GarageGeeks Blog

In our series “meet the Industry leaders”, the GarageGeeks and Yossi Vardi invite you to a special garage event, to meet:

* Jonathan Matus - Mobile Platform Product Marketing, Facebook
* Amina Belghiti - Platform Partnerships EMEA, Facebook
* Aryeh Selekman - Developer R…elations - Mobile Platform, Facebook

In October 2011, Facebook announced the Facebook Mobile Platform, bringing social channels and distribution to mobile apps.
Since then, momentum has been building, and today, more than 60 million visitors interact with apps and games on the platform every month.

A night before the Facebook Hackathon, you are invited to join the Facebook Platform team for a meet and mingle party at the GarageGeeks.
The session include an overview of facebook mobile platform, talk about the announcements made in MWC and what they mean for developers, and a Q&A .

The event will take place on:
Monday, March 12, 20:00
GarageGeeks HQ,
HaPeled 40, Holon

* This is a User Generated Dinner, so, bring some snacks and drinks to share with others.
* GarageGeeks is sponsored by Microsoft and Initial Capital.

In our series “meet the Industry leaders”,

the GarageGeeks and Yossi Vardi invite you to a special garage event, to meet:

Mike Morhaime, CEO and Co-Founder, Blizzard Entertainment.

The event will take place on Wednesday, December 21st, Garage HQ, HaPeled 40, Holon at 19:00

This is a User Generated Dinner, so, bring some snacks and drinks to share with other.

* In case it rains the event will move to “The Library” (Ha’Sifria) at Migdal Shalom and a separate announcement will be sent to all participants who RSVP.

please RSVP at http://bit.ly/s4HkYo

* GarageGeeks is sponsored by Carmel Ventures and Gemini Israel Funds

Come join the GeekCon family and celebrate GeekCon 2011 with us. See videos from this year, talk projects and (for participants!) get the promised t-shirt!
Good opportunity to beer up and start thinking GeekCon 2012, biggest best one yet.
If you’re interested in GeekCon and plan to attend next year’s event, this is the perfect opportunity to see what we’ve got planned next.

The event will take place on
Thursday, December 22th, 20:00
at Garage HQ, HaPeled 40, Holon

* GeekCon website http://geekcon.org/

* This is a User Generated Dinner, so bring some snacks and drinks to share.
* GarageGeeks is sponsored by Carmel Ventures and Gemini Israel Funds

The GarageGeeks and SpaceIL invite you to an out of this world garage event, to meet:

Amir Give’on, As an engineer at the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL), Amir develops and implements algorithms primarily for NASA’s Terrestrial Planet Finder project. This project is designing space-based telescopes to search for Earth-like planets. Prior to his position at JPL, Amir spent 2006 at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) as a post-doc after earning a PhD in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University.

While at Princeton, both as a doctoral candidate and undergraduate student, Amir developed algorithms for high contrast space-based imaging systems and an early autonomous vehicles image-processing based control systems.

In his “non-existent spare time”, Amir is the chair of BINA LA, a pro-Israel young professional organization aims to connect Israelis and American Jews through intellectual events (see www.binala.org), and serves on the board of Act For Israel, a pro-Israel organization, aiming to advocate for Israel in social networks.

The event will take place on

Thursday, Deceber 8th, 20:30

at Garage HQ, HaPeled 40, Holon

* This is a User Generated Dinner, so bring some snacks and drinks to share.

* GarageGeeks is sponsored by Carmel Ventures and Gemini Israel Funds

You are invited to participate in a Natural Interaction ® Hackathon.
At the workshop, PrimeSense will lend the sensors for group members to proceed developing the projects for the following week.
The hackathon starts at 17,18 November at GarageGeeks, and a week later you need to submit your project.

if you are into it, read more below.

=======================
About Natural Interaction ® Hackathon
=======================
Game developers, traditional developers, graphic designers, creative’s are invited to create and submit cool “Natural Interaction ® application”.
PrimeSense will lend sensors for each group during up to 1 week.
Jury will be composed by 3 experts who will designate a winning project.

Designing or porting games to become motion controlled is not reserved to an elite few.
Using the OpenNI Framework with OpenNI compatible Middleware and depth sensors, developers can easily integrate full-body control and interactive augmented reality into their games.
Designers are just starting to explore possible game mechanics and gameplays enabled by gesture-based technologies.
This Hackathon will demonstrate how easy this process is, using tools and environments that are familiar to many game developers such as Unity3D.
It’s as simple as developing a keyboard-based application!

=======================
Contest Condition:
=======================
* All OpenNI compliant projects will be eligible to the competition (As per the OpenNI Guidelines PDF doc)
* Participants will have 1 week to submit their project.
* Upload your project to OpenNI Arena before deadline (With Source Code to share with the community)
* Project shouldn’t require any additional purchase (software/hardware)

=======================
References
=======================
Everything is available and downloadable for free from http://www.openni.org
* NI Apps guidelines
* Documentations
* OpenNI: SDK Binaries, Samples & Source code
* NiTE: Middleware Binaries and Samples
* Unity3D Wrapper (Latest version of the wrapper was released in the latest “Unstable Version” package)
* Many developers published their own NI Apps on the Arena: http://arena.openni.org – often with source code

=======================
Top 5 prizes:
=======================
* 1st: 1 Rare handcrafted PrimeSense prototype Sensor (OpenNI compliant) with original and exclusive “For test use only” stickers on it.
* 2nd to 5th: 1 OpenNI compliant Sensors each.

=======================
Schedule
=======================
Thursday 17th:
opening at 19:00
talks 19:30-21:00
lending sensors and beer 21:00 and on
Friday 18th:
opening 9:00
working till 18:00
18:00-19:00 show and tell
Saturday 26th
final date for project submission.

* bring some snacks and drinks to share with others.

* GarageGeeks is sponsored by Carmel Ventures and Gemini Israel Funds

 

In our series “Meet the Industry Leaders”, Yossi Vardi and the GarageGeeks, in cooperation with DLD,  invite you to a special session with:

• Stanley Fischer, the Governor of the Bank of Israel
• Sir Ronald Cohen, Founder of Apax
• David Fischer, VP of Advertising and Global Operations at Facebook
• Tom Rogers, President and CEO of TiVo
• Robert Stephens, CTO of Best Buy and founder of The Geek Squad
• Martin Varsavsky, Founder of Fon
• Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikimedia

Professor Stanley Fischer has been Governor of the Bank of Israel since May 2005. On May 1, 2010, Prof. Fischer was nominated Governor for a second term. Prior to joining the Bank of Israel, Prof. Fischer was Vice Chairman of Citigroup from February 2002 through April 2005.  From 1994 to 2001 he was First Deputy Managing Director (the number 2 position) of the IMF.  From 1973 to 1994 he was Professor of Economics in the MIT Department of Economics.

Sir Ronald Cohen is a pioneer of the UK venture capital industry, having co-founded Apax Partners in 1972, which went on to become the largest private equity firm in Europe. He was a founder, director and chairman of the British Venture Capital Association and a founder director of the European Venture Capital Association. He is also prominent in the social sector, as chair of the UK Social Investment Task Force and the Commission on Unclaimed Assets, as a donor and as founder of Bridges Ventures and the Portland Trust.

David Fischer is the VP of Advertising and Global Operations at Facebook and oversees sales, advertiser marketing, and customer operations throughout the world. He joined Facebook after over seven years at Google, where he was VP of Global Online Sales and Operations and was responsible for Google’s online sales channel, which represents the majority of Google’s customers worldwide. In that role, he helped build Google’s online advertising network into the largest in the world.

Tom Rogers is the President and CEO of TiVo Inc., the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVR). He holds this position since 2005. Before TiVo, Rogers was Chairman and CEO of PRIMEDIA Inc., which then was the leading targeted media company in the United States. Previously, Rogers was President of NBC Cable and EVP of NBC, as well as NBC’s chief strategist and founder of the leading news channel CNBC.

Robert Stephens is the CTO of Best Buy and founder of The Geek Squad. In April 1994, after 3 years of building flight and driving simulators at the Human Factors Research Laboratory of the University of Minnesota, he formed The Geek Squad with $200. In 2002, The Geek Squad acquired Best Buy and opened Geek Squad precincts in all Best Buy US and Canadian stores. Now, with over 25,000 Agents, The Geek Squad is now the world’s largest technology support company.

Martin Varsavsky is the founder and CEO of FON, the largest WiFi network in the world with over 4 million hotspots. Martin is an Argentine entrepreneur and philanthropist who founded highly successful companies such as Viatel, Jazztel and Ya.com. Martin also teaches at the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid, Spain and is President and Founder of The Varsavsky Foundation and the Safe-Democracy Foundation, and was Ambassador-at-Large of Argentina up to 2005.

Jimmy Wales is an Internet entrepreneur and wiki enthusiast, and founder of the Wikipedia project. In 1999, Jimmy had the concept of a freely distributable encyclopedia and founded Nupedia, by hiring philosopher Larry Sanger as editor-in-chief and assigning two programmers to write software for it. After two years of working with the Nupedia concept, that team opened Wikipedia to help channel content into Nupedia; Wikipedia became an instant success, but not in the envisioned way, and Nupedia was shut down. In 2003, Jimmy set up the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization, to support Wikipedia and its sister projects.

The event will take place on: Thursday, June 23rd,  20:30 at GarageGeeks HQ, HaPeled 40, Holon
* This is a User Generated Dinner, so, bring some snacks and drinks to share with others.
* This event is also sponsored by DLD
* GarageGeeks is sponsored by Carmel Ventures and Gemini Israel Funds

in our series “meet the Industry leaders”, the GarageGeeks and Yossi Vardi invite you to a special garage event, to meet:

* Alex Kipman: General Manager of Incubation for Xbox, Entertainment hardware innovation and incubation.

* Sara Clemens – General Manager, Strategy & Business Development – Interactive Entertainment Group ( XBOX, TV)

* Brian Schultz – Director Corp Dev & M&A

* Sam Rosenbalm – Director – Entrepreneur community development

* Charlie Kindel – General Manager – WindowsPhone Ecosystem and 3rd Party Developers

in the presence of Moshe Lichtman – President Israel Development Center , Yoram Yaacovi – CTO and Zack (Tzahi) Weisfeld – Sr. Director Strategy and Business Development

The event will take place on:
Monday, May 30, 20:00
at GarageGeeks HQ, HaPeled 40, Holon

* Pizzas, Beers and Light beverages will be supplied
* GarageGeeks is sponsored by Carmel Ventures and Gemini Israel Funds.

This second Arduino workshop hosted by the Arduino master, Arnon Katz http://twitter.com/nonikatz

Bring your own laptop and arduino if you have - we’ll bring a few.
Place for 40 or so hardware savvy (or wannabiz)
If you already started working on some project, excellent, bring it over and we’ll do some further improvements together.

24 Feb 20:30
GarageGeeks HQ
HaPeled 40, Holon

The Arduino website:
http://arduino.cc/
Download of the Arduino Software:
http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Software
Arduino and Processing:
http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Interfacing/Processing

Some videos of things we can do with Arduino:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PgvRAeuIrk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMKiN_5nrUI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmLU4GS7zAI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PgvRAeuIrk

http://www.arduino.co.il/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8063975.stm

in our series “meet the Industry leaders”, the GarageGeeks and Yossi Vardi invite you to a special garage event, to meet:

Carl Bass, Autodesk, President and Chief Executive Officer.

Carl Bass is president and chief executive officer of Autodesk, Inc.  Autodesk products serve the manufacturing, building, infrastructure, and media and entertainment industries.
Formerly he was Autodesk’s chief operating officer, responsible for worldwide sales, marketing, and product development.  Earlier roles included chief strategy officer and executive vice president of emerging business, looking broadly across the entire Autodesk organization at strategy and growth opportunities.

He also served as chief technology officer (CTO) and vice president of the AECAD group, responsible for the design and development of AutoCAD and AEC products.  When Autodesk spun off its Buzzsaw division as a separate start-up, Bass left to be its chairman, CEO and president. He returned to Autodesk when Buzzsaw was acquired by the company.

Bass co-founded Ithaca Software, the developers of HOOPS, which was acquired by Autodesk in 1993.
Bass serves on the Board of Directors of Autodesk, McAfee, and iRise and is a member of the Executive Advisory Boards of Cornell Computing and Information Science and FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science & Technology).  He holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Cornell University.

The event will take place on:
Tuesday, November 2,  20:30 at GarageGeeks HQ, HaPeled 40, Holon

* This is a User Generated Dinner, so, bring some snacks and drinks to share with others.
* GarageGeeks is sponsored by Carmel Ventures and Giza VC

* Tag your photos and videos with GarageGeeks
* Get email notification when photos from the GarageGeeks events and other events you participated go on-line.
Activate your bluetooth at the event & join to http://www.tagsback.com/

in our series “meet the Industry leaders”, the GarageGeeks and Yossi Vardi invite you to a special garage event, to meet:

Elliot Schrage, Facebook, VP of Global Communications, Marketing and Public Policy.

Elliot Schrage is the Vice President of Global Communications, Marketing and Public Policy,
where he is responsible for developing and coordinating key messages about products, corporate business and partnerships.
He also oversees the company’s public policy strategy worldwide.
Elliot joined Facebook from Google, where he was the Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs.
He helped broaden and coordinate the company’s messaging from a focus on product PR to include all aspects of corporate, financial, policy, philanthropic and internal communications.
Prior to Google, Elliot was the Bernard L. Schwarz Senior Fellow in business and foreign policy at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.
Earlier in his career, Elliot served as the Senior Vice President of Global Affairs for Gap Inc. and an adjunct professor at Columbia University and Columbia Law School.
He has been a contributor to the Harvard Business Review and the Financial Times. Elliot holds a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government and a JD from Harvard Law School.
The event will take place on:
Thursday, October 28th,  20:30 at GarageGeeks HQ, HaPeled 40, Holon

* This is a User Generated Dinner, so, bring some snacks and drinks to share with others.
* GarageGeeks is sponsored by Carmel Ventures and Giza VC

* Tag your photos and videos with GarageGeeks
* Get email notification when photos from the GarageGeeks events and other events you participated go on-line.
Activate your bluetooth at the event & join to http://www.tagsback.com/