Latest news with #Foundations
Geek Wire
20-05-2025
- Business
- Geek Wire
Seattle startup community Foundations adds more office space, plans expansion in Bellevue
GeekWire's startup coverage documents the Pacific Northwest entrepreneurial scene. Sign up for our weekly startup newsletter , and check out the GeekWire funding tracker and venture capital directory . Inside the Foundations space in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. (Foundations Photo) The experiment seems to be working. Foundations, the Seattle-based startup community that launched last year, is doubling its physical space in Capitol Hill and is exploring an expansion in Bellevue, just east of Seattle. This wasn't the plan when longtime entrepreneur and investor Aviel Ginzburg founded Foundations in a bid to support early stage founders. But that's part of the point. 'Everything at Foundations is an experiment,' he told GeekWire. There are now 236 total members at Foundations, which includes longtime entrepreneurs and investors from the Seattle tech ecosystem, along with 55 'founders-in-residence' that work with Foundations for six months as part of a lightweight accelerator program until they reach certain milestones. Some of those companies were ready to 'graduate' recently and wanted to stay engaged with the Foundations community. At the same time, 5,000 square feet opened up on the floor below Foundations' existing space — which will now be a co-working office for Foundations members and their companies. 'It's a fun evolution of the program,' Ginzburg said. 'We didn't know what was really going to happen. We thought it was like, 'Oh, you're going to go out on your own.' But it seems like these communities of people still want to be working and building together.' Foundations has emerged as a key support system for founders who can participate in the community without giving up equity or paying fees. 'Foundations was the catalyst that helped us transform what we were building from just a product into a fully-fledged company,' said MediScan CEO Kavian Mojabe, whose health tech startup will work out of the new space. The group also accepts founders at varying levels of their startup journey. 'Foundations meets us where we are, with mentorship, events, and feedback that fits into our chaotic schedules,' said Shawn Ramirez, CEO of EloraHQ. Ginzburg — who launched Foundations with Tyler Brown, Ryan Dao, and Art Litvinau — said his experience building the group has shown the strength of Seattle's startup scene. 'There is a lot more entrepreneurial talent and awesome startups here than people realize,' he said. 'They are just very disorganized, siloed and not properly networked.' Having a community like Foundations is also helpful for founders navigating the AI boom. 'The technology changed so quickly,' Ginzburg said. 'If you're not learning through osmosis and watching others, you're falling behind. So there is this deep desire for all these early stage companies to be physically around each other.' Aviel Ginzburg accepts the 'Geeks Give Back' award at the GeekWire Awards earlier this month in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Dan DeLong) Foundations operates as a benefit corporation, a legal distinction designed for entities that want to turn a profit and also prioritize social and public good. The co-working expansion will help provide additional revenue in addition to investment and sponsorships. Ginzburg, a general partner at Seattle VC firm Founders' Co-op who previously ran the Amazon Alexa accelerator, said he's exploring potential partnerships with commercial real estate firms to funnel companies into office space as they scale. 'Our goal here is not to make money,' he said. 'Our goal is to support the community and have this thing keep rolling and keep cranking.' People from other big cities are now reaching out to Ginzburg about how they can launch something like Foundations in their own startup communities. But in a lot of ways, Foundations is unique to Seattle. 'It's about the people and the community,' Ginzburg said. 'The structure and the systems are less interesting than the core group of people coming together.' He added: 'Our mission is to make Seattle a better place to be a founder.' Foundations is filling a gap left by the surprise departure of Techstars Seattle last year. It's one of several startup groups in the Seattle region aiming to help founders, including Pioneer Square Labs, the AI2 Incubator (which just launched the AI House), and others. Plug and Play, a Silicon Valley-based group that operates innovation programs, recently announced two new accelerators in the Seattle region. Other accelerator programs include Creative Destruction Lab, Startup Haven, Maritime Blue, and Jones + Foster.
Scoop
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Dame Malvina Major Foundation Arts Excellence Awards Will Kick Start Careers In Classical Music For Three Young NZers
Press Release – Dame Malvina Major Foundation Encouraging and enabling young people to pursue their dreams in classical music has always been at the heart of the Foundations work, says Dame Malvina Major. These awards are one way we help open doors, ease the financial burden, and let … Three awards of $10,000 will kick start careers in classical music for young New Zealanders The Dame Malvina Major Foundation is now accepting applications for its 2025 Arts Excellence Awards, offering three national awards of $10,000 each to support outstanding young New Zealand singers and instrumentalists preparing for a professional career in classical music. Founded on Dame Malvina's vision to support talent 'from grassroots to excellence,' the Foundation has awarded over 100 Arts Excellence Awards since the programme began, helping to launch the careers of many of New Zealand's brightest young artists. 'Encouraging and enabling young people to pursue their dreams in classical music has always been at the heart of the Foundation's work,' says Dame Malvina Major. 'These awards are one way we help open doors, ease the financial burden, and let young artists focus on their craft.' The Arts Excellence Awards are open to New Zealand citizens aged 18 – 30 who have undertaken a significant part of their training within New Zealand. In 2025, the programme has expanded to a national scope, with all applicants now considered for the three national awards. Additional regional awards are also available including The Cecily Maccoll High Achiever Award in Canterbury, and The Nancy and Ron Grant Arts Excellence Award for eligible vocalists or pianists from the South Island. The Awards can support a wide range of classical training projects, from tertiary study to audition tours, workshops, coaching, or masterclass fees – with travel and accommodation also considered where appropriate. Applications close at 5pm, Sunday 30 June 2025, and successful applicants will be notified by Friday 15 August 2025.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
DGR Systems Expands Digital Foundations Strategy with Strategic Hires and HPE NASPO Contract Win in Florida
TAMPA, Fla., May 6, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- DGR Systems LLC is proud to announce a significant advancement in its Digital Foundations strategy with the expansion of key service capabilities, deepening OEM partnerships, and being awarded access to the Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) NASPO ValuePoint and Cloud Contracts in the state of Florida. DGR Systems Logo (PRNewsfoto/DGR Systems) This contract award is a major milestone in DGR Systems' commitment to delivering next-generation infrastructure and cloud solutions through its growing Digital Foundations portfolio. It reinforces the company's focus on providing scalable, secure, and future-ready platforms that support modernization initiatives across the public and private sectors. To support this strategic direction, DGR Systems has made targeted investments in leadership talent, including the appointment of Steve Cavendish to lead the Digital Foundations drive, and Chris Black to drive growth and maturity of DGR's professional services offerings. These hires underscore the company's mission to align its people, processes, and partnerships around delivering measurable value to customers. "Our Digital Foundations strategy is all about giving our customers the technical backbone they need to transform and thrive," said Steve Cavendish, Vice President Digital Foundations at DGR Systems. "Access to the HPE NASPO and Cloud contracts is a tangible result of our ongoing investments in OEM alignment, solution engineering, and service delivery excellence." With the HPE contract, DGR Systems is uniquely positioned to deliver high-value solutions in compute, storage, networking, and hybrid cloud—paired with expert implementation and lifecycle support from a trusted local partner. For more information on DGR Systems and its Digital Foundations offerings, visit Contact: info@ (813) 344-1615 Who is DGR Systems: DGR Systems helps organizations build resilient digital foundations, secure operations, and transform their workplaces to thrive in an evolving technology ecosystem. From digital foundations and cybersecurity solutions to cutting-edge workplace innovations, DGR Systems delivers solutions that achieve measurable results, inspires transformation, and prepares customers for tomorrow. Cision View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE DGR Systems
The Hindu
06-05-2025
- Business
- The Hindu
MIT-WPU School of Economics and Commerce launches B.Com Financial Analysis Program
The MIT World Peace University (MIT-WPU) has launched its new Financial Analysis program, with the CFA Institute delegation in attendance. The ceremony highlighted collaborative plans to integrate financial curriculum into the university's academic programs. This aims to equip students with the skills required for successful careers in the global finance sector. Under the newly launched Financial Analysis program, MIT-WPU will offer on-campus training for the CFA Level I and II examinations, integrating them directly into the curriculum. In the first year, students will also have the opportunity to pursue the Investment Foundations Certificate from CFA Institute. This certificate will provide them with an understanding of the investment industry, including its structure, core concepts, and ethical considerations. Dr. R. M. Chitnis, Vice Chancellor, MIT-WPU, said, 'CA, CS, and CMA are professional courses in India, focused on auditing, taxation, and legal compliance, authorised under Acts of Parliament. In contrast, the CFA is a global qualification that supports companies in finance and investment banking, representing a distinct domain. Students who pursue these professional degrees alongside the CFA qualification will gain a significant competitive advantage in the fast-evolving world of finance.' Dr. Anjali Sane, Dean of the School of Economics and Commerce at MIT-WPU, said, ' With the launch of the Financial Analysis program, we had the opportunity to engage in insightful discussions on emerging trends in the investment industry. Our focus has been on building a curriculum that meets global industry standards and empowers students with the skills needed to thrive in the world of finance.'
Atlantic
03-03-2025
- Business
- Atlantic
How the British Broke Their Own Economy
What's the matter with the United Kingdom? Great Britain is the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, which ushered in an era of energy super-production and launched an epoch of productivity advancements that made many life essentials, such as clothes and food, more affordable. Today, the country suffers from the converse of these achievements: a profound energy shortage and a deep affordability crisis. In February, the Bank of England reported an ongoing productivity slump so mysterious that its own economists ' cannot account fully ' for it. Real wages have barely grown for 16 years. British politics seems stuck in a cycle of disappointment followed by dramatic promises of growth, followed by yet more disappointment. A new report, titled 'Foundations,' captures the country's economic malaise in detail. The U.K. desperately needs more houses, more energy, and more transportation infrastructure. 'No system can be fixed by people who do not know why it is broken,' write the report's authors, Sam Bowman, Samuel Hughes, and Ben Southwood. They argue that the source of the country's woes as well as 'the most important economic fact about modern Britain [is] that it is difficult to build almost anything, anywhere.' The nation is gripped by laws and customs that make essentials unacceptably scarce and drive up the cost of construction across the board. Housing is an especially alarming case in point. The homeownership rate for the typical British worker aged 25 to 34 declined by more than half from the 1990s to the 2010s. In that same time, average housing prices more than doubled, even after adjusting for inflation, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The housing shortage traces back to the postwar period, when a frenzy of nationalization swept the country. The U.K. created the National Health Service, brought hundreds of coal mines under state control, and centralized many of the country's railways and trucking and electricity providers. In 1947, the U.K. passed the Town and Country Planning Act, which forms the basis of modern housing policy. The TCPA effectively prohibited new development without special permission from the state; 'green belts' were established to restrict sprawl into the countryside. Rates of private-home building never returned to their typical prewar levels. With some spikes and troughs, new homes built as a share of the total housing stock have generally declined over the past 60 years. The TCPA was considered reasonable and even wise at the time. Postwar Britain had been swept up by the theory that nationalization created economies of scale that gave citizens better outcomes than pure capitalism. 'There was an idea that if we could rationalize the planning system … then we could build things in the right way—considered, and planned, and environmentally friendly,' Bowman told me. But the costs of nationalization became clear within a few decades. With more choke points for permitting, construction languished from the 1950s through the '70s. Under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the Conservatives rolled back nationalization in several areas, such as electricity and gas production. But their efforts to loosen housing policy from the grip of government control was a tremendous failure, especially once it was revealed that Thatcher's head of housing policy himself opposed new housing developments near his home. Housing is, as I've written, the quantum field of urban policy, touching every station of urban life. Broken housing policies have a ripple effect. In London, Bowman said, the most common options are subsidized flats for the low-income and luxury units for the rich, creating a dearth of middle-class housing. As a result, the city is bifurcated between the über-wealthy and the subsidized poor. 'I think housing policy is a major driver of a lot of anti-foreigner, white-supremacist, anti-Black, anti-Muslim attitudes among young people who are frustrated that so-called these people get free houses while they have to live in a bedsit or move somewhere an hour outside the city and commute in,' Bowman said. Constrictive housing policy in Britain has also arguably prevented other great cities from being born. If the University of Cambridge's breakthroughs in biotech had happened in the 19th century, Bowman said, the city of Cambridge might have bloomed to accommodate new companies and residents, the same way Glasgow grew by an order of magnitude around shipbuilding in the 1800s. Instead Cambridge remains a small city of fewer than 150,000 people, its potential stymied by rules all but prohibiting its growth. The story for transit and energy is similar: Rules and attitudes that make it difficult to build things in the world have made life worse for the British. 'On a per-mile basis, Britain now faces some of the highest railway costs in the world,' Bowman, Hughes, and Southwood write. 'This has led to some profoundly dissatisfying outcomes. Leeds is now the largest city in Europe without a metro system.' Despite Thatcher's embrace of North Sea gas, and more recent attempts to loosen fracking regulations, Britain's energy markets are still an omnishambles. Per capita electricity generation in the U.K. is now roughly one-third that of the United States, and energy use per unit of GDP is the lowest in the G7. By these measures, at least, Britain may be the most energy-starved nation in the developed world. Scarcity is a policy choice. This is as true in energy as it is in housing. In the 1960s, Britain was home to about half of the world's entire fleet of nuclear reactors. Today, the U.K. has extraordinarily high nuclear-construction costs compared with Asia, and it's behind much of Europe in the share of its electricity generated from nuclear power—not only France but also Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, and Romania. What happened to British nuclear power? After North Sea oil and gas production ramped up in the 1970s and '80s, Britain redirected its energy production away from nuclear power. Even this shift has had its own complications. In the past few years, the U.K. has passed several measures to reduce shale-gas extraction, citing earthquake risks, environmental costs, and public opposition. As a result, gas production in the U.K. has declined 70 percent since 2000. Although the country's renewable-energy market has grown, solar and wind power haven't increased nearly enough to make up the gap. The comparison with France makes clear Britain's policy error: In 2003, very large businesses in both countries paid about the same price for electricity. But by 2024, after decades of self-imposed scarcity and the supply shock of the war in Ukraine, electricity in the U.K. was more than twice as expensive as in France. There is an inconvenient subcurrent to the U.K.'s scarcity crisis—and ours. Sixty years ago, the environmentalist revolution transformed the way governments, courts, and individuals thought about their relationship to the natural world. This revolution was not only successful but, in many ways, enormously beneficial. In the U.S., the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act brought about exactly that. But over time, American environmental rules, such as those in the National Environmental Policy Act and the California Environmental Quality Act, have been used to stop new housing developments and, ironically, even clean - energy additions. Similarly, in the U.K., any individual who sues to stop a new project on environmental grounds—say, to oppose a new road or airport—generally has their legal damages capped at £5,000, if they lose in court. 'Once you've done that,' Bowman said, 'you've created a one-way system, where people have little incentive to not bring spurious cases to challenge any new development.' Last year, Britain's high-speed-rail initiative was compelled to spend an additional £100 million on a shield to protect bats in the woods of Buckinghamshire. Finding private investment is generally difficult for infrastructure developers when the path to completion is strewn with nine-figure surprise fees. Some of Britain's problems echo across the European continent, including slow growth and high energy prices. More than a decade ago, Germany began to phase out nuclear power while failing to ramp up other energy production. The result has been catastrophic for citizens and for the ruling government. In the first half of 2024, Germans paid the highest electricity prices in the European Union. This month, Social Democrats were punished at the polls with their worst defeat since World War II. Bowman offered a droll summary: 'Europe has an energy problem; the Anglosphere has a housing problem; Britain has both.' These problems are obvious to many British politicians. Leaders in the Conservative and Labour Parties often comment on expensive energy and scarce housing. But their goals haven't been translated into priorities and policies that lead to growth. 'Few leaders in the U.K. have thought seriously about the scale of change that we need,' Bowman said. Comprehensive reform is necessary to unlock private investment in housing and energy—including overhauling the TCPA, reducing incentives for anti-growth lawsuits, and directly encouraging nuclear and gas production to build a bridge to a low-carbon-energy economy. Effective 21st-century governance requires something more than the ability to win elections by decrying the establishment and bemoaning sclerotic institutions. Progress requires a positive vision of the future, a deep understanding of the bottlenecks in the way of building that future, and a plan to add or remove policies to overcome those blockages. In a U.S. context, that might mean making it easier to build advanced semiconductors, or removing bureaucratic kludge for scientists while adding staff at the FDA to accelerate drug approval. In the U.K., the bottlenecks are all too clear: Decades-old rules make it too easy for the state to block housing developments or for frivolous lawsuits to freeze out energy and infrastructure investment. In their conclusion, Bowman and his co-authors strike a similar tone. 'Britain can enjoy such a renewal once more,' they write. 'To do so, it need simply remove the barriers that stop the private sector from doing what it already wants to do.'
