughout our four-week campaign. Make sure to find us again next fall for 1KP 2021!
ICYMI (Some Current Events)
DoorDash Engineering Expands to Seattle
Food-delivery service DoorDash announced its plans to expand its engineering sector into Seattle, Washington. Within the next year, DoorDash will join the 125 other engineering centers in the city and hire 100 engineers to focus on building new products, including DoorDash Drive and DashMart. This decision comes during an unprecedented shift to remote work, and DoorDash has stated that their employees will continue to work from home while they purchase a physical office. Read more about DoorDash’s expansion here.
Tomo Networks Raises $40 Million Seed Round
Greg Schwartz and Carey Armstrong, two former Zillow Group execs, raised a massive $40 million seed round for their new startup, Tomo Networks. Intent on redefining the mortgage market, the CEOs describe Tomo as a fintech startup whose first product is a “tech-fueled mortgage and transaction platform targeted at both real estate agents and consumers.” Notable investors include Trulia co-founder Pete Flint and Spencer Rascoff, the former CEO of Zillow. Read more about Tomo Networks here.
Upcoming Events
Startup Labs
Startup Labs is an in-house pre-accelerator program hosted annually by UCLA’s premier entrepreneurship organization, Bruin Entrepreneurs. At Startup Labs, we select candidates at any stage based on their ingenuity, intelligence, and willingness to strive for success. Over a twelve-week period, we help our founders grow their startups by providing them with mentorship, virtual working spaces, alumni networks, weekly workshops, fireside chats, VC introductions, funding opportunities, and any other resources they need.
Apps are due November 20th.
Contact paoloshamoon@ucla.edu for any questions about the program!
UCI Design-a-thon
Feeling a little competitive? Ready to practice your designing skills?
Participate in our 2020 Design-a-thon by joining solo or in a team to design a product focused on mindfulness and productivity!
Open to all college students, this 3-day online event will take place on Nov 20 to 22! Our goal is to challenge and hone your design thinking process by introducing you to a real-life social issue that you—an aspiring designer—need to address and solve. This event will include workshops, guest speakers, resources, and a community to help you through the designing process... And there will be prizes for the winners!!
Applications are live at https://designatuci.com/designathon
Registration closes on November 13, 2020 at 11:59 PM (PST).
No prior experience required so invite your friends! More information can be found through our Facebook event page or website.
To visit our other socials: linktr.ee/designatuci
Relief Organizations
Give Blck
Give Blck is a comprehensive database that compiles over 200 Black-founded nonprofits to help advocate their respective mission statements and give them a larger platform. They hope to alleviate societal problems while also empowering underrepresented communities by providing them with the resources, opportunities, and infrastructure to succeed. This is the first project from Work & Co Fund’s commitment to a $1mil investment in nonprofits to advance the Black community.
Feeding America
Feeding America is a domestic hunger-relief organization that is a network of over 200 food banks that provide support to millions of people. They are working to reduce hunger and food insecurity caused by the economic fallout of COVID-19. If you're willing, you can donate to their COVID-19 Response Fund here to help them purchase food and fund local food banks during this crisis.
Happy voting szn,
Bruin Entrepreneurs 😳