Nashville Technology Council

Big news out of Nashville today on the tech scene.  At our annual Membership Meeting, we hosted Mike Svinte, VP of IBM’s Smarter Cities and Healthcare and Alex Gounares, CTO for AOL who was a substitute for AOL CEO Tim Armstrong (ice issues in New York City this morning).  Mike provided a great overview of innovation and what he believes will be the core issues facing us in the next decade.  Alex shared insight of AOL’s strategy on the media front, including a call for Python programmers for StudioNow.  AOL is building an engineering center here in Nashville based around video technologies on Music Row.

While a majority of Nashville’s technology leadership were being educated at Trevecca today, Rockhouse Partners was sold to Etix.  PureSafety acquired Occupational Health Research out of Maine.  Bridgestone and Brookdale were both in the news on different fronts.  It feels pretty good to be in technology and in Nashville.

The Nashville Tech Story (July 9, 2009)

T3 was started in January of 2008; however, the actual work did not begin until the end of May 2008. Over 600 students and unemployed workers were touched by T3 over the last year through events and programs we produced. At every opportunity the topic of available jobs, what the technology industry in Nashville is like, and why they should choose Nashville over other cities was addressed. Over the past year the following has been accomplished:

• Three Solution Teams, Communicate, Collaborate, & Connect, were created to plan for and implement the strategies prioritized by the charter signing participants. Over 80 academic and Business Leaders participate on a solution team.
• The T3 Fund was established to raise money to support at least the first year expenses associated with the various events initiated by the Solution Teams. The goal of $20,000 was met. 
• A quarterly newsletter was launched in September to keep all T3 members and interested parties informed about our activities.
• Staff conducted a survey of its membership to produce metrics and gather information that will assist in the T3 effort to match business needs with academic objectives.
• T3 and InternNashville hosted an event (November 11) to educate the public on T3 and on the new Nashville Chamber of Commerce’s program, which is intended to engage local college students and connect them to the business community via internships. 60 academic and business leaders attended.
• 2 Job Readiness Seminars have been conducted (Austin Peay/Trevecca). These are run by Business Leaders and were attended by over 70 technology students.
• 6 Guest Speaking Engagements (MTSU (2 events)/Lipscomb/Belmont/Nashville State (2 events)) have been held reaching over 150 technology students.
• 1 InternNashville Technology Networking Event was held (Nashville State) which helped students connect with Business leaders in an informal networking event. Over 75 technology students attended.
• A Student Congress was launched with 20 inaugural members from Austin Peay, Belmont, Lipscomb, Tennessee State, MTSU, Nashville State, and  ITT Tech. They had their first meeting in the spring and will have meetings going forward.

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