10 minutes is definitely not enough with the kick-ass @tommy.made.it Today we chatted about entrepreneurial ventures vs corporate, grad school, and why you gotta be your own biggest fan.
Life's Not Linear with Ryan Mason
Today’s interview with Ryan Mason was nothing less than enlightening. We chatted about side hustles in college, how success doesn’t happen overnight (ex: FashionNova) and why failure can be our biggest asset.
Life's Not Linear with Forrest Satterfield
Yesterday I interviewed Forrest about job prospects for biomedical engineers, navigating depression, and the will it takes to build a company for a good cause.
Life's Not Linear with Humera Fasihuddin
Humera shares her story of graduating in a recession, finding jobs to make it through, and navigating tough conversations.
An Evening with Real Industry, 2019 Recap!
In October, and November in honor of our 5th anniversary, the Real Industry team along with a group of supporters including students, professors, and industry professionals joined together for 3 events in New York, San Francisco and Silicon Valley to help support our Diversity Equity & Inclusion initiative. Our new initiative is laser-focused on the mission to empower women and underrepresented minority college students into the music, media, and technology industry.
After learning about the program, everyone enjoyed the amazing taco bar, followed up with some drinks, and networking at Dailymotion HQ on October 17th. We had a blast making welcoming some new friends into the Real Industry community, reconnecting with old friends, celebrating with the students we helped and the professors and industry folks that helped them reach their goals with our programs.
Interested in learning more and making a contribution?
Below are some awesome photos taken at An Evening with Real Industry, San Francisco, on November 4th at Envelop and An Evening with Real Industry, Silicon Valley at The Foster on November 6th!
If you missed us, there is still time to contribute! Your donation will help us help thousands of students with our new initiative. We are halfway towards our goal of $125,000 and we appreciate your donation, no matter the amount. All donations made by US donors are tax-deductible, so give by December 31, 2019. It’s only thanks to our donors and avid supporters that we are able to provide students with life-changing experiences.
A HUGE thank you to our sponsors for their generosity! SiriusXM + Pandora, Mediabridge Capital Advisors, Sonos, eBay, Pro Sound Effects, RafterMarsh, and Bill Silva Entertainment. We would also like to thank Dailymotion, Envelop SF, and The Foster for hosting us and helping us make these events possible.
Real Industry Sonos Challenges 2019
September 23 & 26, 2019 | In partnership with Sonos | Sonos Headquarters, Boston & University of Michigan
“Today’s university students are the future leaders of industry...By partnering with Sonos and Boston-area universities, we’re able to give students unprecedented access to real-world challenges, technologies, and career opportunities. ”
On Monday, September 23rd, students coming from universities across the Greater Boston Area came together for a kickoff event in partnership with Real Industry and Sonos to answer this question: How do we design or build an experience that transitions people between spaces? These students hailed from Tufts University, Northeastern University, Harvard University, Boston University, Boston College, Emerson College, Wellesley College, Berklee College of Music, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Clark University, and more.
Smart speakers are transforming how we enjoy music, access information, and interact with our homes. Industry mentors from Sonos are facilitating a challenge in which university students design smart speaker experiences that transitions people between spaces. Over the course of two weeks, students will use Sonos hardware and software to explore this prompt, build something, and communicate the engineering and business value behind their accomplishments.
“I enjoyed the Real Industry-Sonos events last year in Boston and Seattle. For me, the fact that the students were exposed to a broad cross section of the development process, including ideation, product management, and design, as well as the actual coding, was particularly appealing. I’m excited to see what students do this year with our open developer platform.”
The Sonos Challenge empowers university students to get experience with technology and innovation in an industry they’re passionate about, all while receiving mentorship from professionals in the field. This partnership between Real Industry and Sonos provides students with opportunities they would not have otherwise accessed.
A team of 4 University students won the Boston Sonos Challenge. Ayush Upneja, Parker Van Roy, Michael Papa, and Matthew Poulson created a radial speaker detection control audio based on RSSI signals.
The team received $1,600 in Sonos speakers and a chance to present their submissions to Sonos leaders.
A huge congrats to Ayush, Parker, Michael, and Matthew! Check out the video below.
On Thursday, September 26th, University of Michigan students attended the kickoff event in partnership with Real Industry and Sonos to answer this question: How do we design or build an experience that transitions people between spaces?
A team of 6 students won the University of Michigan Sonos Challenge, In Beom Yoon, Eugene Yoon, Arya Kumar, Alfred Herbst, George Li, and Paul Balko created Flow.
The team received $2000 in Sonos speakers and a chance to present their submissions to Sonos leaders.
A huge congrats to In Beom, Eugene, Arya, Alfred, George, and Paul! Check out the video below.
Stay tuned for upcoming Sonos Challenges!
TiVo+Real Industry Innovation Hackathon
February 8th, 2020 | In partnership with the Close School of Entrepreneurship | Philadelphia, PA
Students were invited to define specific problem statements on work on solutions in a few different areas like: Platform Innovation, Advertising Technology, and Content Innovation.
During this 8 hour workshop, students learned about the process for developing real innovation that serves valuable market needs and how to protect that innovation through IP (intellectual property) rights. Each presentation module was followed by hands on exercises with assigned mentors from TiVo and Real Industry. Students worked in groups to complete an exercise relating to their idea.
After the hackathon, students now have 2-4 weeks to complete their write-ups and research including: the specific problem solved, why the problem is valuable to solve, who the solution is valuable to, and the specific technical details of implementing the solution.
To start, we can give them expert instruction, access to over $10,000 in hardware and software, and a real-world experiential challenge to work on.
Real Industry invited Universal Audio, the world's leader in audio interfaces, analog recording hardware and audio plug-ins, to support over 80 Stanford University students interested in careers in music and audio.
Join us in congratulating Brody Skiff, Lara Arikan, Elena Stalnaker, and Jacob Eisenach!
The original track was remixed using this promo (“Red Light” by Baby Queens).
All of us are very excited to see what the students come up with!
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Summit
On August 12th and 13th, Real Industry hosted 6 universities and colleges to kick-off Phase 1 of our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Initiative. Our DEI Initiative is a 1-year long mentorship and experiential opportunities program with a focus to increase the number of women and underrepresented students entering the arts and technology industries.
Phase 1 of our program, “Teach the Teachers,” allowed us to bring together the amazing professors and career services leaders at the schools we are working with. During the two days, we worked hands-on with the faculty to understand their students’ needs and co-create a unique mentoring program best for each campus. We brought in companies and industry mentors to help the faculty understand industry needs and trends. Faculty were able to gain clarity on preparing students for success in the workforce and industry members were able to better understand obstacles students face when entering industry.
Additionally, Real Industry provided a strong set of tools and resources to help faculty implement our mentorship program on their campuses.
We are excited to partner with a diverse group of universities and professors to expand our student reach across the country!
Cal State University, Monterey Bay: Lanier Sammons, Music & Performing Arts, Assistant professor
Loyola University New Orleans: Jeffrey Albert, School of Music Industry, Director
Spelman College: Robert Hamilton, Art & Visual Culture, Senior Lecturer and Iretta B.C. Kearse, Computer and Information Sciences, Senior Instructor
University of California, Riverside: Cristina Otegui, Career Center, Lead Career Counselor and Kristen Roberts, Career Center, Associate Director
University of Hartford: Gabe Herman, The Hartt School, Assistant Professor of Music Industry
Wayne State University: Jeremy Peters, Music, Lecturer in Music Business and Jeff Ponders, TechTown, Entrepreneur in Residence
In October, each campus will host a launch event to introduce students to a month long project they will work on with an industry mentor. Students will choose a project aligned with an area of industry they are interested in, such as, software engineering, marketing, design, music, business and more!
A special thank you to all the faculty and staff at these universities and colleges helping us launch our DEI Initiative. With their help we can start equalizing access and experiences for all students!
Real Startup 2019 In Review
On June 10th, Real Industry welcomed 9 extraordinarily bright students to join us in San Francisco for Real Startup 2019. Real Startup is an intensive two-week entrepreneurship program for student entrepreneurs pursuing ventures in music, media, and entertainment technology. The students spent 10 days pitching their ideas and receiving raw feedback from leaders in the industries they hope to operate in. On the last day of the program, each team delivered got a chance to share their learnings and plans for the future with their new network they built along the way. You can check out their final presentations here.
Here's some fast facts and figures on Real Startup 2019:
10 students hailing from universities all over the world
13 fantastic host companies during site visits, including Facebook, Twitter, Dolby, Pandora, Eventbrite, Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center, Smule and more.
50+ mentors from various and diverse areas of industry.
Ventures across soundproof karaoke boxes in public spaces, an app that creates an immersive experience that allow you to learn about other cultures through music, a personalized online department store, and a platform for artists to measure their success.
Real Startup is made possible thanks to our generous corporate sponsors. Thank you to Brainworx & Plugin-Alliance, VEVA Sound, Stashimi, iZotope, Pro Sound Effects, Native Instruments, Zoom, and Polsinelli.
Our schedule this year (and in years past) was jam packed from the second the students arrived in San Francisco. Students hustled all over the city, Silicon Valley, and beyond as some of their dream companies opened up their doors and shared their stories of how they got to where they are. For even more detail on the daily activities of the cohort check out the full schedule here: https://realstartup2019.sched.com/.
Day 1
Polsinelli
Welcome!; IP for Startups 101; IP Law Q&A, Storytelling with Dave Hill, Jr.
Day 2
Avid and Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center
Milestones Makers Program; Masterclass on Avid's Path and Mentor Q&A with Ed Gray; Happy Hour Wrap
Day 3
Eventbrite
Fireside Chat; Facility Tour with Greg Patterson
Day 4
Dolby
Masterclasses on Hardware, User-Generated Content, and the Music Ecosystem, Demos, and Mentor Sessions
Day 5
MAST
Industrial Design & Product Design Challenge
Day 6
Smule and Sandbox Suite
Usability Testing & Music Industry Conversation
Day 7
Pandora and Twitter
Q&A with Product Design Team; Q&A Science Team, Twitter for Business, Pitch Practice
Day 8
Campus Tour; Discussion about becoming a leader in the tech and arts industry
Day 9
SAP.iO and Galvanize
Investment Preparedness, Mentor Hours, Closing dinner with SUBPAC
Day 10
Polsinelli
Final Reception with presentations from each team
Thank you to all of the fantastic hosts of Real Startup 2019!
Real Industry was thrilled by the engagement and focus the Real Startup 2019 Cohort displayed, and our mentors were similarly impressed. For a full list of the amazing mentors who participated in this program, click here: https://realstartup2019.sched.com/directory/speakers
The two-weeks of jam-packed experiential learning and networking went by fast, but this fantastic group of young entrepreneurs made every day count. Now it’s your turn to meet the cohort:
Oki Karaoke - UC Berkeley
Oki installs soundproof karaoke boxes in shopping malls, airports, and other indoor public spaces, charging customers by minutes of usage. Oki makes singing as spontaneous and personal as possible, enabling shower-like freedom of expression.
Luofei Chen, Noah Adriany, Aayush Tyagi
Artist Hub - University of Hartford
As an artist wouldn’t you like to see all of the stats of how your music is going? How many downloads, streams, ticket sales, demographics of listeners, and etc all on one app. In terms of innovation, there is no platform that gives artists an all-in-one experience when assessing the statistics of their music. The market for Artist Hub is enormous due to the fact that artists struggle to understand how well they are doing financially as a result of their art. The problem being solved is the issue artists have with understanding an overall view of their success statistically and financially. This is an upgrade to what Pandora has to offer with Pandora AMP.
Brandon Johnson, Hannah Osborne
Lotus - Stanford University
Lotus is the world’s first personalized online department store. Dubbed ‘Spotify for Clothes’, after telling making a profile and telling Lotus your favorite clothing brands, the items in your wardrobe, and of course connecting your social media accounts, we use machine learning to curate a personalized department store just for you. This store connects to a broader social media platform ushering in a new class of direct-to-consumer marketing for fashion brands. Through making people’s department stores accessible to all one’s followers, we hope that Lotus will also provide increased confidence in the world of influencer marketing, enabling fashion-advocates such as musicians, actors, and athletes to have a more stable source of income from their brand-sponsorships by more-directly driving sales.
Brandon Walker, Marcos Torres
Website: http://lotus-1.launchrock.com/
Hidden Treasure - University of the Arts, Berlin, Berklee College of Music
Hidden Treasure makes you travel the world through music. We want to create an immersive experience that allows you to get to know other cultures and traditions through their art. With our application and the use of newest technology, we want to give you the opportunity to not only listen to music of the world, but also find out about the environment it emerges from in an entertaining way.
Joana Obieta, Pablo Mirete Godoy, Julia Brulisauer
Website: https://www.hiddentreasures.world/
On June 20th, the last day of Real Startup, each team delivered final presentations at our closing reception.
The Real Industry team could not be happier with the results of Real Startup 2019. Supporting young entrepreneurs is a task we passionately pursue, and doing so with our network of world-class mentors and fantastic partner companies during this program was exceptionally rewarding.
Real Industry aims to bridge the worlds of industry and academia. Our community is always growing, and we’d love for you to be a part of it. Join us today as we continue to support the next generation of industry professionals and innovators.
Future VR Filmmakers Premiere at San Francisco State
The Real Industry Creative Technology Challenge, in partnership with the CSU Entertainment Alliance
On April 4th, 50 San Francisco State University students applied their creative skills towards creating VR and AR productions. The students majors included Cinema, Industrial Design, Broadcast, Computer Science, and Visual Communications. The event was sponsored by Cal State University Entertainment Alliance and led by educational nonprofit Real Industry.
A supervising Sound Editor/Re-Recording Mixer from Skywalker Sound kicked off the evening, talking about how sound influences storytelling and shapes the content we consume. Kevin May, Senior Designer-Immersive Products & Experiences brought students back to the roots of storytelling, the very beginning of human experience, and on a journey through the multiple forms stories have found their way through to arrive at AR. Brian Williams, Immersive Media Lead at Adobe demoed industry-leading tools available to the students: Adobe Premiere and Insta360 EVO VR cameras.
Students formed teams and spent three weeks creating immersive content to expose a topic or issue experienced by peers on their campus. Students were provided iZotope Spire Studio for mobile recording, iZotope RX Elements for audio production, Insta360 EVO cameras for video capture, and award-winning content libraries provided by Pro Sound Effects and APM Music.
Teams competed to win Turtle Beach headphones, 3 month Kadenze Premium memberships, LANDR Pro subscriptions, and cash prizes.
Over the three weeks, industry mentors coached the teams. The Real Industry Creative Technology Challenge, in partnership with the CSU Entertainment Alliance, wrapped up on April 25th. The winning submission was by Evan Langer, Cinema, Class of 2020, Edward Reuss, Cinema, Class of 2020, Raphael Mallari, Cinema MFA, Class of 2020, Elisabeth Blank, Cinema, Class of 2019. You can check it out in 360 below.
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