“Now, Reed might not be the first place you think of when it comes to startup activity, but fact of the matter is that that small liberal arts college has had a huge impact on the Portland startup scene. Just off the top of my head, Urban Airship, Puppet Labs, AppFog, LuckySort, Stayhound, and Rogue Ventures all boast Reedies as founders.”
This statement on the Silicon Florist blog speaks well to the innovative side of Reedies and leads into praise for our inaugural Working Weekend, which took place earlier this month. It was not your average career-networking event, but it was a remarkable success! The weekend was organized by nearly 80 alumni volunteers, including ringleader Adam Riggs ’95, the Life Beyond Reed committee of the alumni board, and the offices of alumni & parent relations and career services.
Alumni from around the world offered advice and insight in a variety of formats, including industry panels, one-on-one appointments, and even a “StartUp lab” for burgeoning entrepreneurs. As reported by the Quest, the winner of the StartUp lab competition was Emotitron, “a business platform for software that can analyze human emotions using voice patterns.” Also, there were oysters!
Breakdown of those who attended the weekend:
The total of attendees (and participants) on panels and at Reed StartUp was 379: 232 students, 134 alumni, and 13 guests.
There were 293 discrete humans: 184 students, 96 alumni, 13 guests. Of the alumni attendees, 71 were presenters or otherwise involved in the program planning.
Class breakdown of discrete participants shows that 66 seniors showed up (22% of the senior class); juniors added 43 (14% of the class), sophomores added 44 (9.8% of a very large class), and 30 first-year students (8% of the class) participated.
Decades:
6 alumni from the ’60s
11 from the ’70s
14 from the ’80s
39 from the ’90s
31 from 2000 to 2011 (15 from 2010 & 2011)
Portland is also getting some national attention as a great place to start tech-oriented businesses, as noted on Reed’s admission blog. Cheers to the spirit of invention on campus and beyond!
