October was full of highlights, particularly, a series of some pretty awesome 1 Million Cups. Let’s re-cap.

1 Million Cups of awesome

We started off with Chad Halvorson from When I Work, who is transforming how employers schedule hourly workers.

Minneapolis-based startup Vidku dropped their video-sharing app and shared about it at 1 Million Cups, where we also heard about a California based startup by a Fargo native that is working to help men have healthy sperm counts. Vidku decided to throw their launch party here in Fargo, where we had an amazing time sharing our 17-second talents at Startup Drinks.

To close off a stellar month, we had one of our biggest 1 Million Cups events on record last Wednesday, October 28. Doug Burgum spoke about the economics of vibrant downtowns, and Prairie Roots Food Co-op announced they are opening a downtown grocery store (or, co-op) in a recently purchased Kilbourne Group building (formerly Mathison’s Printing). It was a happy day for Fargo.

Newcomers

Some new companies launched in Fargo as well, in a variety of industries. Newcomer Omnibyte Technologies is building their platform in the fascinating industry of Internet of Things, and growing their team out of the NDSU Research and Tech Park.

Two new apps are in production as well: a rideshare app called Jumpr by Matt Sullivan and Jordan Nelson is getting people excited, and social app Hive by Brett Knutson and Gavriil Telkov is currently in beta testing on NDSU’s campus.

Not so much a newcomer, but a new release in a line of cool releases, came from 3Dom USA with their 3D printing filament made from beer. So far they can create a coffee cup made from coffee, now a beer mug made from beer… what will be next?

Celebrating the wins

Fargo startup Sky Blue Technology was accepted to present at Web Summit, and will be traveling there this week to participate and present among over 30,000 investors, journalists, and entrepreneurs.

Local drone industry startup Botlink also took a significant stride towards their final launch with the soft launch of their XRD cellular device for drones.

Autonomous Tractor Inc., which has designed and manufactured an autonomous tractor (who would guess), just made their first sale this month. Their autonomous tractors will now be working with FamilyFarms Group, a large farming group representing over 1.5 million acres.

Girl Develop It Fargo celebrated their first year of coding classes in Fargo by showing the documentary CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap. The film sparked some good conversation on closing the gender gap in tech here in Fargo.

The month closed with a big win for local non-profit Inspire Lab, which aims to bring STEM classes to low income students and offers a variety of after school programs. Carrie Leopold, Inspire Lab founder, received $14,900 in funding from a one-hour Power of 100 event. Congrats!

 

Overall, a solid October. Of course, it’s always nice to close it off with Halloween festivities and a whole extra hour added to our day. Happy November!

[Also check out all the local internships that were announced at our Intern Fair this month!]