Sunday, September 29, 2013

GCC Center for Workforce to host second Startup Weekend Fredericksburg

Germanna Community College’s Center for Workforce and Community Education will host the second 54-hour Startup Weekend Fredericksburg Jan. 17-19 at the college’s Fredericksburg Area Campus in Spotsylvania.


Christine Goodwin is a member of FredXchange, which is putting the weekend together. She is CEO and co-founder WishStars, an online platform that brings corporate donors and educators together, was tabbed in December for one of the Center for Innovative Technology’s GAP 50 Entrepreneur Awards.
She explained in May, prior to the first Startup Weekend Fredericksburg, that Virginia has the highest concentration of information technology skilled and professional services people of any place in the country – and the many of them live in our region:
“Our greatest resource in this area is the incredibly talented human capital we have. And yet every day, we send more than 15,000 of them into Northern Virginia and D.C. to work. Too many people have resigned themselves to accept that to live here they must spend 12-14 hours a day five days a week getting to and from work in the worst traffic in the country.”
She said startups are the way to keep the talent, profits and jobs home in our area.
“We felt that … the only way to do this was to bring local entrepreneurs, interested enthusiasts and local economic development authorities together with angel and venture capital investors from Silicon Valley, Washington D.C. and Boston together for 54 hours to give the talent in this area a platform for launching.”


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