Community update
With each passing day, we are making great progress toward BRIIA’s opening day. Though progress is slower than I’d like, I’m more passionate and positive about BRIIA than ever. Since January, I’ve had over 80 one-on-one meetings with people in the Tri-Valley. I’ve discovered that the Tri-Valley is home to some of Silicon Valley’s best and some fantastic people that Silicon Valley wish they had! Without fail, each of these meetings leaves me energized and inspired to push BRIIA forward.
I am delighted to announce that BRIIA is now a team! I have been joined by 4 Tri-Valley residents who all want to see entrepreneurship thrive in this area:
Melissa Marsh Ross – an experienced executive who helped scale MedeAnalytics from start-up to ultimate sale, joins BRIIA as an unbelievable organizer and task master. Meandering is out, moving straight ahead is the norm! In addition she’ll be helping us with our partner and sales development strategies. Melissa lives in Danville.
Anand Chandrasekaran – Founder and CEO of VItalDynamx is the real deal. He’s a Tri-Valley entrepreneur and master at building web applications and managing global technical teams. Anand has created BRIIA’s first web site. It’s not live yet, but with a team now assembled to create all the content, that launch date is getting much much closer! VitalDynamx is based in Dublin.
There are two other people I’d like to mention, but the timing isn’t quite right. I’ll be extolling their contributions in a future update.
Our current plans have us opening BRIIA in the summer of 2017. At that time the Bishop Ranch Intelligence Innovation Accelerator will emerge as the Bay Area’s first integrated data science accelerator and collaboration community. This unique combination of community and Accelerator – all centered around the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing and other data science disciplines – will bring together the rich talent, experienced mentors, supportive companies and investors that live nearby.
I’ve attached a one-page summary of the programs we will be offering in case you’d like to learn more. In short, the program will include a Y-Combinator-style 12 week accelerator program for early stage entrepreneurs as well as coworking/collaboration space for entrepreneurs, data scientists and current or future start-up team members. Our program will be supported by some top-tier Mentors including experienced entrepreneurs, senior executives in Tri-Valley companies and angel investors.
As always, your referrals and introductions are welcomed. Know a company that’s using data science to change the world or solve an interesting problem? Send them our way. Know a data scientist or someone who could be an advisor, mentor or investor? Send them our way!
I am so grateful for the gift you have given me – your time, your thoughts, your introductions and referrals. Knitting together an ecosystem to support BRIIA has been one of the most fun experiences I have had in my entire career. Every day, I get to meet people who, like you, really want to see entrepreneurs flourish in the Tri-Valley. Thank you!
And, in the spirit of the ecosystem, if there’s anything I can do for you, please let me know!
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