Friend of Click Valley Venture Mentors Secures $150k grant!

Valley Venture Mentors, a startup mentoring program based in Springfield and co-founded by Click President Paul Silva, today was awarded $150,000 in grant funding from the State at a ceremony officiated by the Governor.  More than 30 programs applied for the funding, only 3 received funding, and the other two programs have budgets of >>10x Valley Venture Mentors.  Not too shabby!  Full press release from the State Government here.

The grant funding will allow significant expansion of mentoring options for Western MA-based startups.  Several Clickster teams are already involved with Valley Venture Mentors (EdgeFlip & KnowledgeWare21), and we expect more will enroll in the coming years.

Congrats Valley Venture Mentors!

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Congrats Chris Landry: Signed a Distribution Agreement for his Latest Short Film

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Click member Chris Landry has signed a distribution agreement for his short film, Joanna Macy and the Great Turning. 

The 26-minute film, which is based on an interview with Macy, the 84-year-old environmental writer, teacher and activist, will be distributed by the Video Project, a San Francisco-based company that distributes environmental films to multiple audiences, including colleges, community groups, and consumers.

Chris has been involved in video production for a number of years, but this is his first film. It will be released this spring.  Congrats Chris!

Social Entrepreneur Jay Piltser Joins Click!

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Click is delighted to welcome our newest member, Jay Piltser.  Jay is a self described geek turning her technical prowess to make the world a better place through her latest startup: DiscoveringYourAwesome.  

In her own words...

“Developing strengths, my own and those who play with me, is my main focus. An important subset of which, are: a positive and accurate identity, effective communication and relationship skills, awareness of social justice issues and tools for reaching goals and optimizing productivity.
Some of what I am playing with right now includes:
Coaching smart people who need more confidence, making educational or just silly YouTube videos, WordPress, psychology and education, social and life skills workshops for teens, research on high ability and underachievement, sensitivities and intensity in people, Go and other board games, nutrition and how protein and green stuff is good for us, researching how labels are useful and limiting, being outside when it is warm and sunny.”
— http://www.discoveringyourawesome.com/about-jay/

Clean Water For The Philippines, From Car Batteries And Kentucky College Students

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FastCoExist brings us this awesome story of college entrepreneurs who have found a way to sustainably deliver clean water to folks in the Philippines (or anywhere) using cheap, readily available components.

“The M-100 Chlorine Generator isn’t complicated or beautifully designed. It looks like a lot of hose and pipe connected to a device the size of a large thermos. Developed by two retired GE engineers, each device is meant to be cheap, rugged, and efficient. It can chlorinate 1,000 gallons of water an hour with a bit of table salt and a simple car battery or solar panel as a power source, and its waste products—chlorine and sodium hydroxide—can be used as disinfectants or mixed together to make a harmless saline solution.”
— FastCoExist

Thanks FastCoExist for sharing another example of how entrepreneurs are the greatest force for good on the planet!

Full article