The metaverse represents an exciting convergence of technologies and use cases, certainly—but some of the bold predictions about the metaverse remind me of my professor’s predictions about Sims in the early 2000s. 

RALEIGH – Given the current war for talent with some 50,000 open tech jobs already across North Carolina are there people available who can fill the exploding number of jobs for building the metaverse?

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – WalletHub has released its report on 2022’s Best & Worst Entry-Level jobs, with a focus on positions for the graduating class of 2022. And many of the roles in the “best” list match the kinds of roles that are currently available in the Triangle, signaling the opportunities in our area for new graduates.

Editor’s note: Dr. Sarah Glova covered Venture Connect 2022 for WRAL TechWire, providing previews and breaking news from the Cisco campus where the event took place. Glova offers her analysis on the event.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Jellatech, a Raleigh-based startup that is creating animal-free collagen protein and gelatin, presented at CED Venture Connect stage on Thursday, pitching their cellular agriculture solution as a “clean, ethical, sustainable and safe” alternative to animal-based collagen.

RERSEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Food science took centerstage at CED Venture Connect on Thursday, with three startups on a panel discussing “feeding the world” through agtech.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Cary-based startup ProAxion – which touts itself as a “global predictive maintenance company” focusing on the internet of things – pitched from the CED Venture Connect stage this morning, sharing an update on their current fund raising.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – CED kicked off its Venture Connect Summit today at the Cisco campus in RTP. One of the first to pitch was David Kaszycki, co-founder and CEO of Beam Dynamics.

CED’s Venture Connect Summit is returning as an in-person conference for the first time since 2019. Venture Connect will run on April 6th and 7th, hosted at a new venue—the Cisco Systems Campus in RTP.

A new index of US cities ranked “Durham-Chapel Hill, NC” at  No. 11. The hyphenated metro combination of Durham and Chapel Hill jumped up 32 spots from last year’s ranking of No. 42. But Raleigh fell.

Three high-profile startup CEOs will speak at CED Venture Connect Summit next week in a session called “Growth Stories”. Each CEO will join the stage with one of their investment partners to discuss recent fundraising. But we have a sneak preview of the wisdom they’ve gained and the lessons they’ve learned. 

Triangle startup Plum has made headlines recently for opening a $1.5 million pre-seed funding round. Described as “the easy button for co-owning vacation homes,” Plum is a software platform that helps potential property co-owners to find one another and then buy and own properties together. 

An executive from EDJX, a Raleigh-based edge-computing company, will speak at South by Southwest (SXSW) on Friday, March 18, even as the region’s annual presence at the Austin-based tech and creative conference is smaller than in years past.

Anthena Gore, Social Impact Strategist is currently a Project Manager for Elevate, an environmental services nonprofit. Their impactful work — ensuring that everyone has access to clean and affordable heat, power, and water — was recently featured in Black Enterprise.

Anthena and I sat down to talk about her perspective on the smart city movement, and the role she feels that organizations like Elevate have in designing inclusive cities of the future.

Women’s lower wages are “anchors that can weigh them down” and represent “occupational segregation,” Charmaine Davis of the US Department of Labor said Monday in a call for action to address the gender wage gap.

Her comments were shared in a live panel about Equal Pay Day for Women, which will be observed March 15. 

March 11, 2022, marks the inaugural celebration of National No-Code Day. The term “no-code” is shorthand for a style of software development that does not require coding.

Speaking to a sold-out crowd at Boxyard RTP, a panel of women leaders from across the Triangle shared a clear message: It’s time to let women be themselves at work. 

The event was hosted by the Research Triangle Park (RTP) in celebration of International Women’s Day (IWD) 2022. Four women leaders spoke about “breaking the bias,” the official theme of IWD 2022, and encouraged attendees to show up authentically.  

With over 20 years of experience in disaster management, Chauncia Willis has led national emergency planning efforts for political conventions, NFL games, and international award shows. She is now the Co-Founder and CEO of the Institute for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Management (I-DIEM), leading the effort to integrate equity into all facets of disaster policy.

We sat down to talk about what it’s like to be a leader in the face of storms.

A strong network includes people who can relate to your daily challenges (like when Mickey messes up your Zoom call by provoking a toddler cookie tantrum). "Find People Who Know Your Tuesdays" is an article about those “Tuesday friends.” Published in The Official 10X Thrive Magazine—download the magazine to see more!

February 13th is one of my favorite holidays — Galentine’s Day.

Sure, it’s a made-up holiday, but aren’t most holidays? And considering this one is all about honoring and uplifting the women in our lives, I think it’s definitely worth celebrating.

Here are 8 Meaningful Galentine’s Messages you can send to celebrate the women in your life!