A Superhero born to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in the world; the Superhero who has come to serve and protect your startup.

Tune in each week to a new chapter of Start-Up Chile Man.

Krawst, second generation Start-Up Chile participants whose mission is to promote getting to know locals while traveling, has compiled a list of Valentine’s Day activities from around the world that  promotes that exact ideal.

The activities listed on www.krawst.com include joining a daddy-daughter ball in Chicago, learning to make sushi, chocolates and other comfort food, horseback wine tasting, doing Pilates on water, or painting in the park. The suggestions are not just for couples as they similarly include activities suitable for groups, friends, and singles.

The team compiled the list of activities from sites that specialize in travel activities hosted by locals. It is their goal to grow the industry together with these partner sites and make taking part in activities hosted by locals more commonplace.

Ryan Lou, Founder of Krawst says, “many of the ideas listed on our site are things people can do in the city where they actually live. Also, we are interesting in hearing more travel activities that people would be interested in at spread@Krawst.com, in return we’ll send a Valentine’s gift to the most interesting ideas.”

The H2020 Project, one of Start-Up Chile’s pilot program participants, has been selected as a winner for Netexplo 2012. The award recognizes outstanding initiatives in internet/digital technology which illustrate the big picture of changes at work in society.  Winners represent companies who are leaders in the trends that will transform the private and work spheres.  Winners are chosen by a panel of more than 200 experts around the world. More information is available at http://imag-netexplo.org/.

Erika Anderson, founder and CEO, will speak about her work at Netexplo’s annual Forum March 15-16 at UNESCO in Paris.  The goal of the  Forum is to provide major industry players a round-up of this year’s most disruptive uses of digital technology,  and to create opportunity for dialogue with the pioneers from around the world who are behind the most interesting and significant projects.

Erika will speak about the power of digital technology to improve information collection, aggregation and standardization, especially within areas relating to development, the bottom of the economic pyramid, and sustainability.

REXP Inc., which provides technical support for the H2020 projects, is a company offering full-service support for collecting and mapping data using mobile devices.  REXP supports all aspects of field data management, including writing and structuring surveys; running surveys on a variety platforms (such as tablets and mobile phones); designing, maintaining and hosting databases using the cloud; and publication of information using cutting edge mapping tools.  REXP also works with organizations to assist in standardizing data and functioning as a clearing house for information across organizations.

Cristian Palacios, the Mexican entrepreneur and CEO of the company Aventones, will be the speaker for the next meetup in Concepción related to “Environmentally Friendly Startups” that is being organized along with InnovaChile Bío Bío. Aventones is in Chile thanks to Start-Up Chile and essentially offers a full service that facilitates and promotes carpooling. They have a system online where people from the same organization can make agreements about arranging rides together.

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Cristina Palacios, emprendedora Mexicana y CEO de la compañía Aventones será expositora del Meet Up “Emprendimientos amigables con el medio ambiente” que estamos organizando junto a Innova Bio Bio. Aventones esta en nuestro país gracias al apoyo del programa Start Up Chile y consiste en brindar un servicio integral que facilita y promueve la cultura de compartir el automóvil , ofreciendo un sistema en linea con el cual las personas que pertenecen a una misma organizacion se ponen de acuerdo.

What you need to know:
Date: Thursday, February 16th, 2012
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Pub–Restorant Santos, Bahamondes 49, Pedro de Valdivia, Concepción
RSVP to: http://www.meetup.com/AtreveteHOY-Biobio/events/50742382/

With the support of Faro Global‘s CEO, Roberto Pérez, and Corfo’s regional office in Puerto Montt, Start-Up Chile meetups will now be a permanent installment in the local entrepreneurial event circuit. Every month, program participants will travel South to speak about the challenges and rewards of bootstrapping their startups and to network with Chile’s southern-based entrepreneurs.

As a program, Start-Up Chile has been organizing meetups for over a year with the objective of connecting our participants with the local community through networking. Originally, the idea of collective meetups was born in the USA after September 11th, when a young entrepreneur, Scott Heiferman, built the meetup.com platform.

In 2012 we are looking forward to organizing more meetups from Chile’s North to South and we want to invite everyone who is interested in participating to join our network (www.meetup.com/startupchile) and become part of the high potential entrepreneurship community.

The monthly meetups that will take place in Puerto Varas are as follows:

1. Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Presenter: Gabriela Mejia
Startup: Escapeswithyou.com
Industry: Tourism

2. Thursday March 8th, 2012
Presenter: Ben Kaplan
Startup: Learndipity
Industry: Education and Communication

3. Thursday, March 29th, 2012
Presenter: Rebeca West
Startup: PorMano
Industry: Tourism/Artisan Goods

4. Thursday April 12th, 2012
Presenter: Nisar Shaik
Startup: AlcazarSolar
Industry: Energy

The challenge has been set– Girltank, the she-lab for entrepreneurship and second generation Start-Up Chile participant, is seeking to find 10,000 young women social entrepreneurs, innovators, and heroes. Their goal? “We want to show the world that young women from every region of the planet are making powerful contributions to society and leading social change. We want to tell your stories!” says Tara Roberts, one of Girltank’s co-founders.

Stemming from their movement to inspire women leaders, the 10,000 Names in 100 Days challenge was created in order to share stories of triumph and struggle with fellow entrepreneurs and with the world-at-large while promoting growth and scalability among the women’s’ social ventures.

There are no age restrictions for the challenge but entrants should fit into one or more of the the following roles: social entrepreneurship, founder of a nonprofit or social enterprise, artist bringing to light a social issue, a community-change initiator, a humanities researcher, or technology inventor whose products make life easier and better for others.

Each entry will receive a copy of “Catching Suki,” a short story by U.K.-based author Sarah Alderson (Hunting Lila and Fated), and the following prizes will be raffled by Girltank:

• $25 Amazon gift card
• $100 self-care package from LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics
• Apple iPad2
• An all-access pass to TED Global Conference 2013

If you’re interested in applying or nominating someone, please click here.

Join us in this meetup with Oskar Hjertonsson, the Founder of Groupon Latinamerica and a investor who will tell us his story.

Bio
- 31 years old, Swedish.
- Studied Civil Engineering
- First Company created in Chile by him in 2007: Needish (He struggled to bring Needish to the marketplace– it has millions of users, but with out a business model).
- Launched ClanDescuento, a clone of Groupon, in March 2010 and soldl that company to Groupon in June 2010.
-Today he is a angel investor in five companies, most of them located in the US.

What you need to know:
Date: Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
Time: 7:30pm
Location: Casa Lastarria, Lastarria 70, Santiago Centro
RSVP to: http://www.meetup.com/startupchile/events/50923822/

“We expected that Start-Up Chile would arrive with innovate ideas and solutions based on multi-platform technologies and they definitely did,” said Francisco Ortuzar, the CEO of Simplycit.

Publibee.com, Aventones, Ateneo Digital, and Printfor.me‘s CEOs pitched in front of the entire Board of Directors that heads Simplycit– the organization will choose two of the startups for a medium-term investment. Ortuzar adds: “Our investment will be related to the project’s potential contribution within our company, but varies between USD$10 and $50k.” The capital is in exchange for 3-6% of the company.

The selected entrepreneurs will have open doors to Simplycit’s various channels, will be invited give presentations to the company’s clients, and will be provided with work space and trade agreements on future projects.

Cristina Palacios, the CEO of Aventones, left the pitch session saying, “I think they can be a great strategic partner for ideas. They have broad business knowledge and can definitely help us in the process of opening operations in Chile.” “The event was very interesting and productive. It was a phenomenal chance to go out and put in practice our pitches,” explained Miguel Molina, Ateneo Digital’s CEO.

Next week, Simplycit will announce the two winners– stay tuned!

Together with Innova Bio Bio and Atrévete Hoy, we are organizing another meetup with the SUP entrepreneur Patrick Kedziora of Boilingice (empowers individuals to quickly and easily create (and take) an eLesson to instruct their peers, colleagues, employees or students and share it through social media). Come and join us in Concepción!

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Start Up Chile e Innova Bio Bio, junto a Atrévete Hoy, estamos organizando un nuevo Meet Up en donde el emprendedor Patrick Kedziora, fundador de Boilingice (“Nosotros le devolvemos el tiempo para enseñar y gestionar, ofreciéndoles una aplicación de fácil uso para teléfonos móviles, la cual permite crear y tomar pequeñas, de 3 a 5 minutos, lecciones”) dará a conocer los desafío y oportunidades de ser emprendedor.

Invita: Innova Bio Bio – Apoya: Start Up Chile - Organiza: AtréveteHOY!

Media Partner: Radio Florencia: 100.3FM – Revista Arriesgo

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What you need to know:
Date: Thursday, Feb. 9th, 2012
Time: 7:00pm
Location: Pub-Restorant Santos, Bahamondes 49, Concepción
RSVP to: http://www.meetup.com/startupchile/events/50724772/

Loogares.com, Chilean startup part of Start-Up Chile’s second generation, will now find themselves as part of another second generation– this time, with NXTP Labs (a member of the TechStars Network) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. They were selected, along with 14 other startups, to take part in the second round of this incubator’s program, receiving USD$25k.

Nicolas Brown, the CEO and Co-founder of Loogares.com, says that he plans to live in Buenos Aires for 4 months in order to grow an Argentine branch of their organization and to “generate a participative community of local users, close strategic alliances with media/brands/places in Buenos Aires, and raise further funds with hopes of expanding into the rest of Latin America.” The cost of the internet and new-media incubator? 5-10% of their company.

While Nicolas is living across the Andes, the rest of his Santiago-based team will be advancing with a new edition of the website which will include “an English version and many more locales” which they plan to launch simultaneously in Buenos Aires. Developing a mobile application, improving the user experience, and creating attractive and socially based contests and sales for Loogares.com aficionados are other tasks that the Chilean team will complete during the coming months.

The 4 month period of incubation with NXTP Labs will end with a Demo Day featuring “over one hundred investors, mentors, and entrepreneurs from Latin America.”