New York Tech Meetup (NYTM), if you haven’t already been, is a must for anyone interested in the NYC tech scene. My first time attending was on Tuesday, November 13th–a special NYTM dedicated to the work in, by and for academia. There was a wide array of students and professors presenting their own work, and also professionals building software for use in education. The work shown was mind-boggling in many ways–from DOM, a student developed bookmarklet that transforms any website into an interactive 3D environment, to Qeexo, a group at Carnegie-Mellon exploring new ways of interacting with touch devices.
I was especially excited to see Jeremy Pease, an alumni of the Seidenberg School, and his partner Rob Caucci, also a Pace alum, present first. They demoed their start-up company, Space Splitter. Space Splitter is “Forever changing the way roommates manage their household finances and relationships.” This is a perfect description of Space Splitter–a platform to use when you and your roommates can’t remember who is supposed to buy toilet paper next. Admit it, we have all been there, and Jeremy made sure to remind the audience of that (to their overwhelming amusement). I must admit, Rob and Jeremy are quite theatrical–the audience was absolutely engaged throughout their demo.
Our friends Emmett Butler and Diego Garcia, both students at NYU, came onto the stage soon after. They just released a game called Heads Up Hot Dogs, published by Adult Swim Games, about dropping hot dogs on people’s heads. Yes, I did say hot dogs on people’s heads. These hot dogs are dropped right from your fingertips onto the heads of oblivious pedestrians, to chagrin of your pixilated uptight businessmen, joggers, cops and whomever else may be wandering the frank-fest streets of Heads Up Hot Dogs. Emmett and Diego gave a demo of their game that showed off the drag and drop touch screen dynamic. I don’t think he was trying to make jokes, but Heads Up Hot Dogs is so fun and quirky that the audience was giggling uncontrollably every time Emmett said the magic words “hot dogs.”
Once the presentations were over, and we were all inert from the shock of everyone’s overwhelming talent, we got to head upstairs to the after party! There were tables set up for the presenters to show off their work and a great crowd to boot. Everyone grabbed drinks, networked and had an awesome time chatting.
My experience at NYTM was incredibly positive and I must admit that I regret not having gone before. The people there are friendly and enthusiastic about technology. If you want to meet the best of the best then I recommend checking out the next NYTM event. You can check out their website here: http://nytm.org
Written by Nina Freeman
Splitting his time between the University of Arizona and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Gupta has been an interdisciplinary innovator throughout his career, performing breakthrough research, teaching a wide variety of subjects, and working with such diverse organizations as IBM and the United Nations. 