This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of Gary's Guide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Last week was all about hacks, hacking and hackathons. But guess what? We aren't done yet! There's much more hacking goodness coming your way. :)

First up, my buddy Greg Gopman is bringing AngelHack back to New York City next month, on November 17. This time, Angelhack is bigger than ever (2,500 hackers across 11 cities). Winners will be put through AngelHack's six-week Hackcelerator program and flown to Silicon Valley to present to A-list judges like AngelList's Naval Ravikant, Robert Scoble, and Google Venture's Wesley Chan, competing for over $650,000 in prizes. So go sign up!

Ad Age and the Food Network are joining forces to hack the food industry. They're calling on the best and brightest tech startups and entrepreneurs to evolve the Food Network’s local strategy.

AT&T is organizing the Aspire Mobile App Hackathon this Friday, in partnership with the Mayor’s Truancy Task Force and NYC Digital. The admirable goal? Improving attendance rates in New York City’s public schools.

The Shared Learning Collaborative (SLC) is organizing a Camp and Codeathon on October 20, bringing together educators and developers to work together in creating new applications for teaching and learning and to identify quality online content for the classroom.

M_RGE is trying to flip the traditional hackathon model on its head by having designers pitch developers--because design should be as important in winning as technology.

If you're a hacker who's into machine learning, then Machine Learning + NuoDB is the event for you. Speaker John Myles White literally wrote the book on Machine Learning for Hackers.

And finally, Hack 'n Jill have joined forces with the NY Tech Meetup, Girl Develop It, and Control Group to organize Hacksgiving, a hackathon for social, global, and greater good to address big issues, improve inefficient systems and make the future better together.

This week is also Beyond Beta, a series of events that are part of an extended version of Brooklyn Beta (the small but friendly web conference). There are open houses (Union Square Ventures, Birchbox, 10gen), talks (Hack+Startup, Betaworks: The Slow Web), happy hours (Chloe+Isabel) and more.

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

Music:Tech Meetup
Demos by Conduit, CyberPR, GeoRiot, Groovebug and SwarmFM.
Monday (Oct. 8), 7 p.m. @ Knitting Factory, 361 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn

LearnVest LIVE
With fashion designer Cynthia Rowley, Marie Claire editor Joanna Coles, Top Chef judge Gail Simmons, Gilt Groupe cofounder Alexandra Wilkis Wilson and others.
Tuesday (Oct. 9), 5 p.m. @ Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th Street

Founders@Fail: How To Bring Bad News to Your Investors
With Danny Schultz (DFJ Gotham), Andrew Cleland (Comcast Ventures), Rudina Sesari (Fairhaven Capital) and Owen Davis (SeedStart).
Tuesday (Oct. 9), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Floor

October 2012 NY Tech Meetup
You know the drill. Five-minute cutting-edge tech demos. 850 fellow NY Tech startuppers. One amazing event!
Tuesday (Oct. 9), 7 p.m. @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts, 566 Laguardia Place

Brooklyn Beta
A small, friendly web conference aimed at the "work hard and be nice to people" crowd.
Wednesday (Oct. 10), 10 a.m. @ Invisible Dog, 51 Bergen Street, Brooklyn

Navigating the Digital World
Featuring New York City Chief Digital Officer Rachel Sterne Haot.
Thursday (Oct. 11), 8:30 a.m. @ Bakehouse, 113 Horatio Street

PandoMonthly Presents: A Fireside Chat with Dennis Crowley
Dennis Crowley is the cofounder and CEO of Foursquare. You may know him from ads for BestBuy and Gap, as well as pretty much every story ever about the ascendency of New York's tech scene.
Thursday (Oct. 11), 6 p.m. @ Projective L.E.S., 72 Allen Street

Investor Feedback Forum
Investor panelists include Avi Fogel (Majorlee Investments), Rahul Gandhi (High Peaks Venture Partners), Bradley Harrison (Brad Harrison Ventures) and Habib Kairouz (Rho Capital Partners). Startup pitches by ACE Group, Jamplify, NestEgg, FreeTheFrame, Grafighters, MeebleMail, Fiestah, Delve and Flavorpill Gel.
Thursday (Oct.11), 6:30 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 6th Avenue

German Innovation Showcase German Tech meets Silicon Alley
Investor panel includes Yanev Suissa (New Enterprise Associates), Mark Fasciano (Canrock Ventures) and Thatcher Bell (DFJ Gotham Ventures). Presenters include Florian Roellig (Poachee), Danny Schaarman (T!M Solutions), Rolf Henning (Edicos) and others.
Thursday (Oct. 11), 6:30 p.m. @ Greenhouse, 150 Varick Street

[Beyond Beta] Chloe + Isabel Happy Hour with VC Q&A
Chloe + Isabel will join forces with General Catalyst VC Jonathan Teo to discuss emerging business model trends in technology startups during a short Q&A.
Thursday (Oct. 11), 6:30 p.m. @ Chloe + Isabel, 122 Hudson Street

[Beyond Beta] Hack+Startup by First Round Capital & Facebook
First Round Capital and Facebook are bringing together engineering leaders to direct technical discussions on crafting superior software.
Thursday (Oct. 11), 6:30 p.m. @ Crosby St Hotel - The Screening Room, 79 Crosby Street

James Altucher and Jerry Colonna: Finding Your Way as an Entrepreneur
An evening of conversation with blogger James Altucher and CEO coach Jerry Colonna ... at a church. You cannot miss this!
Thursday (Oct. 11), 7 p.m. @ Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 150 W. 83rd Street

AT&T Aspire Mobile App Hackathon
Have an idea for an app to improve attendance rates in New York City’s public schools? Then attend this special edition of AT&T Mobile App Hackathon, organized with NYC Digital and the Mayor’s Truancy Task Force.
Friday (Oct. 12), 6 p.m. @ AT&T, 33 Thomas Street

Film Experience Hackathon
Judges include Christina Warren (Mashable), Marc Schiller (Bond Strategy and Influence), Craig Hatkoff (Tribeca Enterprises), Lance Weiler (Filmmaker), Julia Kaganskiy (Creators Project) and Jessica Brillhart (Google Creative Labs).
Saturday (Oct. 13), 9 a.m. @ Meet at the Apartment, 101 Crosby Street

More events on the horizon...
Pivot Conference on Oct 15 @ Crowne Plaza Times Square
Entrepreneurs Roundtable 52 on Oct 16 @ NYU Stern
October NY Enterprise Technology Meetup on Oct 17 @ Cooley
Talk NYC Presents: 2nd Annual Tech Madison Avenue Conference on Oct 17 @ Crosby Street Hotel
Queens Tech Meetup 4 on Oct 17 @ See Exhibition Space
The Future is Robotics + Software on Oct 18 @ Venue
Ignite NYC 15 - Truth is a Moving Target: Oddities Anomalies and Wonders with Data on Oct 22 @ Sheraton New York Hotel
New York Software Engineers (NYSE) Job Fair on Oct 23 @ AlleyNYC
NYTECH Presents: Apple vs. Samsung: What The Case Means to Software Development and UX Design on Oct 23 @ Morgan Stanley
Protect Your Code | IP Law + Founders Experiences on Oct 25 @ AlleyNYC
All Things D: Dive Into Mobile on Oct 29 @ The Ritz-Carlton Battery Park
Hack'n Jill: Hacksgiving on Nov 09 @ Appnexus
AngelHack Fall 2012 New York City on Nov 17 @ The AlleyNYC

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of Gary's Guide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Hi folks,

The Worldwide Investor Network (WIN) is organizing a first-of-its-kind two-day event on November 13 and 14, bringing together global ecosystem in which 10 top overseas accelerator graduates and exceptional startups will be engaging and pitching the New York venture community. If interested in applying, here's the link (the deadline is October 18). And for any local entrepreneurs who want to attend, use the promo code "win2012" for 30 percent off (valid until October 31).

The good folks at Taap.it are providing startup founders with free iPhone 5 cases custom engraved with their names and those of their startups. Nice! Interested? Go sign up here.

The NYC Next Idea business plan competition, now in its fourth year, is open for applications. Cash prize is $35,000, and the deadline for registration is November 9. Ideas pitched last year included smart vending machines in NYC taxis, intelligent clothes-sizing applications, and real-time marketing analytics platforms.

If you're a fan of robots, you don't wanna miss two awesome upcoming events -- The Future is Robotics + Software this Thursday (it's going to be all about robot operating systems and flying robots) and the Software Engineers Job Fair next Tuesday (which is going to have robots on patrol taking pictures!).

This Friday, October 19, is the agency edition of Walkabout NYC, where you get to go around and check out some of New York's top digital agencies such as Fueled (kickass offices!), Carrot Creative, Area 17, Campfire, Mint Digital, Attention and others. It's free, but spots are limited so make sure to RSVP soon.

It's also Social Week, and a bunch of events are part of it including PivotCon, NY Beta, BlogHer, Mobile Gaming Summit and Glimpse.

And now let's see whats going down in the Alley this week...

Reinventing Engineering Education in the 21st Century
Panelists include Jason Goodman (founder and CEO, 3rd Ward Brooklyn), Debra Sterling (founder and CEO, GoldieBlox), Max Whitney (NYC Resistor) and moderated by Daniel Pianko (partner, University Ventures).
Monday (Oct. 15), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Floor

Entrepreneurs Roundtable 52
With Akihiko Okamoto (CEO of Recruit Incubation Partners)
Tuesday (Oct. 16), 6 p.m. @ NYU Stern Room 2-60, 44 West 4th Street

EdTech Titans of Industry
A discussion with Jose Ferreira (CEO, Knewton), Greg Gunn (entrepreneur in residence, City Light Capital and cofounder, Wireless Generation), Harold Levy (MD, Palm Ventures) and Laurie Racine (founder and MD, Startl).
Tuesday (Oct. 16), 6 p.m. @ Knewton, 100 5th Avenue

Future of Fashion Emerging Startup Series #3
Presenting companies include Perch, D'Marie, ClothesHorse and HandShake. Panelists include Christina Mercando (VP of product, Hunch / eBay) and Veronika Sonsev (CEO and founder, InSparq and cofounder, Women in Wireless)
Tuesday (Oct 16), 7 p.m. @ Projective Space - L.E.S. , 72 Allen Street, 3rd Floor

October Grow Hack Meetup
Detailed growth hacking case study and demo from Patrick Ambron (cofounder and CEO, Brandyourself.com).
Tuesday (Oct 16), 7 p.m. @ AlleyNYC, 500 7th Ave, 17th Floor

Google StreetView Behind the Scenes
A look at some of the challenges and a peek at the Google Street View project from behind the scenes with Luc Vincent (engineering director, Google).
Wednesday (Oct. 17), 5:30 p.m. @ Google NYC, 111 8th Avenue

October NY Enterprise Technology Meetup
Demos by SevOne, AnyPresence, EidoSearch, GoodData, and StoryDesk.
Wednesday (Oct. 17), 6:30 p.m. @ Cooley, 1114 Avenue of the Americas

Queens Tech Meetup 4
Featuring Dean Daniel Huttenlocher (founding dean, CornellNYC) and Greg Pass (founding entrepreneurial officer, CornellNYC and former CTO, Twitter). CornellNYC is a $2 billion project to build an engineering campus on Roosevelt Island and expected to create up to 120,000 tech jobs. Meet two of the guys driving the bus.
Wednesday (Oct. 17), 7 p.m. @ See Exhibition Space, 25-25 44th Drive, Long Island City

The Business of Food E-Commerce
Demos by Ordrin, Blue Apron, Chop Chop Go and Farmigo.
Wednesday (Oct. 17), 7 p.m. @ 4food, 286 Madison Avenue

TimesOpen 2012: Bigger Data and Smarter Scaling
Speakers include Andrew Montalenti (CTO, Parse.ly), James Boehmer (manager search technology, New York Times) and Allan Beaufour (CTO, Chartbeat).
Wednesday (Oct. 17), 7 p.m. @ The New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, 15th Floor

Glimpse: the Social Discovery Conference
Panelists include Greg Tseng (Tagged), Brett Martin (Sonar), Jared Hecht (GroupMe), Brian Schechter (HowAboutWe), Anna Thomas (LooseCubes) and others.
Thursday (Oct. 18), 6 p.m. @ Bloomberg Headquarters, 731 Lexington Avenue

MeetMoi + Social Exposure Media Present: The Venetian Masquerade Ball
A seductive celebration of the fall, new beginnings and new people. Venetian inspired cocktails, gift bags and an alluring surprise.
Thursday (Oct. 18), 8 p.m. @ Parlor New York, 286 Spring Street

Mobile Gaming Summit 2012 NY
With Chieh Huang (Zynga), Nihal Mehta (Eniac Ventures), Adam Ludwin (RRE), Alex Betancur (JumpRamp Games) and others.
Friday (Oct. 19), 9 a.m. @ Museum of Jewish Heritage, 36 Battery Place

Ladies Who Code Conference
Keynotes include Molly Holzschlag (Open Web Evangelist), Vanessa Hurst (Developers for Good), Emma Persky (Google), Tracy Pesin (Bit.ly) and others.
Saturday (Oct 20), 10 a.m. @ Bloomberg, 731 Lexington Avenue

More events on the horizon...

Future of Web Design (FOWD) NYC on Oct 22 @ New World Stages
New York Software Engineers (NYSE) Job Fair on Oct 23 @ AlleyNYC
Apple vs. Samsung: What The Case Means to Software Development and UX Design on Oct 23 @ Morgan Stanley
Legal Essentials for Startups: Organizing the Entity on Oct 25 @ Anchin
Protect Your Code | IP Law + Founders Experiences on Oct 25 @ AlleyNYC
All Things D: Dive Into Mobile on Oct 29 @ The Ritz-Carlton Battery Park
#Startupfix at Culturefix - Oct 30 on Oct 30 @ Culturefix
Daniweb Presents: Publishers meet Advertisers Cocktail Mixer on Nov 07 @ Highland Park
Funding The Best In Global Innovation on Nov 13 @ SNR Denton
AngelHack Fall 2012 New York City on Nov 17 @ The AlleyNYC

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

This Sunday I'm co-organizing The Big Apple Smackdown! (the Silicon Alley ping-pong tournament) at SPiN. Duking it out will be some of the city's hottest startup entrepreneurs, execs, investors and bloggers, including: Kevin Ryan (founder/CEO, Gilt Groupe), Seth Godin (author, Tribes), Jared Hecht (cofounder, GroupMe), Brian Schechter (cofounder, HowAboutWe), Malcolm Ong (cofounder, SkillShare), Jordan Crook (writer, TechCrunch), Nick Ganju (cofounder, ZocDoc), Gene Munster (senior analyst, Piper Jaffray), Jordan Cooper (partner, Lerer Ventures), Kathryn Minshew (founder, DailyMuse), David Aronoff (partner, Flybridge Capital), Vin Vacanti (cofounder, Yipit) and many, many more! Featuring DJ Premiere of Gang Starr + Bunny Love. It's going to be an epic night of beats and bounce!! :)

Think your startup has what it takes? Then check out the "Who Would You Fund" TechStartup Challenge 2012, where I'll be one of the judges. It's a contest to find the best startup pitch videos out there. Add yours, and you just might win the opportunity to make a live pitch to the ARC Angel Round Capital Fund.

The good folks at the upcoming Angelhack hackathon (on November 17) are offering twenty free tickets to GarysGuide members. Just use the discount code GG.

It's also DataWeek, and there are a bunch of events as part of it, including Strata, PyData Conf & Hackathon, Data Business Meetup, DataGotham, Startup Showcase, BigDataCamp & more.

Don't miss the Software Engineers Job Fair this Tuesday. Later this week, my friends Jen and Allison are performing another edition of Blogologues (the spooky election special!) with an after-party at KGB. The latest entrant in the tech breakfast series is the Palisades Tech Breakfast, bringing together folks across the Hudson. Next month, IncubateNYC (which is redefining the incubation model) is organizing a bootcamp at Google. And Daniweb is throwing another bash, The Publishers meet Advertisers Cocktail Mixer, for Ad:Tech.

And now lets see whats going down in the Alley this week...

Ignite NYC 15 - Truth is a Moving Target: Oddities Anomalies and Wonders with Data
With talks by Hilary Mason ("In Search of an Optimal... Cheeseburger"), Max Shron ("How to Kill Your Grandmother with Statistics"), Erik Norlander ("Game Show Theory"), Andres Glusman ("The Truth Is Out There") and more.
Monday (Oct. 22), 6:30 p.m. @ Sheraton NY Metropolitan Ballroom, 811 7th Avenue

NYC Gaming October: Demo Night
Demos by Bruno Kruse (Enter Thy Name), Mike Christatos (Worm Run), Matt Parker (Recurse), Patrick Lynch (Escape Run), Jesse Freeman (Super Resident Raver), Christopher Garrett (QatQi) and Brian Chung (Carried Away).
Monday (Oct. 22), 6:30 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 Avenue of the Americas

Girls Who Code Inaugural Gala
Support the young women who are New York City's future entrepreneurs and engineers as they unveil the apps built during the Girls Who Code program.
Monday (Oct. 22), 6:30 p.m. @ New York Stock Exchange, 2 Broad Street

Tow-Knight October Startup Demo Night
Media startups demoing include Branch, Narratively, PolicyMic, Ganxy and Percolate.
Monday (Oct. 22), 6:30 p.m. @ CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, 219 W 40th Street

Wired for Change
Rockstar group of panelists including Sir Tim Berners-Lee (inventor, World Wide Web), Esther Dyson (investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist), Brad Burnham (cofounder, Union Square Ventures), Jon Leibowitz (chairman, FTC), Baratunde Thurston (author, How to Be Black) and others.
Tuesday (Oct. 23), 9 a.m. @ Ford Foundation, 320 E 43rd Street

New York Software Engineers (NYSE) Job Fair
Please bring your resume, working code and applications you've developed. There will be break-out rooms, talks from awesome speakers, and robots on patrol taking pictures!
Tuesday (Oct. 23), 5:30 p.m. @ AlleyNYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th floor

[DataWeek] NYC Data Business Meetup #9
With Mike Abbott (partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers), Roger Ehrenberg (founder and managing partner, IA Ventures), Ping Li (general partner, Accel Partners) and Matt Ocko (cofounder and partner, Data Collective).
Tuesday (Oct. 23), 6 p.m. @ Bloomberg LP, 731 Lexington Avenue, 7th floor

Best Practices: Building a Successful Startup in NYC
With Wiley Cerilli (founder and CEO, SinglePlatform, acquired by Constant Contact for $100 million) and David Kidder (cofounder, SmartRay Network, acquired by LifeMinders for $36 million).
Tuesday (Oct. 23), 6:30 p.m. @ NYU Stern School of Business, 44 West Fourth Street, Room 2-60

StartOut Demo Day NYC 2012
Demos by Waywire, Artify, D'marie, Dtime, Fanatiks, Getbooked, Routehappy, Tasklite, Unigo, SocialPicks, SideTour, Wantmegetme and Zokos.
Tuesday (Oct 23), 6:30 p.m. @ Tribeca Grand Hotel, 2 6th Ave

FIT Presents: The Finance & Fashion Forum
A conversation on the state of the economy, with Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman.
Tuesday (Oct. 23), 7 p.m. @ FIT - Morris W. and Fannie B. Haft Auditorium, Seventh Avenue at 27th Street

Startup Weekend Presents the Partnership Series
With Faye Iosotaluno (sr. director of biz dev, MTV Networks), Bill Shapiro (editor-at-large, Time Inc) and Shane Rahmani (VP, head of biz dev and strategy, Thrillist).
Tuesday (Oct. 23), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th floor

The Open Internet and the 2012 Election
A Conversation with Fred Wilson, Clay Shirky, and Susan Crawford.
Thursday (Oct. 25), 6 p.m. @ NYU Stern School of Business, 44 West 4th Street

Enterprise Tech Meetup: Making and Retaining Key Hires
Panelists include David Teten (Partner, ff Venture Capital), Sean Maclsaac (CTO, Yext) and Debbie Madden (Senior VP, Cyrus Innovation).
Thursday (Oct. 25), 7 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 Avenue of the Americas

The Fourth Annual HallowMEME Costume Party
Drinks, goodies, and other surprises provided by Tumblr and Giant Media.
Thursday (Oct. 25), 8:30 p.m. @ The Bell House, 149 7th Street

More events on the horizon...
All Things D: Dive Into Mobile on Oct 29 @ The Ritz-Carlton Battery Park
App Development for iPhone & iPad on Oct 29 @ 3rd Ward
#Startupfix at Culturefix on Oct 30 @ Culturefix
The {c}0dEd Costume Carousal! on Oct 31 @ Alley NYC
NYC FinTech Startup Weekend on Nov 02 @ Alley NYC
Ad:Tech New York on Nov 07 @ Javits Convention Center
Daniweb Presents: Publishers meet Advertisers Cocktail Mixer on Nov 07 @ Highland Park
Ingenuity 2012 on Nov 08 @ New World Stages
CapitalOnStage New York on Nov 09 @ Goodwin Procter at NY Times
Funding The Best In Global Innovation on Nov 13 @ SNR Denton
AngelHack Fall 2012 New York City on Nov 17 @ The AlleyNYC

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Hola folks,

Batten down the hatches. Stock up on the liquor (and food). Bring out the candles and flashlights. Because Hurricane Sandy (a.k.a. #frankenstorm) is almost upon us. And now, at almost a thousand miles wide, it definitely has our attention. Hopefully by this time y'all are safely at home (and not still slumming in Zone A) with eyes glued to the twenty-four-hour news coverage, watching weathermen expound on "cones" and "surges."

As you know, the MTA has shut down all subway and buses, and pretty much every event on Monday has been cancelled or postponed including AllThingsD's Dive Into Mobile conference, Google's Android event, Facebook's engineering open house and our own Big Apple Smackdown Silicon Alley ping-pong tournament (which will be re-scheduled).

At this time, the Tuesday events (and the rest of the week) seem uncertain too. They're still listed below, but I'd highly recommend you confirm first with the event organizers. In the mean time, stay safe, keep your fingers crossed that the storm turns out to be a mild one and don't forget to check Miguel Bloombito's Twitter feed for the latest updates!

Lots of really awesome events coming up in the next few weeks ...

November 8 is the city's preeminent startup event, Ingenuity, organized by the New York Venture Capital Association (NYVCA). Who's coming? Tim Armstrong (CEO, Aol), Julius Genachowski (chairman, FCC), Mike Richter (New York Rangers), Bob Pittman (CEO, Clear Channel), Michael Barrett (Chief Revenue Officer, Yahoo) and many more.

Also on November 8 is Red Innova, an intimate event to create a better understanding of Latin American Internet market opportunities and trends. Featured speakers include Martín Varsavsky (FON), Fabrice Grinda (OLX), Andrew Mclaughlin (Betaworks) and Matías Recchia (Vostu).

On November 9 is Capital On Stage, an unconventional conference about funding where, in a twist, top-tier investors will present themselves to the world’s finest Internet startups. David Aronoff (Flybridge), David Teten (ff Ventures), Tom Wisniewski (NY Angels), Brad Svrluga (High Peaks), Lucas Nelson (DFJ Gotham), Jahan Ali (NYC Investment Fund) and others.

My friend Shaherose Charania (Founder of Women 2.0) is organizing the highly anticipated Women 2.0 Pitch conference on November 14. Keynote speakers include female founders of Match.com, Cisco, Oxygen Network, Urban Decay and talks and panels feature women entrepreneurs who've run super successful Kickstarter projects and grown massively successful companies from the ground up. Don't miss it!

The good folks at the upcoming Angelhack hackathon (on November 17) are offering a few free tickets to GarysGuide members. Just use the discount code GG.

When the theme of an event is 'Rise of the Machines' and the keynote speaker is author Ray Kurzweil (The Singularity Is Near and the recent How To Create A Mind), all I can say is--sign me up! That would be the upcoming TEDxSiliconAlley event on December 3. Other keynoters will be Bre Pettis (founder, Makerbot), Francessca Ferrando (Philosopher of Posthumanism and visiting scholar at Columbia), Jincey Lumpkin (Attorney and Huffington Post sex columnist) and Ken Segall (creative director of Apple's "Think Different" campaign).

And if you're a startup, don't forgt to check out the "Who Would You Fund" TechStartup Challenge 2012, where I'll be one of the judges. It's a contest to find the best startup pitch videos out there. Add your startup promotion video and you just might win the opportunity to make a live pitch to the ARC Angel Round Capital Fund.

And now let's see what might be going down in the Alley this week...

The {c}0dEd Costume Carousal!
A Halloween celebration of the New York coworking startup community.
Wednesday (Oct. 31), 7 p.m. @ Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

NYC UNCUBED (Startup and Scale)
Bringing together emerging companies and talented attendees in an exciting and informative environment that showcases startup culture.
Thursday (Nov. 1), 1 p.m. @ The Altman Building, 135 W 18th Street

Food Network and Ad Age Present: Brand Hacks
Six startups will be selected to pitch partnerships, new tech and integration ideas to a panel of top Food Network execs and industry pros. The best idea receives $25,000.
Thursday (Nov 1), 6 p.m. @ Food Network Studios, Chelsea Market, 75 9th Avenue

Behind the scenes at Gawker: Publishers, Brands and Native Ads
Get the scoop on Gawker's native ad process, strategies around scaling, building effective, measurable products and more.
Thursday (Nov 1), 6 p.m. @ NewsCred, 27 West 24th Street, Ste 202

Start-Up City: If You Can Make it Here Part 2
With Josh Miller (founder, Branch), Ben McKean (cofounder & CEO, Savored), Vinicius Vacanti (cofounder & CEO, Yipit), Kathryn Minshew (CEO & cofounder, The Daily Muse), Kellee Khalil (founder, Lover.ly) and moderated by Rachel Sklar (Change the Ratio).
Thursday (Nov 1), 6:30 p.m. @ NYIT Auditorium, 1871 Broadway

State of the Startup: Politics
With Mattan Griffel, Harrison Weber, Alexis Ohanian, and Reshma Saujani.
Thursday (Nov 1), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Mashable Media Summit 2012
With David Carey (President, Hearst Magazines), Alexis Ohanian (cofounder, Reddit), Kay Matadi (head of entertainment & media, Facebook), Jason Seikin (SVP, PBS Interactive), Bonita Stewart (VP Partner Business Solutions, Google), Raman Kia (Executive Director Digital Strategy, Condé Nast) and others.
Friday (Nov 2), 9 a.m. @ The TimesCenter, 242 West 41st Street

2012 NYU Entrepreneurs Festival
Rockstar speaker list including Jack Dorsey (cofounder Twitter and Square), Herb Kelleher (cofounder & former CEO, Southwest Airlines), Alexandre Douzet (cofounder & COO, TheLadders) and Rachel Sterne Haot (Chief Digital Officer NYC).
Friday (Nov 2), 12:30 p.m. @ Tisch Hall, 40 W 4th Street

NYC Startup Weekend FinTech Edition
Bringing together financial technologists with the goal of building consumer and enterprise financial applications with tools provided by several API and data partners.
Friday (Nov 2), 6 p.m. @ The Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

Foursquare Hackathon
Build something amazing and you might just find yourself ringing the NASDAQ closing bell, rocking tickets to SXSW, partying with an action figure version of yourself, or wearing the infamous Foursquare hackathon TITLE BELT.
Saturday (Nov 3), 9 a.m. @ Foursquare HQ, 568 Broadway

November DemoDays
Part of the NYU Entrepreneur Week. Students take the stage to showcase what they've been working on.
Saturday (Nov 3), 5:30 p.m. @ Pivotal Labs, 841 Broadway, 8th Fl.

More events on the horizon...
Founders@Fail: Pitching Publishers on Nov 5 @ General Assembly
Ad:Tech New York on Nov 7 @ Javits Convention Center
Daniweb Presents: Publishers meet Advertisers Cocktail Mixer on Nov 7 @ Highland Park
Ingenuity 2012 on Nov 8 @ New World Stages
NYTECH Fall Networking Cocktail Reception on Nov 8 @ National Showroom
Capital On Stage on Nov 9 @ Goodwin Procter at NY Times
Hack & Jill: Hacksgiving on Nov 9 @ Etsy
Funding The Best In Global Innovation on Nov 13 @ SNR Denton
Women 2.0 PITCH NYC 2012 Conference & Competition on Nov 14 @ Manhattan Center
AngelHack Fall 2012 New York City on Nov 17 @ The AlleyNYC

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

The lights are back on in Lower Manhattan, the subways are up and running again (well, most of them) and things are slowly returning to normal in the city. But in Staten Island, the Rockaways, Red Hook, Hoboken, Breezy Point, Long Beach, Seaside Heights and other coastal areas that bore the brunt of Sandy, there's a ton of recovery work still to be done. People are cold, hungry and tired and devastated communities are gravely in need of our help. If you want to donate cash or goods or volunteer your time, go check out our updated Hurricane Sandy Relief: Volunteering and Donations Guide to see how you can help.

For those of you frustrated from not hearing back from volunteering organizations, I'd recommend just getting a van and a bunch of friends together and driving out to one of the affected areas and start helping. You can take much-needed supplies like food, blankets, flashlights, batteries, diapers, jackets, etc. Volunteers are desperately needed on the ground to distribute supplies and help clean up, and this will be even more true during the coming days, as many folks go back to work. Remember, there may be another storm coming on Wednesday, so the next couple of days are critical.

It's been really heartening to see everybody come together and pitch in and help out over the last few days, so let's keep this trend going. Makes me proud to be a New Yorker!

This Tuesday is Election Day (yes, finally). Make sure you go out and vote and make your voice heard. Not sure where to vote? Here's a poll site locator, which been updated with locations changed because of Sandy.

On November 14, my friend Shaherose Charania (founder of Women 2.0) is organizing the highly anticipated Women 2.0 Pitch conference. Keynote speakers include female founders of Match.com, Cisco, Oxygen Network, Urban Decay,  and panels feature women entrepreneurs who've run super successful Kickstarter projects and grown companies from the ground up. Don't miss it.

And now let's see whats going down in the Alley this week...

Founders@Fail: Pitching Publishers
Speakers include Bryan Birsic (SimpleReach), Dennis Mortensen (Visual Revenue) and Shafqat Islam (NewsCred).
Monday (Nov. 5), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Floor

OPEN NY / SAMMA / Time Warner Leadership Series
With Ivan Menezes (COO, Diageo) and Salman Amin (global CMO, PepsiCO).
Wednesday (Nov. 7), 6 p.m. @ Time Warner Center, Columbus Circle and 59th St.

November Prince Building Tech Talks
Matt Witheile (principal, Flybridge Capital) on why a Boston-based VC moved his wife and dog to New York. And Thrillist's Ken Peltzer and Jay Chinthrajah will present on Thrillist's recently launched unified user acquisition system.
Wednesday (Nov. 7), 6:30 p.m. @ ZocDoc, 568 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Talks on International VC and US Visa Regulations for Startups
With David Teten (Partenr, ff Venture Capital) and Michael Petrucelli (founder, Clearpath).
Wednesday (Nov. 7), 7 p.m. @ ff Venture Capital, 989 Avenue of the Americas, 3rd Fl.

Ingenuity 2012
New York City's preeminent startup event, run by the New York Venture Capital Association (NYVCA). Who's coming? Tim Armstrong (CEO, AOL), Julius Genachowski (Chairman, FCC), Mike Richter (NY Rangers), Bob Pittman (Clear Channel), Michael Barrett (Chief Revenue Officer, Yahoo) and others.
Thursday (Nov. 8), 8:30 a.m. @ New World Stages, 340 W. 50th St.

Red Innova New York
An intimate event to create a better understanding of Latin American internet market opportunities and trends. Featured speakers include Martín Varsavsky (FON), Fabrice Grinda (OLX), Andrew Mclaughlin (Betaworks) and Matías Recchia (Vostu).
Thursday (Nov. 8), 9:30 a.m. @ IESE Business School, 165 West 57th St.

PandoMonthly Presents: Daniel Ek
A fireside chat with Daniel Ek (cofounder and CEO, Spotify)
Thursday (Nov. 8), 6 p.m. @ Projective L.E.S., 72 Allen St.

Women in the World of Gaming
How do we deal with the overt sexualization of women in games? Is it weird for girls to like games like Call of Duty? These questions and more will be tackled.
Thursday (Nov. 8), 6 p.m. @ Pace University, 1 Pace Plaza

Capital On Stage
An unconventional conference about funding where, in a twist, top-tier investors will present themselves to the world’s finest Internet startups. With David Aronoff (Flybridge), David Teten (ff Venture Capital), Tom Wisniewski (NY Angels), Brad Svrluga (High Peaks), Lucas Nelson (DFJ Gotham), Jahan Ali (NYC Investment Fund) and others.
Friday (Nov. 9), 9 a.m. @ Goodwin Procter at NY Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, 26th Fl

EcoHack III
Hacking on open software, open hardware, open data, and open ideas.
Friday (Nov. 9), 6:30 p.m. @ Old Pfizer Building, 630 Flushing Ave

Hack & Jill: Hacksgiving
A hackathon for social, global, and greater good. We'll address broken issues. We'll improve inefficient systems. We'll make the future better. Together.
Friday (Nov. 9), 7 p.m. @ Etsy, 55 Washington St., Brooklyn

Assembled: Fashion
With Abe Burmeister (Outlier), Amy Choyne (Kenneth Cole), Brooke Moreland (Fashism), Cindy McLaughlin (Style for Hire), Claire Mazur (Of A Kind), Dave Whittemore (Clothes Horse), Ilan Tito (Refinery29), Jenny Wu (Stylyt), Kimberly Skelton (Have to Have), Marc Schiller (CEO, Bond), Marissa Evans (Go Try It On) and others.
Saturday (Nov. 10), 9:30 a.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Tech@NYU November DemoDays
Students take the stage to showcase what they've been working on.
Saturday (Nov. 10), 5 p.m. @ Pivotal Labs, 841 Broadway

More events on the horizon...
Startup Lunch on Nov. 12 @ The Cupping Room Cafe
NJ Tech Meetup 30 w/ Brian Cohen NY Angels (Hoboken) on Nov. 12 @ Howe Center - Stevens Institute of Technology
New York City Pinterest Meetup #6 on Nov. 12 @ We Work Lounge
Funding The Best In Global Innovation on Nov. 13 @ SNR Denton
November NY Enterprise Technology Meetup (& Sponsored Afterparty by eZ Systems) on Nov. 13 @ Cooley
November 2012 NY Tech Meetup on Nov. 13 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
Women 2.0 PITCH NYC 2012 Conference & Competition on Nov. 14 @ Manhattan Center
AngelHack Fall 2012 New York City on Nov. 17 @ The AlleyNYC
Business Insider: Ignition - Future Of Digital on Nov. 27 @ Time Warner Center, 10 on the Park
Mashable Media Summit 2012 on Nov. 30 @ The TimesCenter

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Mayor Bloomberg and the NYCEDC recently launched a prototyping competition, where six lucky winning teams will get an opportunity to prototype new products while receiving studio space from sponsor NYDesigns and mentorship from industry leaders Shapeways, Adafruit Industries, and Honeybee Robotics. Alison Hodgson and Miquela Craytor from the NYCEDC will be at the Hardware Startup Meetup today to explain the competition and take any questions.

The Worldwide Investor Network (WIN) is organizing a two-day conference this Tuesday (November 13-14), bringing together ten tech startups from around the world intimately engaging and pitching to the New York venture community. Speakers include David Teten (ff Ventures), Habib Kairouz (Rho Capital), Ed Sim (BOLDstart Ventures) and Kirill Sheynkman (RTP Ventures). Students can get 50 percent off using the discount code "innovation." And if you're a CEO/VC interesting in participating and sharing best practices, email my friend Eyal Bino at eyal@worldwidein.com.

The Partnership for New York City Fund and Accenture have announced a search for top fintech innovators who will work with global financial institutions to bring their ideas to market. Winning companies will be part of the FinTech Innovation Lab, a 12-week program that helps early and growth-stage fintech innovators accelerate product development and gain exposure to top-level financial industry executives. Applications are due by December 19.

New York City recently announced the H.E.L.M. (Hire Expand in Lower Manhattan) contest, its latest initiative to bring more startups into Manhattan’s growing tech scene, which promises up to $1.2 million in funds to startups looking to reside in Lower Manhattan. Applications are due by noon on November 30. And there'll be an event this Thursday where you can mingle with the judges including Reddit's Alexis Ohanian, restauranteur Danny Meyer 'n others.

This Saturday is AngelHack (which is putting together one of the biggest hackathons ever) and they will be donating 100 percent of the proceeds from here out to Sandy relief efforts.

Heard of 37 Angels? They're a community of women investors committed to funding early-stage startups. This Thursday they're organizing a pitch event at NYU with five to eight cross-sector pitches.

Next week, Ray Kurzweil, the bold futurist and author of the bestseller The Singularity Is Near, will explore the limitless potential of reverse-engineering the human brain to create more intelligent machines. You can't miss that!

If you're a startup, don't forget to check out the "Who Would You Fund" TechStartup Challenge 2012, which I'll be judging. It's a contest to find the best startup pitch videos out there. Add your startup promotion video and you just might win the opportunity to make a live pitch to the ARC Angel Round Capital Fund! Deadline is today (Monday) 11:59pm.

Going slightly off-topic... growing up I was always a huge fan of the James Bond movies (no wonder I'm always dressed to kill). This year is Bond's fiftieth anniversary and the latest flick, Skyfall, is seriously awesome. Go see it!

And now let's see whats going down in the Alley this week...

Uncubed NYC (Scout and Scale)
NYC's biggest startup hiring event.
Monday (Nov. 12), 12:30 p.m. @ Altman Building, 135 W. 18th Street

NJ Tech Meetup 30
Feature speaker is Brian Cohen (Chairman, NY Angels and first investor in Pinterest)
Monday (Nov. 12), 6:30 p.m. @ Howe Center, Stevens Institute of Technology, 4th Fl., Hoboken

New York City Pinterest Meetup #6
Panelists include Jenny Layne Cardon (Gogobot), Diego Saez-Gil (WeHostels) and Ava Fedorov (Beyond NYC).
Monday (Nov. 12), 7 p.m. @ WeWork Lounge, 154 Grand Street, Ground Floor

Funding The Best In Global Innovation
A two-day event bringing together a global ecosystem, developed to close the gap between U.S. investors and top investment opportunities overseas.
Tuesday (Nov. 13), 8:30 a.m. @ SNR Denton, 1221 6th Avenue

Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA) Happy Hour
Meet some ERA1, ERA2 and ERA3 companies, mentors and learn more about ERA's Winter 2013 program.
Tuesday (Nov. 13), 6 p.m. @ WeWork Labs, 175 Varick Street, 4th Fl.

NY Enterprise Technology Meetup & Afterparty
Demos by Badgeville, Namely, Vaultive and eZ Systems.
Tuesday (Nov. 13), 6:30 p.m. @ Cooley, 1114 Avenue of the Americas, 46th Fl.

November 2012 NY Tech Meetup
You know the drill by now. Five-minute, rapid-fire demos. A bunch of amazing new startups. Now hopefully, you've managed to snag one of those elusive tickets.
Tuesday (Nov. 13), 7 p.m. @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts, 566 Laguardia Place

Women 2.0 PITCH NYC 2012 Conference & Competition
Learn from successful women entrepreneurs who started Cisco, Match, Meebo, DailyWorth and more with networking + mentoring.
Wednesday (Nov. 14), 8 a.m. @ Manhattan Center, 311 W. 34th Street

The Inside Story of Election 2012: Fast Politics and Faster Media Meet a Rapidly Changing Electorate
With Peter Hamby (CNN), Ben Smith (BuzzFeed), Molly Ball (The Atlantic), Sayu Bhojwani (The New American Leaders Project) and David Catanese (Politico).
Wednesday (Nov. 14), 8:30 a.m. @ The New School, Theresa Lang Community Center, 55 W. 13th Street, 2nd Fl.

NY Business Expo 2012 (in Association with NYEBN)
With Jeff Bussgang (Flybridge Capital), John Frankel (ff Ventures), Peter Shankman (HARO), Dan Porter (OMGPOP/Zynga) and others.
Wednesday (Nov. 14), 12 p.m. @ The 69th Regiment Armory, 68 Lexington Avenue

Investor Feedback Forum - Future Energy
Panelists include Andrew Garman (New Venture Partners), Arrun Kapoor (SJF Ventures), Jim LoGerfo (Earthrise Capital) and Willem Rensink (Shell). Startup pitches by Lucidity Lights, Kohilo Wind, ReNew, ThermoLift, Solstice Power, KiteFarms, Re-Nuble and Algepower.
Wednesday (Nov. 14), 6:30 p.m. @ NYU, W. 4th Street

The Brooklyn Startup Scene: Brooklyn Coworking Spaces & Their Entrepreneurs
Presenting spaces include Bat Haus CoWorking (Bushwick), Dumbo Startup Lab (Dumbo), The Yard (Williamsburg) and The Secret Clubhouse (Williamsburg).
Wednesday (Nov. 14), 6:30 p.m. @ Dumbo Startup Lab, 68 Jay Street, #718, Brooklyn

NY Video Nov 15 2012 Meetup
Demos by CrowdSurf tv, Rawporter, Liveu, Shelby tv and Pond 5.
Thursday (Nov. 15), 6:30 p.m. @ AOL HQ, 770 Broadway, 6th Fl.

Appular Presents A F#@K Sandy Event- Geeks Give Back
Don’t take anymore of Hurricane Sandy’s $h!t, grab some shots instead! Show the world how real New Yorkers face Mother Nature’s wrath by joining us for some downtown cocktails, geeky gossip, and cheeky NYC charity.
Thursday (Nov. 15), 7 p.m. @ White Rabbit, 145 E. Houston Street, New York

7th Annual Ivy Sports Symposium
With Bob Bowman (CEO, MLB Advanced Media), Rick Cordella (NBC Universal), Will Dean (CEO, Tough Mudder), Tracy Dolgin (CEO, YES Network), Billy King (General Manager, Brooklyn Nets) and others.
Friday (Nov. 16), 8 a.m. @ Alfred Lerner Hall, Columbia University, 2920 Broadway

Sustainability Hackathon - hosted by BMW i Born Electric Tour NYC
Help create a more sustainable future.
Friday (Nov. 16), 7 p.m. @ BMW i Born Electric Tour in NYC, 1095 6th Avenue

AngelHack Fall 2012 New York City
Join 2,500 hackers this fall for the HACKathon of hackathons! $500,000 in hosting and over $50,000 in Sponsor Prizes!
Saturday (Nov. 17), 9 a.m. @ The AlleyNYC, 500 7th Avenue

More events on the horizon...
Future of Fashion Startup Series on Nov 19 @ Projective Space - L.E.S.
Ray Kurzweil: Engineering The Brain on Nov 20 @ Kaufmann Concert Hall
Business Insider: Ignition - Future Of Digital on Nov 27 @ Time Warner Center, 10 on the Park
MakeIt NYC: Secrets of Kickstarter Panel on Nov 27 @ University Settlement - Speyer Hall
NYTECH Fall Networking Cocktail Reception on Nov 29 @ National Showroom
tilt@vc: ff Venture Capital on Nov 29 @ ff Venture Capital
Mashable Media Summit 2012 on Nov 30 @ The TimesCenter
Vator Splash NY 2012 on Dec 05 @ Le Poisson Rouge
FashInvest 2012 Capital Conference on Dec 11 @ Fashion Institute of Technology

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Don't miss the upcoming TEDxSiliconAlley event on December 4. The theme is "Rise of the Machines" and the keynote speaker is Ray Kurzweil (author of New York Times best-seller The Singularity Is Near). Other keynoters include Bre Pettis (founder, Makerbot), Jincey Lumpkin (attorney & Huffington Post sex columnist) and Ken Segall (creative director of Apple's "Think Different" campaign).

DEMO will be hosting an event at First Round Capital on December 13 to meet and select potential startups to present next year at DEMO Mobile. Deadline to apply for a meeting is November 28.

Congrats to ZenMenu, Planet Expat and Cielo--the winners of the Who Would You Fund TechStartup Challenge 2012. And kudos to everyone who participated!

Here's something interesting: Wu-Tang Clan member GZA is teaming up with Columbia University professor Christopher Emdin and Andreesseen Horowitz-backed startup Rap Genius to do a pilot project to use hip-hop to teach science in ten New York City public schools.

Seeing a crazy increase in the number of moustaches around you recently? Well that's cuz its Movember, meant to raise vital awareness and funds for men's health issues. So don't delay, start growing a 'stache today!

And if you like drinking beer (and who doesn't?), I have a feeling you're gonna like it even more if you drink it out of a horn :) My friend Laurie Segall's brother David has a Kickstarter project aiming to help you do just that. I present to you the definitive drinking horn: Das Horn!

Another week, another awesome movie recommendation. No, no, not Breaking Dawn. I'm talking about Lincoln. Combine a legendary filmmaker (Spielberg) with a terrific actor (Daniel Day-Lewis), add a historical backdrop (Civil War) and a riveting and inspiring central character (Abraham Lincoln) and you have magic. Must see.

And now let's see whats going down in the Alley this week...

Technology You Can Touch
Network with hard sciences engineers, entrepreneurs, and capital sources. Organized by NYC Tech Connect, the Partnership for New York City Fund and Columbia University.
Monday (Nov. 19), 5:30 p.m. @ Columbia University Earl Hall, W. 116th Street and Broadway

Mediabistro TVNewser and TVSpy Party in New York
Hosted by TVNewser senior editor Alex Weprin, TVSpy editor Kevin Eck, and TVSpy senior editor and TVNewser co-editor, Merrill Knox.
Monday (Nov. 19), 6:30 p.m. @ SideBAR, 120 E. 15th Street

Everything you wanted to know about Startup Law
What not to do when you create a start up, forming and organizing a startup, term sheets, founder stock and equity incentives and other topics.
Monday (Nov. 19), 7 p.m. @ Pivotal Labs, 841 Broadway, 8th Fl.

Future of Fashion Startup Series
Panelists include Jenn Talley (digital development editor, Teen Vogue), Susan Barber (art director, Opening Ceremony) and Nick Chirls (investments, Betaworks). Demos by Merocrat, Stylitics, Little Black Bag, Fashion Qlic and Bib + Tuck.
Monday (Nov. 19), 7 p.m. @ Projective Space L.E.S., 72 Allen Street, 3rd Fl.

PGA New Media Council: Cutting to the Beat
With Sarah Landy (senior director, Stache/RED Media), Zack Beatty (VP biz dev, PlayMySong), Frank Woodworth (director biz dev, Thrillcall) and Karimah Day (cofounder & COO, Sir Groovy).
Monday (Nov. 19), 7 p.m. @ Theresa Lang Auditorium The New School, 55 W. 13th Street

Healthcare Information Technology: Change Outlook & Opportunity
With Esther Dyson (EDventure Holdings), Andrew Litt (Dell), David Feygin (Becton Dickinson), Jean-Luc Neptune (Health 2.0 Conference), Andy Weissman (Union Square Ventures), Todd Pietri (Milestone Ventures) and others.
Tuesday (Nov. 20), 8:30 a.m. @ Alston & Bird, LLP, 90 Park Ave

NYC Data Business Meetup #10
With Christopher Ahlberg (CEO, Recorded Future), Josh Becker (CEO, Lex Machina), Nik Bonaddio (CEO, numberFire) and Hjalmar Gislason (CEO, DataMarket).
Tuesday (Nov. 20), 6 p.m. @ Bloomberg LP, 731 Lexington Ave, 7th Fl.

WeStory with Scott Harrison
Featuring Scott Harrison, the founder and CEO of charity: water.
Tuesday (Nov. 20), 7 p.m. @ WeWork Lounge, 154 Grand Street

Ray Kurzweil: Engineering The Brain
The bold futurist and author of the New York Times best-seller The Singularity Is Near explores the limitless potential of reverse-engineering the human brain to create more intelligent machines.
Tuesday (Nov. 20), 8 p.m. @ Kaufmann Concert Hall, Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street

More events on the horizon...
Business Insider: Ignition - Future Of Digital on Nov. 27 @ Time Warner Center, 10 on the Park
MakeIt NYC: Secrets of Kickstarter Panel on Nov. 27 @ University Settlement - Speyer Hall
Ultra Light / NY Angels Novemberfest Showcase on Nov. 28 @ Alley NYC
Dwolla + Derby Jackpot Party! on Nov. 28 @ Tavern on Third
NYTECH Fall Networking Cocktail Reception on Nov. 29 @ National Showroom
November NY Enterprise Technology Meetup on Nov. 29 @ Cooley
tilt@vc: ff Venture Capital on Nov. 29 @ ff Venture Capital
Mashable Media Summit 2012 on Nov. 30 @ The TimesCenter
Founders@Fail: The Dos & Donts of Pitching Ad Agencies on Dec. 3 @ General Assembly
Vator Splash NY 2012 on Dec. 5 @ Le Poisson Rouge
FashInvest 2012 Capital Conference on Dec. 11 @ Fashion Institute of Technology

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

A couple of months ago, while attending the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, I had the opportunity to chat with a ton of upcoming startups, and I noticed a surprisingly higher-than-usual number of enterprise-focused companies. Yesterday Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson wrote an interesting post highlighting how the consumer web might be entering a stage of maturation as the action shifts from the desktop to mobile, where it's becoming increasingly harder to reach scale. 500 Startups' Dave McClure has an excellent rebuttal post on the topic.

Another one of my favorite tech bloggers Y Combinator's Paul Graham wrote a terrific must-read essay last week on startup ideas. Quoting PG: "The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It's to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself" and "Live in the future and build what seems interesting."

In other cool news, City24/7 is turning a bunch of pay-phones across the city into touchscreen smartscreen kiosks. This is the first experiment of its kind in the country, and they'll be rolling out 250 of these in a pilot project. Down in Nolita, 3D printer startup MakerBot just opened their first MakerBot Store at 298 Mulberry where you'll be able to get your hands on the printers, filaments, pre-made items 'n more. Nice!

ERA Accelerator's Winter 2013 application deadline is this Friday (November 30).

Don't miss TechDrinkup this Thursday, where folks from Bravo will be in the house doing an open casting call for the NYC edition of their show Startups. That's right. Reality TV stardom is within your grasp!

Also a couple of Sandy fundraisers / benefits this week: Goodnik and New Work City are hosting the 'Mustache-Sandy' event on Friday, and then there is the #NYTechResponds hackathon benefit on Saturday. And coming up next week are TEDxSiliconAlley: Rise of the Machines with guest Ray Kurzweil on December 3 and the AlleyNYC Holiday Party on December 6.

And now let's see whats going down in the Alley this week...

Business Insider: Ignition - Future Of Digital
With Dr. Mehmet Oz (The Dr. Oz Show), Jill Abramson (The New York Times), Jeffrey Bewkes (Time Warner), Don Graham (The Washington Post Company), Jeff Weiner (LinkedIn), Bradley Horowitz (Google) and more.
Tuesday (Nov. 27), 9 a.m. @ Time Warner Center, 10 on the Park, 60 W. 60th Street

Media Preview 2013
Panelists include Saul Hansell (Founder, Sii and former New York Times tech correspondent), Reed Phillips (media investment banker, DeSilva + Phillips), Emily Steele (media and advertising correspondent, Financial Times) and Lee Stimmel (head of creative agency, Columbia Records).
Tuesday (Nov. 27), 6 p.m. @ Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, 488 Madison Avenue

NYC Gaming November: Demo Night
Demos by Joshua DeBonis (Meriwether), Scott Rapp (Instreamia), Greg Irwin (BigTwist), Eric Schwertzel (Garfield's Collectibles), John Nguyen (Super Bunny Breakout) and Ien Cheng (Grasshopper).
Tuesday (Nov. 27), 6:30 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 Avenue of the Americas

MakeIt NYC: Secrets of Kickstarter Panel
With CW&T (creators of the Pen Type-A), Bitbanger Labs (creators of Remee, the REM-enhancing lucid dreaming mask), Hickies, Josh & Eric (creators of the Mason Shaker) and Yury & Joel (creators of the Pulse Sensor).
Tuesday (Nov. 27), 7 p.m. @ University Settlement - Speyer Hall, 184 Eldridge Street

Ultra Light / NY Angels Novemberfest Showcase
A startup showcase and free beer provided by local beer entrepreneurs such as Kelso, Bronx, Rockaway, Harlem and Brooklyn Brewery.
Wednesday (Nov. 28), 6 p.m. @ Alley NYC, 500 7th Ave, 17th Fl.

NYU Founders Showcase
Three startups from the NYU-Poly incubators and three student startups will pitch. Judges include Peter Flint (general partner, Polaris Ventures) and Jorge Torres (VP, Silas Capital).
Wednesday (Nov. 28), 6 p.m. @ Varick Street Incubator , 137 Varick Street , 2nd Fl.

Ad Age & Food Network Present: Brand Hacks
Hacking the food category. Six finalists pitch their concepts and the grand prize winner is revealed.
Wednesday (Nov. 28), 6 p.m. @ The Darby, 244 W 14th Street

Dwolla + Derby Jackpot Party!
Bet on horses. Booze on alcohol.
Wednesday (Nov. 28), 7 p.m. @ Tavern on Third, 380 3rd Avenue

Is Curation an Art or a Science?
A discussion with Techmeme's Gabe Rivera.
Wednesday (Nov. 28), 7 p.m. @ Outbrain HQ, 39 W. 13th Street, 3rd Fl.

MITEF: Investing in Aerospace Entrepreneurship: Air Traffic Management, Unmanned Systems
Stuart A. Auerbach (Ampersand Capital Partners), Mark Cherry (Aurora Flight Sciences), Courtney Graham (NASA), Adam Harris (SpaceX), Don Thoma (Aireon) and Laurence Vigeant-Langlois (Sikorsky Innovations).
Thursday (Nov. 29), 5:30 p.m. @ Holland & Knight, 31 W. 52nd Street

Digital Cocktails: The Investment Landscape-Seeds, Angels and Incubators

Panelists include Phin Barnes (First Round Capital), Tony Bacigalupo (New Work City), Gordon Crovitz (Former Publisher, Wall Street Journal), Micah Kotch (NYC Accelerator for a Clean and Renewable Economy) and Jeffrey Silverman (Laconia Ventures).
Thursday (Nov. 29), 6 p.m. @ The Wix Lounge, 10 W. 18th Street

#techdrinkup - NY Tech Holiday Party
A party for NYC's brightest and savviest people in tech. Oh, and folks from Bravo will be in the house, doing an open casting call for the NYC edition of their show Startups. Yup.
Thursday (Nov. 29), 7 p.m. @ Ava Lounge @ Dream Hotel, 210 W. 55th Street.

Mashable Media Summit 2012
With David Carey (president, Hearst Magazines), Alexis Ohanian (cofounder, Reddit), Kay Matadi (head of entertainment & media, Facebook), Jason Seikin (SVP, PBS Interactive), Bonita Stewart (VP partner business solutions, Google), Raman Kia (exec director digital strategy, Condé Nast) and others.
Friday (Nov. 30), 9 a.m. @ The TimesCenter, 242 W. 41st Street

GIVE GOOD Market
Organized by the New York Women Social Entrepreneurs (NYWSE). The goal of the market is to provide a highly-curated event that promotes successful women-owned businesses that produce supremely crafted sustainable fashion and goods this holiday season.
Friday (Nov. 30), 11 a.m. @ Starrett Lehigh Building, 601 W. 26th Street

Goodnik & New Work City Movember / Sandy Relief Fundraiser
Raising money for Movember and Sandy Relief Efforts. This 'Mustache-Sandy' event will include beer & wine, a shaving station, photobooth, faux mustaches for anyone who didn't grow one and maybe even a Burt Reynolds movie.
Friday (Nov. 30), 7 p.m. @ New Work City, 412 Broadway, 2nd Fl.

Sanitation Hackathon NYC
In partnership with the World Bank's Water Practice and ICT units, mobilizing an unprecedented level of collaboration from sanitation & water experts, designers, software developers, engineers, health professionals & students to develop breakthrough innovations for improving access to sanitation for the world's poor.
Friday (Nov. 30), 7 p.m. @ Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

More events on the horizon...
TEDxSiliconAlley 2012 on Dec. 3 @ Terminal 5
Founders@Fail: The Dos & Donts of Pitching Ad Agencies on Dec. 3 @ General Assembly
December 2012 NY Tech Meetup on Dec. 4 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
Vator Splash NY 2012 on Dec. 5 @ Le Poisson Rouge
Designers + Geeks on Dec. 6 @ General Assembly
Celebrate the Arts with AlleyNYC (Holiday Party!) on Dec. 6 @ AlleyNYC
FashInvest 2012 Capital Conference on Dec. 11 @ Fashion Institute of Technology
Ultra Light Startups: Investor Feedback Forum on Dec. 13 @ Microsoft

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Winter is coming.

No, I'm not talking about the weather (though it has been getting chilly lately). Nor Game of Thrones (FYI, season 3 begins on March 31 for those keeping track!). I'm talking about the growing perception in Startupland that the good times might really be coming to an end (for now). Following last week's post by Fred Wilson was this one by PandoDaily's Sarah Lacy, talking about the Series A crunch and how as many as thousand companies who've received seed rounds won't be around in six months. Then there's this one by TechCrunch's Alexia Tsotsis, arguing that the Series A crunch actually extended to Series B, C and D. So what should entrepreneurs make of all this? Do what ya should be doing anyway--focus on building an insanely great product that customers really want and start thinking about monetization early. Personally, I think this is the best time to build a company.

My buddy Steve Rosenbaum (founder/CEO of Magnify) is NYCEDC’s Entrepreneur at Large, and he'll be doing virtual office hours (via Google Hangout) to answer all your startup and entrepreneurship questions. Register here.

I have a couple of free tickets to the upcoming Mobile Loco conference in San Francisco on December 11. Speakers include Andrew Mason (Groupon), Bill Gurley (Benchmark Capital), Don Dodge (Google) and others. If interested, just shoot me an email at gary@garysguide.com with your Name, Title and Company. We'll pick two randomly selected winners.

The annual Amazon AWS Startup Challenge deadline is at midnight this Wed (December 5). This year there'll be four grand prizes (gaming, big data, consumer apps & business apps). Each prize includes $50,000 in cash + $50,000 in AWS credits. Nice!

And the deadline for nominating a startup for the Crunchies (co-hosted by TechCrunch, GigaOm and VentureBeat) is this Thursday (December 6).

In case ya missed TechDrinkup last week, a casting team from Bravo's Start-ups did show, looking for NYC-edition characters. Here's Betabeat's writeup, with all the juicy details.

Going slightly off-topic ... I'm in fairly good shape but I've been feeling the urge lately to find a kickass fitness regimen and get in reaaalllly great shape. But with a ton of holiday parties coming up, I'm wondering if I should start now or wait until after the holidays? Hmmmm ... If anyone has any interesting fitness or diet routines to recommend, feel free to email me.

And now let's see whats going down in the Alley this week...

TEDxSiliconAlley 2012
The theme is Rise of the Machines and the keynote speaker is Ray Kurzweil (The Singularity Is Near). Also includes Bre Pettis (founder, Makerbot), Francessca Ferrando (philosopher of posthumanism & visiting scholar at Columbia), Jincey Lumpkin (attorney & Huffington Post sex columnist) and Ken Segall (creative director of Apple's "Think Different" campaign).
Monday (Dec. 3), 9:30 a.m. @ Terminal 5, 610 W. 56th Street

Lean Startup Conference Livestream
Keynotes by Marc Andreessen, Steve Blank, Beth Comstock and Eric Ries.
Monday (Dec. 3), 12 p.m. @ WeWorkLabs, 175 Varick Street, 4th Fl.

Windows Apps Labs Launch at WeWork Labs
Access to the newest Windows 8 devices (including Microsoft Surface). Also Bing Fund, the new angel fund and incubation program backed by Microsoft, will be dropping in to talk about the program.
Monday (Dec. 3), 6 p.m. @ WeWork Labs, 175 Varick Street

NY Mobile First: App Pitch Showdown
With Nihal Mehta (ENIAC Ventures), Sim Blaustein (Bertelsmann Venture Capital), Charlie O'Donnell (Brooklyn Bridge Ventures), Chieh Huang (Zynga NY) and Heather Hromoho (Millennial Media).
Monday (Dec. 3), 7 p.m. @ Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

Think Commerce Summit
Rockstar speaker list including Jon Miller (former CEO, Digital Media Group, News Corp), Bob Pittman (chairman & CEO, Clear Channel), Ben Lerer (CEO, Thrillist), Eric Hippeau (partner, Lerer Ventures), Shana Fisher (Highline Venture Partners), Ezra Kucharz (president, Local Digital Media, CBS), Nick Lehman (president of digital, NBC Universal) and others.
Tuesday (Dec. 4), 12 a.m. @ Chelsea Piers - Pier 60, 23rd Street and 11th Avenue

Xconomy Forum: Mobile Madness New York
With Rich Miner (Google Ventures), Roger Ehrenberg (IA Ventures), Peter Flint (Polaris Venture Partners), Joe Essenfeld (Jibe), Eric Koester (Zaarly), Robby Stein (Yahoo), Jalak Jobanputra (FuturePerfect Ventures), Rahul Sood (Bing Fund) and others.
Tuesday (Dec. 4), 2 p.m. @ NYC Microsoft Office, 1290 6th Avenue

December 2012 NY Tech Meetup
You know the drill. Five-minute, rapid-fire demos. A bunch of amazing new startups. Now hopefully you've managed to snag one of those elusive tickets.
Tuesday (Dec. 4), 7 p.m. @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts, 566 Laguardia Place

TechHub NY - A Very Merry TechHub
Networking, hosted drinks and bites, DJs, photo-booth action, and more.
Wednesday (Dec. 5), 6:30 p.m. @ Ace Hotel, 20 W. 29th Street

Pitchcrawl 2.0 - Angel Investor / Entrepreneur Mixer
Investors include Marissa Campise (Venrock), Lucas Nelson (DFJ Gotham), Rahul Gandhi (High Peaks Venture Partners), Mark Wachen (DreamIt Ventures), Peter Flint (Polaris Venture Partners), Charlie Kemper (Revel Partners & ERA), William Peng (Raptor) and others.
Wednesday (Dec. 5), 7 p.m. @ To be decided

Columbia Engineering Entrepreneurship Night
Arguably among the most influential technology entrepreneurs over the last decade, Bill Campbell and Ben Horowitz will discuss the new NYC tech boom, how it is driving the East Coast startup ecosystem, and how NYC entrepreneurship is giving Silicon Valley a run for its money.
Thursday (Dec. 6), 6 p.m. @ Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 W. 18th Street

Water Collective Holiday Party
An evening of open bar, hors d'oeuvres, silent auction, and raffle to celebrate a new year of clean water and economic empowerment.
Thursday (Dec. 6), 7 p.m. @ Top Of The Garden, 251 W. 30th Street, 16th Fl.

Celebrate the Arts with AlleyNYC (Holiday Party!)
Just pure partying and having fun with awesome people.
Thursday (Dec. 6), 8 p.m. @ AlleyNYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

Investor series with Erik Norlander of Google Ventures
Google is one of the largest companies and a frequent dream strategic partner, investor, acquirer. Hear from the inside how it works as well as the acquisition process.
Friday (Dec. 7), 4 p.m. @ The Lab, 122 W. 26th Street, 5th Fl.

Hack // Meat
Bringing together technologists, entrepreneurs, creatives, policy experts, non-profit leaders and industry executives to develop technologies and tools that help democratize meat.
Friday (Dec. 7), 6 p.m. @ Grind, 419 Park Avenue South, 2nd Fl.

TimesOpen Hack Day
A day filled with learning, coding, tinkering, having fun and hanging out with some of the best developers in NYC.
Saturday (Dec. 8), 10 a.m. @ The New York Times, 620 Eighth Avenue, 15th Fl.

More events on the horizon...
Women in Wireless Holiday Party on Dec. 10 @ SoHo House
Charity Ball 2012 on Dec. 10 @ 69th Regiment Armory
FashInvest 2012 Capital Conference on Dec. 11 @ Fashion Institute of Technology
10 Startup Mistakes to Avoid on Dec. 11 @ Orrick at The CBS Building
Damsels in Design 2012 Holiday Soiree on Dec. 11 @ Museum of the City of New York
Perfecting Your Business Development Strategies on Dec. 12 @ Anchin
Ultra Light Startups: Investor Feedback Forum on Dec. 13 @ Microsoft
StartupBus: Accelerate NYC 2012 on Dec. 15 @ The Alley
December NY Enterprise Technology Meetup on Dec. 18 @ Cooley
Windows 8 Launch Celebration! on Dec. 18 @ Microsoft

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

It's that time of the year again! There are holiday parties happening everywhere you look. This week alone has a ton, including Buzzfeed, Aol/Huffington Post, The Verge, Gawker Media, the New York Observer, WeWork Labs, Projective Space, Refinery29 and many, many more. So go crazy and party hard--but go easy on the eggnog ;).

As you know, schools all over the city have been affected by Sandy, with some still closed to students. This Tuesday, the local tech community is coming together to put on a fundraiser (in the form of a party) for schools that have been affected by the recent hurricane. You can sign up here (the password is: helpourschools).

On Wednesday is 121212, the concert for Sandy relief at Madison Square Garden. Proceeds go to the Robin Hood Relief Fund. Performing will be Bon Jovi, Eric Clapton, Billy Joel, Alicia Keys, Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Kanye West, The Who, Paul McCartney and many more.

And on Sunday, my friends at the Times Square Art Square are planning a Pledge a Sketch marathon, rallying 100 local artists to create 100 portrait sketches each to raise $100,000 for two worthy causes: Art Square 2013 and the NYFA Emergency Relief Fund. Here's the Artist Registration Page and here's the Portrait Order Form.

Congrats to Michael Fedyna and Wenqi Shao for winning the two free tickets Gary's Guide raffled off for the upcoming Mobile Loco conference in San Francisco on December 11. And thanks to everyone who participated!

FYI, December 19 is the deadline to apply to the FinTech Innovation Lab, an annual 12-week accelerator program run by the Partnership for New York City Fund and Accenture. They accept six early and growth-stage companies targeted at financial services customers. Last week I met some of the folks involved including entrepreneurs who've participated, and this definitely feels like a terrific program. So go apply for it. Here are some Demo Day videos from previous companies.

Last week I mentioned my urge to go on a kickass fitness regimen, and a couple hundred folks emailed me back with words of encouragement, advice and some amazing tips and recommendations regarding fitness and diet programs. Thanks!! Super grateful for all the support and will keep you guys updated on my progress. The suggestions were varied and diverse and included The 4 Hour Body, Slow Carb Cookbook, P90X, Parsely's The Startup Diet, Insanity, David Teten's Fitness and Productivity in the Office, Natural Organic Method & Movements, Animal Walk Exercises, Healthy Smoothie Recipes, Change Anything, RoadRunners, Monkey Bar Gym and many, many more!

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

Women Transforming our Financial Markets Symposium
With John Frankel (ff Venture Capital), Sara Hanks (CrowdCheck), Jason Jones (HighStep Capital), Brian Meece (RocketHub), Kathleen Murray (angel investor) and others.
Tuesday (Dec. 11), 8 a.m. @ Chadbourne & Parke, 30 Rockefeller Plaza

FashInvest 2012 Capital Conference
With Daymond John (CEO, FUBU and star of ABC's "Shark Tank"), Lawrence Lenihan (founder, FirstMark Capital), Daniel Schultz (cofounder, DFJ Gotham), Chantel Waterbury (founder and CEO, Chloe & Isabel) and others.
Tuesday (Dec. 11), 9 a.m. @ Fashion Institute of Technology, 7th Avenue at 27th Street, Katie Murphy Amphitheater

10 Startup Mistakes to Avoid
With David Tisch (managing partner, BoxGroup and cofounder, TechStars NYC), Phin Barnes (partner, First Round Capital), Wiley Cerilli (Former CEO, SinglePlatform; VP, Constant Contact), Dennis Morgan (former CFO, Buddy Media) and Kathryn Minshew (founder and CEO, The Daily Muse).
Tuesday (Dec. 11), 5 p.m. @ Orrick at The CBS Building, 51 W. 52nd Street, 23rd Fl.

Bring in the Music Bring in the Funk: Music and Brand Fusion in a Digital Age
With John McCarus (SVP, Digitas), John Mitchell (VP US Sales, Spotify), Camille Hackney (SVP Brand Partnerships, Atlantic Records) and Bruce McKenzie (GM, Green Light Music).
Tuesday (Dec. 11), 6 p.m. @ 250 Hudson Street

Rebuilding Our Schools: A Fundraiser (In The Form Of A Party) For Schools Affected By Hurricane Sandy
Silent auction includes tickets to Discovery Times Square, BarkBox gift box, Warby Parker gift card, TastyBite gift basket and more.
Tuesday (Dec. 11), 6:30 p.m. @ EasyBib HQ, 12 W. 31st Street

How Content Is Changing The Way We Shop
With Alison Feldmann (editor-in-chief, Etsy) and Erin Griffith (PandoDaily).
Tuesday (Dec. 11), 7 p.m. @ Outbrain HQ, 39 W. 13th Street, 3rd Fl.

Law to Venture Capital Panel
Eric Wiesen (RRE Ventures), Joy Marcus (DFJ Gotham), David Tisch (BoxGroup) and Matt Turck (Bloomberg Ventures).
Tuesday (Dec. 11), 8 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Best Practices: How to go from Concept to Millions
With Andres Blank (cofounder of Pixable, acquired for $26.5 million by SingTel) and Lucinda Duncalfe (founder of TurnTide, acquired by Symanted for $28 million).
Wednesday (Dec. 12), 6:30 p.m. @ NYU Stern School of Business, 44 West Fourth St, Room 2-60

121212: The Concert for Sandy Relief to Benefit the Robin Hood Relief Fund
With Bon Jovi, Eric Clapton, Billy Joel, Alicia Keys, Chris Martin, Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Eddie Vedder, Kanye West, The Who, Paul McCartney and more.
Wednesday (Dec. 12), 7:30 p.m. @ Madison Square Garden, 4 Penn Plaza

WeWork Labs Holiday Party
Holiday party with members and friends of WeWork Labs! There'll be beer, wine, Macallan, and light food.
Wednesday (Dec. 12), 8 p.m. @ WeWork Lounge, 177 Lafayette Street

Investor Feedback Forum
Panelists include Nasir Ali (StartFast Venture Accelerator), Jay Levy (Zelkova Ventures), Paul Sethi (PKS Capital Intl) and Matthew Witheiler(Flybridge Capital Partners). Startup pitches by Consignd, Applique, Aggregift, Merocrat, Point Payments, MedStartr, autoWorkout, MMGuardian and Feelday.
Thursday (Dec. 13), 6:30 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 6th Avenue

StartupBus: Accelerate NYC 2012
A six-hour intensive workshop for entrepreneurs at all levels.
Saturday (Dec. 15), 10 a.m. @ The Alley, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

NYU ITP Winter Show
A two-day exhibition of recent works by the students of ITP.
Sunday (Dec. 16), 2 p.m. @ NYU ITP - Tisch School of the Arts, 721 Broadway, 4th Fl.

More events on the horizon...

NJ Tech Meetup 31 on Dec 17 @ Howe Center Bissinger Room
Fireside Chat with Reshma Saujani Founder of Girls Who Code on Dec 17 @ AppNexus
The Anatomy of a Hackathon on Dec 17 @ General Assembly East
December NY Enterprise Technology Meetup on Dec 18 @ Cooley
Windows 8 Launch Celebration! on Dec 18 @ Microsoft
Queens Tech Meetup 5 & Holiday Party on Dec 19 @ See Exhibition Space

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Terribly saddened by the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the victims, and hopefully we can all come together and figure out how to never ever let something like this happen again.

Plenty more holiday parties this week. The one event you don't wanna miss is the Queens Tech Meetup Holiday Party. QTM has quickly raced to almost a thousand members, and this Wednesday they've assembled a rockstar panel of women in NYC tech including Rachel Haot (Chief Digital Officer, New York City), Reshma Saujani (Founder, Girls Who Code and former New York City Deputy Public Advocate). Jessica Lawrence (Managing Director, New York Tech Meetup) and Helen Marshall (Queens Borough President and Coalition for Queens). Long Island City is happening, yo!

Who wants high-speed broadband fiber goodness at their business? You do! The NYCEDC may be bringing you the Christmas gift you always wanted. It's called the NYC Fiber Challenge. Winners receive free fiber build-out to their business, an overall value of up to $7 million for all winning businesses over two years. The application deadline is 2pm on December 27. Go get 'em! If you wanna learn more, there'll be a few workshops this week in Long Island City and Brooklyn.

Matter Ventures, a new incubator for media startups supported by The Knight Foundation, KQED, and Public Radio Exchange will be holding an information session on December 18th from 6:30 to 8:30pm at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Inaugural class begins in late February and the deadline for applications is January 6th.

In other news, Manhattan's hottest new museum is ... MoMath! It's the first math museum in the U.S. and, true to its name, math pervades every aspect of the design--even the cafe, where the walls are made of Tetris-like puzzle shapes called pentominoes, and the tables are arranged as a knight would progress on a chessboard. The museum is located at 11 E. 26th St (north of Madison Square Park) and open everyday from 10 to 5. So go check it out and don't forget to take your kids (and nieces and nephews) along. It's about time we made an effort to make math cool and fun!

And if you're looking to check out GPS shoes with LED lights, a high-tech music box, Rotobooths and 3D printers, head on over to the WIRED popup store in SoHo (583 Broadway). It's open 11am-7pm Tuesday to Sunday through December 23rd.

And now let's see whats going down in the Alley this week...

NJ Tech Meetup 31
With Tony Haile (CEO, Chartbeat)
Monday (Dec. 17), 6:30 p.m. @ Howe Center Bissinger Room, Stevens Institute of Technology, 4th Fl., Hoboken

NYTM Meet the Board of Directors Candidates Event
NYTM members and the candidates running for a seat on the New York Tech Meetup board of directors.
Monday (Dec 17), 6:30 p.m. @ Projective Space L.E.S., 72 Allen Street

Second Screens and Social TV Roundtable
With Alex Iskold (founder/CEO, GetGlue), Tom Boland (SVP, Social@Ogilvy), Jesse Redniss (SVP digital, NBC / USA Networks), Michael Hussey (CEO, PeekAnalytics), David Beck (VP/GM of social media, Univision) and others.
Tuesday (Dec. 18), 8:30 a.m. @ SNR Denton, 1221 6th Avenue

NYC Data Business Meetup #11
Presenters include Oren Falkowitz (cofounder & CEO, sqrrl), Eric Frenkiel (cofounder & CEO, MemSQL) and Dhruv Bansal (cofounder & CSO, Infochimps).
Tuesday (Dec. 18), 6 p.m. @ Bloomberg LP, 731 Lexington Avenue, 7th Fl.

December NY Enterprise Technology Meetup
Featuring keynote by Fred Wilson (partner, Union Square Ventures). Demos by tracx, JouleX and SoMoLend.
Tuesday (Dec. 18), 6:30 p.m. @ Cooley, 1114 Avenue of the Americas, 46th Fl.

Windows 8 Launch Celebration!
A night of wine and cheese networking hosted by Microsoft, in celebration of the company's latest OS.
Tuesday (Dec. 18), 6:30 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 Avenue of Americas

Introduction to the NYC Startup Community + Founders Panel
With Neil Blumenthal (cofounder, Warby Parker), Brad Hargreaves (cofounder, General Assembly) and Kathryn Minshew (cofounder, The Daily Muse).
Tuesday (Dec. 18), 7:30 p.m. @ Warby Parker Annex, 819 Washington Street

Queens Tech Meetup 5 & Holiday Party
With Rachel Haot (Chief Digital Officer, New York City), Reshma Saujani (founder, Girls Who Code and former New York City Deputy Public Advocate), Jessica Lawrence (Managing Director, New York Tech Meetup) and Helen Marshall (Queens Borough President and Coalition for Queens).
Wednesday (Dec. 19), 6:30 p.m. @ See Exhibition Space, 25-25 44th Drive, Long Island City

NYC Gaming December: Demo Night
Demos by Kristen Harris (Taptiles), Mike Weiksner (Tip or Skip), Dat Nguyen (Smart Kick), Vianel Aquino (Waveology), Noah Sasso (BaraBariBall) and Muse Games (Guns of Icarus).
Wednesday (Dec. 19), 6:30 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Fl.

New Work City Holiday Festival
Arts & crafts & drinks & music! Holiday-themed drinks and activities will abound, and there might even be a surprise up their sleeves!
Thursday (Dec. 20), 10 a.m. @ New Work City, 412 Broadway, 2nd Fl.

Health 2.0 NYC: Crystal Ball Charity Gala 2012
With Esther Dyson (angel investor) and Bryan Sivak (CTO, HHS).
Thursday (Dec. 20), 5:30 p.m. @ Club 39, 303 West 39th Street

No Office Holiday Party 2012
Wyatt Cenac, Sexy Santa Photo Booth, DJ Steve Reynolds (Party Like It's 1999), Karaoke + more!
Thursday (Dec. 20), 8 p.m. @ Littlefield, 622 Degraw Street, Brooklyn

More events on the horizon...
ConnectNYC Fiber Challenge: Application Deadline on Dec. 27 @ NYCEDC
The Product Group January 2013 on Jan. 3 @ MTV Networks / Viacom
January 2013 NY Tech Meetup on Jan. 8 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
Startup GC Panel #2 on Jan. 10 @ General Assembly
Enterprise Tech Meetup on Jan. 16 @ Microsoft
Law to Tech Breakfast Panel on Feb. 22 @ General Assembly East

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

So we survived! The Mayan-predicted end-of-the-world-armaggedon-pocalypse was a no-show. Now it's time to party! Of course, I still have a dozen cans of anti-zombie spray lying around... interested? :)

In the wake of the tragic Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, Mayor Bloomberg and 750 other mayors have come together to create Demand A Plan to fight for gun safety. A ton of leaders from the tech industry, both here in New York and in Silicon Valley, have joined the cause including Craig Newmark (Craigslist), Fred Wilson (Union Square Ventures), Marc Benioff (SalesForce), Evan Williams (Twitter), Dennis Crowley (Foursquare), Caterina Fake (Flickr), Ben Horowitz (Andreessen Horowitz), Laurene Jobs, Randi Zuckerberg and many others. And a large-scale social media effort is underway, similar to how the industry came together during SOPA/PIPA.

New York City recently announced the H.E.L.M. (Hire Expand in Lower Manhattan) contest to bring more startups into Manhattan’s growing tech scene. It promises up to $1.2M (five cash grants of up to $250,000 each) to startups looking to reside in Lower Manhattan. The application deadline has been extended to noon of December 31.

Heard of Socratic Labs? They're an ed-tech accelerator based here in New York City, creating a community for education innovators. Deadline for applying for the first batch is December 31.

Here's some stuff I've been watching recently ..... Well-respected VC Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital talking about the venture capital business. GRP Partners' Mark Suster elaborating on where content, media and monetization are headed. Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson's insightful talk and Q&A at the Enterprise Tech meetup, where he talked about network effects, ankle biters and "shorting the entire big, fat, old, cynical, rip-off artist enterprise software business." Jason Calacanis interviewing XPrize and Singularity University founder Peter Diamandis, who talked about tackling big issues through entrepreneurship including literacy, alzheimers, earthquake detection and curing cancer.

Random nugget: "I'll nurse a single joke for years, amending, abridging and reworking it incrementally, to get the thing just so." - Jerry Seinfeld in a recent feature in the NY Times.

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

Demo and Get Feedback
Designed to help founders get feedback on their ideas.
Tuesday (Dec. 25), 6:30 p.m. @ WeWork Labs, 175 Varick Street

Review BiohackersNYC 2012 & discuss 2013
Wednesday (Dec. 26), 6 p.m. @ Hu Kitchen, 78 5th Avenue

ConnectNYC Fiber Challenge: Application Deadline
Small and medium-sized businesses across the five boroughs can apply for high-speed broadband at their location. Winners will receive free fiber build-out to their place of business, an overall value of up to $7 million for all winning businesses.
Thursday (Dec. 27), 9 a.m. @ To be decided

Growth Hacking Workshop: Lean Marketing for Startups
With Mattan Griffel (founder and CEO at The Front Labs, Partner at Grow/Hack).
Thursday (Dec. 27), 6 p.m. @ General Assembly East, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

The What and Why of APIs
Learn all about APIs from one of the industry's leading specialists, Matt LeMay (Platform Manager, bitly).
Thursday (Dec. 27), 6 p.m. @ General Assembly East, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Home for the Holidays Brooklyn!
Bringing together Etsy employees with local sellers, buyers, and friends of the handmade artisan community. A festive gathering with drinks & food.
Thursday (Dec. 27), 6 p.m. @ Etsy Labs, 55 Washington Street, #712

Reinvent the Payphone Meeting #2
Thursday (Dec. 27), 6:30 p.m. @ The Lab, 122 West 26th Street, 5th Fl.

DUMBO Tech Breakfast Meetup
Friday (Dec. 28), 8:30 a.m. @ DUMBO Kitchen, 108 Jay Street, Brooklyn

More events on the horizon...
The Product Group January 2013 on Jan. 3 @ MTV Networks / Viacom
Foursquare Hackathon 2012: Connect all the Apps! on Jan. 5 @ Foursquare HQ
A Conversation with Adaptly Founder Nikhil Sethi on Jan. 7 @ General Assembly East
#BARK Presents: New Year New You | What Can We Learn From Brands That Pivot on Jan. 8 @ Yotel
Invasion of The Hackathons: Creating Unique Opportunities for Entrepreneurs on Jan. 8 @ NYU Poly
January 2013 NY Tech Meetup on Jan. 8 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
NJ Tech Meetup 32 on Jan. 10 @ Stevens Institute Of Technology
Startup GC Panel #2 on Jan. 10 @ General Assembly
Enterprise Technology Meetup on Jan. 15 @ Cooley

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! And Happy Holidays! :)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

So, 2013 is almost here. Time to break out the paper hats, the party glasses and the annoying air horns. How are you planning to spend your New Year's Eve? At home with friends and family watching TV? Partying it up (a.k.a. getting your drunk on) at an overpriced club / lounge? Or smooshed together with the rest of humanity in the bowels of Times Square? Well, wherever you are, I hope you have fun and remember that 2013 will be an amazing year!

While we're on the subject, an advisory from our friends at Uber: Surge pricing will be in effect for NYE, people. So don't be surprised tomorrow morning when ya see the bill. In Uber's own words, "NYE pricing is not for the faint of heart! The average surge multiple will likely be 2x normal prices, but during extreme spikes it could cost you $100 MINIMUM before time and mileage charges!" The most expensive times to take an Uber? Between 12:15am and 2:45am. There. You've been warned.

This Sunday is the Tesla Spirit Award Gala Benefit Reception at the New Yorker Hotel, marking the 70th anniversary of Nikola Tesla. Tesla died on January 7th, 1943 at the hotel in room #3327 on the 33rd floor, where he'd lived for the last 10 years of his life (1933-1943). Yup, he was a fan of the number three. And in case you don't know who Tesla is (god forbid), here's the Oatmeal comic celebrating the greatest geek who ever lived.

A few months ago, at the launch of the Queens Tech Meetup (complementing existing ones in Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey), I wrote how cool it would be to have a Bronx Tech Meetup. Well, guess what folks--it's finally happened! The first meeting is January 16 at 901 Hunts Point Avenue. So go check it out and show your support for the community taking shape there. Any takers for a Staten Island Tech Meetup next? ;)

Want a no-strings-attached grant of $100,000 to skip college and focus on your cool projects? Of course you do. Check out Peter Thiel and his fellowship program. Applications for the 2013 class are due by 11:59 PM, December 31, 2012. That's tonight, so you'd better hurry.

The good ol' MTA finally gave us the holiday gift we'd all been craving: Subway Time!, an app providing a countdown to the next train's arrival arrives so you can slurp down one last mojito before heading home. Took them 11 years and $228 million but by golly they did it. Now, before you get all excited, remember there are a few caveats. It only works on the iPhone (for now), it does need an internet connection, the UI is bad, it only works with a third of the subway lines (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 & S) and it could take years and hundreds of millions of dollars to fully roll out. But..... it's a start! And while we're on the subject, MTA, can we haz some WiFi pleez?

It's almost the end of the year, which means everyone and their uncles have predictions for 2013. Lemme save you the time and spell it out for you: Moar cloud, moar big data, moar 3d printing, moar wearable computing, moar internet of thingz, moar collaborative consumption, apple tv (duh), moar contextual stuff, moar privacy intrusions, moar k-pop, moar grumpy cat photos (hola Tardar Sauce!), moar sexting, moar oversharing, moar mobile everything. Moar moar moar! Meanwhile, here's a video you should watch.

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

Headspace: Your Brain on Music!
Showcasing the latest at the intersection of neuroscience and new media, with a focus on music. Live demonstration of a brain-controlled environment to drive spatial control of music and real-time visual effects based on the thoughts, moods and emotions of the headset-wearer.
Monday (Dec. 31), 10 a.m. @ Dolby Theater NYC, 1350 Avenue of the Americas, Main Floor Screening Room

Startup Pitch Night
Wednesday (Jan. 2), 6:30 p.m. @ Bar 13, 35 East 13th Street, 2nd Fl.

Raising Startup Capital
With Arie Abecassis (cofounder, AppStori and venture partner, DreamIt Ventures)
Thursday (Jan. 3), 6 p.m. @ General Assembly East, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Explore Social Media
Thursday (Jan. 3), 6 p.m. @ Empire State Building, 350 5th Avenue, 59th Fl.

The Product Group January 2013
With Jared Raskin (manager, site and subscriber analytics, WeightWatchers)
Thursday (Jan. 3), 7 p.m. @ MTV Networks / Viacom, NYC

Village Tech Breakfast
Friday (Jan. 4), 8 a.m. @ The Smile, 26 Bond Street, #1

Foursquare Hackathon 2012: Connect all the Apps!
The best Foursquare hacks and apps will get global glory, swag and some mind-blowingly awesome prizes including ringing the NASDAQ closing bell, rocking tickets to SXSW, partying with an action figure version of yourself, or wearing the infamous Foursquare hackathon TITLE BELT!
Saturday (Jan. 5), 9 a.m. @ Foursquare HQ, 568 Broadway

Conducting User Research
With Diane Loviglio (resident mentor at 500 Startups and former Mozilla user researcher)
Saturday (Jan. 5), 11 a.m. @ General Assembly West, 10 E. 21st Street, 4th Fl.

Tesla Spirit Award Gala Benefit Reception
Marking the 70th anniversary of Nikola Tesla. Organized by the Tesla Science Foundation and endorsed by HRH Prince Philip of Serbia. Event will include a number of prominent speakers, dignitaries, artists and others who will receive this year’s Tesla Spirit Awards.
Saturday (Jan. 5), 6 p.m. @ New Yorker Hotel, Grand Ballroom, 481 8th Avenue

More events on the horizon...
A Conversation with Adaptly Founder Nikhil Sethi on Jan. 7 @ General Assembly East
#BARK Presents: New Year New You | What Can We Learn From Brands That Pivot on Jan. 8 @ Yotel
Invasion of The Hackathons: Creating Unique Opportunities for Entrepreneurs on Jan. 8 @ NYU Poly
January 2013 NY Tech Meetup on Jan. 8 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
NJ Tech Meetup 32 on Jan. 10 @ Stevens Institute Of Technology
Investor Feedback Forum on Jan. 10 @ Microsoft
Startup GC Panel #2 on Jan. 10 @ General Assembly
Startup Dinner on Jan. 10 @ Central Cafe (TBA)
Enterprise Technology Meetup on Jan. 15 @ Cooley
1st Bronx Tech Meetup on Jan. 16 @ Majora Carter Group
Hearst Fashion Hackathon 2013 on Feb. 9 @ Hearst

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! And Happy New Year! :)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

So, the fiscal cliff has been averted, the NHL lockout is over (yeah!) and William Shatner (a.k.a. Captain James T. Kirk) tweeted at an astronaut--AND got a reply back. 2013 is off to a great start already!

As you know, I got an early jump on one of my New Year resolutions (to get in great shape). Things have been going well and thanks for the encouraging emails, keep 'em coming! And I've got some more suggestions for fitness routines. Two in particular caught my eye: New York news personality Ben Aaron's Dance Walking (yes, apparently that's a thing, and the video's a viral hit) and Formula 50, rapper/mogul 50 Cent's badass six-week regimen.

FYI, deadline for the TechStars New York Spring 2013 class is January 18. So, go apply now. But first, read these excellent tips by TechStars NYC Managing Director Nicole Glaros on team, video and describing your business.

500 Startups is ramping up its presence in New York City with over 35 investments and now a brand spanking new coworking space at 28th and Park. Half of the space (20 startups) will be open to non-portfolio companies. Interested? Contact 500 Startups NY partner Shai Goldman for all the juicy details. Here's the application form.

Hearst is teaming up with the good folks at Angelhack to bring you the Fashion Hackathon: Hack The Runway next month on Febuary 9 during Fashion Week. Prizes include access to exclusive VIP Fashion Week shows and events, use of your hack in NYFW events, $10,000 in cash prizes, and mentorship from Hearst. Yup, it's going to be off the hook!

My friend Alison Flood (producer, Webby Awards / Internet Week) is throwing a little birthday bash / fundraiser to help those affected by Sandy on Staten Island (where she was born & raised). There'll be drinking, dancing and sounds by Silent Drape Runners, Steven Rojas and DJ Frankenmack. Rock on!

For the startup founders, here are two classes I'd highly recommend you check out this week - Steve Schlafman (Lerer Ventures) on How to Pitch Your Startup to NYC Venture Firms (January 7) and Aaron Holiday (DFJ Gotham) on Essential Things to Know When Forming Your Startup (January 10, livestreamed).

My buddy Vijay and his punjabi funk band BlackMahal will be in town on the 12th, performing with Nomadic Massive at Drom. They've played the Vancouver Olympics, shared a stage with Das Racist and been called awesome by Rolling Stone. So go check them out!

Random nugget: "What these people (in the late 19th century) missed was that electricity, far beyond light, was a platform for a host of new industries. Over the following years, entrepreneurs would come up with appliances--today we might call them 'apps'--for vacuuming, laundry and eventually radio and television and huge industries grew on the electricity platform." - Dave Morgan (Internet advertising pioneer and founder/CEO, Simulmedia) in a recent New York Times article.

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

A Conversation with Adaptly Founder Nikhil Sethi
When you found an ad:tech startup at age 22 without ever having worked a day in advertising, odds are high you might make a mistake or two. Learn about the good, the bad, and everything else en route to the first $10 million in transactions through Adaptly's platform last year.
Monday (Jan. 7), 6:30 p.m. @ General Assembly East, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the new Gilded Age
A reception and conversation organized by the Ford Foundation with author and leading telecommunications policy expert Susan Crawford to celebrate the release of her new book.
Tuesday (Jan. 8), 6 p.m. @ Ford Foundation, 320 E. 43rd Street

Invasion of The Hackathons
How a geek event gone mainstream is breeding innovation and unique opportunities for entrepreneurs. With Sabeen Ali (Angelhack), Jonathan Askin (Brooklyn Law School), Christopher Kennedy (48HourApps), Peter Robinson (ChallengePost) and others.
Tuesday (Jan. 8), 6:30 p.m. @ NYU Poly Tech Incubator, 20 Jay Street, #316, Brooklyn

January 2013 NY Tech Meetup
You know the drill: Five-minute, rapid-fire demos. A bunch of amazing new startups. Now hopefully you've managed to snag one of those elusive tickets!
Tuesday (Jan. 8), 7 p.m. @ NYU Skirball Center For Performing Arts, 566 Laguardia Place

New Relic Presents: Code Forward NYC - Meet the Developers Behind the Obama Campaign
Learn how the Obama for America’s focus on team building and efficiency helped them build a sophisticated cloud-based infrastructure that used big data to maximize their campaign’s success, volunteer engagement and voter outreach.
Tuesday (Jan. 8), 7 p.m. @ Grand Hyatt, 109 E. 42nd Street

FinTech Startups: VC Panel on Raising Capital in FinTech and 2013 Forecast
With Mike Cichowski (Edison Ventures), Josh Abramowitz (Deep Creek Capital), Huck O’Connor (Multiplier Capital) and Jordan Bettman (Bain Capital Ventures).
Wednesday (Jan. 9), 6:30 p.m. @ Dechert LLP, 1095 6th Avenue, 28th Fl.

Future of Media Panel
With Angela Tribelli (CMO, HarperCollins), Kate Lee (Director of Content, Medium) and Shafqat Islam (CEO, NewsCred).
Wednesday (Jan. 9), 6:30 p.m. @ Cooley at The Grace Building, 1114 Ave of the Americas, 46th Fl.

General Assembly + Warby Parker New Year's Resolution Party
An exclusive event to celebrate the new year, at Warby Parker's Annex showroom. In keeping with the resolutions theme, fill-in-the-blank postcards will be handed out to help you make and keep your resolutions.
Wednesday (Jan. 9), 7:30 p.m. @ Warby Parker Annex, 819 Washington Street

StartUP Series sponsored by WeWork
With Matthew Manos (CEO, verynice), Farrah Bostic (founder/Creative Strategist, The Difference Engine), Jared Cocken (chief product officer, Fitocracy), Oscar Torres (cofounder, zenplaya) and Pamela Castillo (cofounder, Market Publique). Emcee'd by Cindy Gallop (founder, MakeLoveNotPorn).
Thursday (Jan. 10), 6 p.m. @ Art Directors Club Gallery, 106 W. 29th Street

NJ Tech Meetup 32
With Bob Dorf (co-author, Startup Owners Manual)
Thursday (Jan. 10), 6:30 p.m. @ Stevens Institute Of Technology, Babbio Center, Hoboken

Investor Feedback Forum
Investor Panelists include Brad Harrison (Brad Harrison Ventures), Eric Hippeau (Lerer Ventures), Geoff Judge (iNovia Capital) and William Reinisch (Paladin Capital Group). Startup Pitches by Glyph, Curioos, Vestorly, NimbusBase, Epion Health, FreshNeck, MOWA and Sumpto.
Thursday (Jan. 10), 6:30 p.m. @ Microsoft, 1290 6th Avenue

Startup GC Panel #2
With Craig Abruzzo (general counsel, Birchbox), Nithya Das (legal counsel, AppNexus), Mark Silverstein (legal counsel, Spotify) and Benjamin Singer (associate general counsel, Gilt Groupe).
Thursday (Jan. 10), 8 p.m. @ General Assembly , 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

API Hackday NY
Bringing developers together for an all-day coding fest focused on building apps and mashups with APIs. Brought to you by Twilio, SendGrid, Ordr.in, Singly, IKANOW, OpenTok & Mashery.
Saturday (Jan. 12), 8 a.m. @ Alley NYC, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

More events on the horizon...
Soho Startup Lunch on Jan. 14 @ Cupping Room Cafe
Enterprise Technology Meetup on Jan. 15 @ Cooley
1st Bronx Tech Meetup on Jan. 16 @ Majora Carter Group
Social Retail Summit #4 on Jan. 17 @ Dumbo Spot
Benefits of Cloud for Video & Image on Jan. 17 @ Anchin
Legal Essentials for Startups: Part 3 - Intellectual Property Protection on Jan. 22 @ Anchin
UX Design and User Experience Optimization Trends on Feb. 6 @ Anchin
Hearst Fashion Hackathon 2013 on Feb. 9 @ Hearst
Investor Feedback Forum (New York) on Feb. 14 @ Microsoft
Social Media Week NY 2013 on Feb. 18 @ Metropolitan Pavilion

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

First off, some sad news: R.I.P. Aaron Swartz. Aaron, who was based here in Brooklyn, was a brilliant mind, hacktivist and internet folk hero who co-authored the RSS 1.0 specification at age 14, joined the Reddit team in its earliest days and was the founder of DemandProgress, playing a key role in helping win the fight against SOPA/PIPA. Many friends have weighed in including Lawrence Lessig, Cory Doctorow and danah boyd. Aaron was only 26 years old and it's such a tragic loss for the internet community. Thoughts and condolences to his friends & family. Here's the official statement from his family and here's a video of Aaron on how we stopped SOPA.

The NYC EDC is launching its Spring 2013 NYC Tech Talent Draft, a series of on-campus info sessions providing computer science and engineering students with a firsthand look at exciting NYC tech startup careers. First event starts January 30. Interested? Go register here.

My buddy Steve Rosenbaum (founder/CEO of Magnify) is NYC EDC’s entrepreneur at large, and he'll be doing virtual office hours (via Google Hangout) on January 18 (12 to 1p.m.) to answer all your startup and entrepreneurship questions. Register here.

Hacker School (a three-month, full-time school for becoming a better programmer, like a writers retreat for hackers) is accepting applications for its Winter 2013 batch that'll run from February 11 to May 2. Oh, and did I mention it's absolutely free?!

Google recently rolled out the biggest Free Wifi network in the city in the n'hood of Chelsea (also the location of the company's offices), spanning the area from Gansevoort Street to 19 Street from 8th Avenue to the West Side Highway. Kudos to Alex Abelin, who heads community affairs at Google, for helping make this happen!

Forget "America's Next Top Model." The real action is in becoming one of New York’s Next Top Makers! The competition is sponsored by the NYC EDC to challenge makers, designers, and engineers to develop new products with commercial potential. Submissions are open until February 13th, and the organizers are throwing an event January 22 where you'll hear from IDEO storytelling gurus why good design doesn’t always speak for itself, and learn about the role of a designer in a world of 3D printers.

Congrats to my buddy Dick Talens (cofounder of Fitocracy and 500 Startups alum) for helping coach Brooklyn's own Mallory Hagan to the Miss America title!

I have one free pass to the Vator conference in San Francisco on February 13. Interested? Email me at gary@garysguide.com.

Looking to master the art of public speaking? Check out Holley (with an E) Murchison's Cool-As-A-Cucumber class series this month at AlleyNYC on the 15th and the Grind on the 30th.

Space Shuttle Enterprise: A Pioneer is a new exhibition opening January 17 at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, exploring the history of Enterprise and its critical role in the development of the space shuttle. The exhibition is free (with the price of admission) and the museum is offering a “buy one, get one free” promotion through February 15 to their Facebook and Twitter fans.

On Saturday, New York declared a public health emergency over the flu outbreak, with over 20,000 cases now reported across the state. Wondering where to get that flu shot? Here's a list of locations.

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

New Work City Member Show & Tell!
Demos by Anna Curran (Cookbook Create), Jason Kende (Inbox.io), Michael Carvin (Smart Asset), Natalie Rodic Marsan (The Social Media Playbook), Tobin Schwaiger-Hastanan (JobsNearby) and John Federico (Qrious).
Monday (Jan. 14), 6 p.m. @ New Work City, 412 Broadway, 2nd Fl.

CTO School: Becoming a better Technical Leader - Tips & Discussions
Jean Barmash will give a brief overview of different aspects of the role of CTO, as well as share some experiences for learning the skills needed to excel.
Monday (Jan. 14), 6:30 p.m. @ Pivotal Labs, 841 Broadway, 8th Fl.

5th Hardware Startup Meetup
Presentations by Ben Einstein (founder, Bolt, a new hardware incubator), Alex Hawkinson (founder, Smart Things), Britta Riley (CEO, WindowFarms) and James Wolff (VP, DSHAPE - the world's largest 3D concrete printer).
Tuesday (Jan. 15), 6:30 p.m. @ NYU Poly Varick Street Incubator, 137 Varick Street, 2nd Fl.

I Like It When You Call Me Big Data
Presentations by Kevin Turner (Associate Partner, IBM Global Services), Josh Baron (Senior Academic Technology Office, Marist College) and Dr. Bruce Wexler (C8Sciences).
Tuesday (Jan. 15), 7 p.m. @ Knewton, 100 5th Avenue

Twitter NYC Engineering Tech Talk
Showcasing some of the latest and greatest projects Twitter is working on in New York City. An evening of beer, food and talks. With Nathan Marz (operating Storm clusters), Naz Erkan (an overview of Spiderduck) and Alek Kolcz (machine learning).
Wednesday (Jan. 16), 6 p.m. @ Twitter NYC, 340 Madison Ave

1st Bronx Tech Meetup
Wednesday (Jan. 16), 6:30 p.m. @ Majora Carter Group, 901 Hunts Point Avenue, Bronx

Starting From Scratch:How One Small Idea Becomes a Big Deal
With Lisa Gersh (CEO, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia) and Lisa Belzberg (founder, PENCIL) for cocktails overlooking the Hudson and a conversation on turning ideas into success.
Wednesday (Jan. 16), 6:30 p.m. @ Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, 601 West 26th Street, Northwest Showroom

Social Retail Summit #4
With Angela Min (Snapette), Erica Cerulo (Of a Kind), Chelsea Sun (Shoptiques.com), Lauren Sherman (Conde Nast LuckyMag), Kate Sekules (ReFashioner), Robert Gaafar (CropUp), Keith Fiore (Zenplaya), Abe Burmeister (Outlier), Seph Skerritt (Proper Cloth), Carine Carmy (Shapeways) and more.
Thursday (Jan. 17), 3 p.m. @ Dumbo Spot, 160 Water Street, Brooklyn

Music recommendations at Spotify
Erik Bernhardsson, the tech lead of the Discovery team at Spotify, will present music recommendations at Spotify.
Thursday (Jan. 17), 7 p.m. @ Pivotal Labs, 841 Broadway, 8th Fl.

#techdrinkup - Kick Off the New Year - NY Tech Party
Kick off the new year right by partying with over 500 awesome people in the tech community at a kick-ass lounge with a one-hour open bar!
Thursday (Jan. 17), 8 p.m. @ Liliam - W Hotel, 201 Park Avenue South

DUMBO Developers: Human Brain Robot Body
Given the chance, would you put your brain in a robot body?!!!
Friday (Jan. 18), 12 p.m. @ Galapagos Art Space, 16 Main Street, Brooklyn

Monthly Music Hackathon NYC
All-day event for musicians & engineers to create new music-related projects from scratch. Amazing cellist Colette Alexander will be in residence throughout the day to collaborate on whatever crazy project you can think of.
Saturday (Jan. 19), 10 a.m. @ 199 Lafayette Street, 3rd Fl.

More events on the horizon...
Legal Essentials for Startups: Part 3 - Intellectual Property Protection on Jan 22 @ Anchin
Entrepreneurs Roundtable 54 on Jan 22 @ NYU Stern
Next Top Makers: The Business of Design on Jan 22 @ 3DEA Pop-Up Store @ Eventi Hotel
How to Build Great Communities: Lets Collaborate on Jan 23 @ Projective Space LES
dd:COLLECTIVE - The Changing Retail Environment Presented by Digital DUMBO on Jan 24 @ Huge
NYC Mobile Startup Weekend on Jan 25 @ WeWork Soho Lounge
TEDxBroadway: Industry leaders envision the future of Broadway on Jan 28 @ New World Stages
Rapid Iteration With Python: Scaling AppNexus on Jan 30 @ AppNexus Razzle Space
Entrepreneurship in the Beer Industry on Jan 30 @ Professor Thoms
Business Insider Presents: Social Commerce Summit on Feb 06 @ Pier 60
UX Design and User Experience Optimization Trends on Feb 06 @ Anchin
Hearst Fashion Hackathon 2013 on Feb 09 @ Hearst
Social Media Week NY 2013 on Feb 18 @ Metropolitan Pavilion

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Sooooo...it's that time of the year again. SXSW (a.k.a. Spring Break for Geeks) is right around the corner, running March 8 to 12 in Austin, Texas. And you know what that means: Parties, parties 'n more parties!! :) So, once again, we're putting together what we hope will be THE definitive guide to all this year's SXSW Interactive parties. We'll be updating this list regularly, so check back often. And email me if you're organizing an event or a party.

Of course, I'll be at SXSW ... attending all (or as many as humanly possible) of the amazing parties, mixers, networking events, lounges, panels, keynotes, BBQs, nuclear taco nights, concerts, happy hours, karaokes, food trucks, block parties and what-have-you.

So if you can't make it down to Austin this year but still wanna get the word out about your amazing startup / company / firm / service / app / project, you can do so. How, you ask? Well, by sponsoring my Red Tie of course, and covering it in your company's awesome logo stickers and giving me your company's elevator pitch. If you're interested, shoot me an email at gary@garysguide.com for more details.

In the meantime, here's my blog post / highlights from last year's SXSW to give you a little taste of what to expect.

FYI, next week is probably the most exclusive hackathon of the year. Google's Project Glass will be holding a two-day hackathon (February 1 to 2) in New York City that'll allow developers to get an early look at Glass so they can start developing for the platform. Google engineers will be on site to help at any point in the process, and developers will have the opportunity to show off what they’ve been working on.

So, how to score an invite: Your guess is as good as mine! If you were one of the smart ones who shelled out $1,500 for the early access to Google Glass you're on the list. Or you could try pinging Googler Aygul Zagidullina and hope you get lucky! Well, for those of you who don't make it, here's a pic of Sergey Brin sporting his Google Glasses on the subway.

In other news, the NYC EDC is partnering with the Lawrence Field Center for Entrepreneurship at Baruch College to create Competition THRIVE, and they're seeking original, innovative strategies and programs that help immigrant entrepreneurs succeed in business. In Round 1, $25,000 will be awarded to five semi-finalists to pilot their program and create a business plan. And in Round 2, $100,000 will be awarded to one grand prize winner to further scale their program. Submission period is February 1 to March 7. For more information, check out the website or email competitionthrive@baruch.cuny.edu.

On January 30, my buddy Haithem is organizing the Lemonade Heroes Yacht Party. It's gonna be a crazy night of dancing, drinking, mixing and mingling--on a yacht.
You'll be getting photographed on a red carpet, and you'll have a shot at an audition for an entrepreneurship TV series and book.

More stuff you don't wanna miss this week: AppNexus Speaker Series (with Fab.com CEO Jason Goldberg) on the 23rd, PandoMonthly Presents (with Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson) on the 24th and Amusemi's 1 Year Anniversary Party+Dinner on the 26th.

Last week my buddy Charlie Todd & the folks at Improv Everywhere organized their twelfth Annual No Pants Subway Ride. Over 4,000 participants showed up. Here's the recap and video. And my friends Jen and Allison are back with another hilarious edition of Blogologues, playing this week on the 24th, 25th and 26th at Under St Marks (and yes, there will be giveaways!).

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

DUMBO Improvement District Annual Meeting
All members of the DUMBO community are invited to hear the latest on hurricane recovery efforts and learn what's in store for the neighborhood in 2013. The coveted DUMBO "Magic Feather" awards will be given to Rachel Haot (New York's chief digital officer), Susan Feldman (artistic director, St. Ann's Warehouse) and Jerry Hultin (president, NYU-Poly).
Tuesday (Jan. 22), 5 p.m. @ Galapagos Art Space, 16 Main Street

Next Top Makers: The Business of Design
Join the creators of New York’s Next Top Makers for an evening of education, guidance, and networking. Hear from IDEO storytelling gurus why good design doesn’t always speak for itself, and learn about the role of a designer in a world of 3D printers.
Tuesday (Jan. 22), 7 p.m. @ 3DEA Pop-Up Store @ Eventi Hotel, 835 6th Avenue

The Future of Education #1: New Models for 21st Century Learning
Panelists include Brad Hargreaves (founding partner, General Assembly), Kane Sarhan (cofounder, Enstitute), Juliette LaMontagne (founder & director, Breaker) and Abigail Besdin (head of Skillshare's education team).
Wednesday (Jan. 23), 6:30 p.m. @ Centre For Social Innovation Pop-Up Space, 601 W. 26th Street, #360

AppNexus Speaker Series
Brian O'Kelley (CEO, AppNexus) will host a fireside chat with Jason Goldberg (CEO, Fab.com) and Jared Cluff (VP Marketing, Fab.com).
Wednesday (Jan. 23), 6:30 p.m. @ AppNexus, 28 W. 23rd Street

How to Build Great Communities: Lets Collaborate!
With Sheila Karaszewski (community manager, Airbnb), Tony Bacigalupo (cofounder, New Work City), Andrew Wagner (director & editor-in-chief, Krrb) and James Wahba (cofounder, Projective Space). Moderated by Melissa Young (founder, Let's Collaborate!)
Wednesday (Jan. 23), 7 p.m. @ Projective Space L.E.S., 72 Allen Street

#ArtsTech 4 Year Anniversary Party!
Open Bar with 3 Pernod Absinthe cocktails from 7-8 pm. Variety of grilled panini appetizers. Photobooth by Styleblaster. Tunes by DJ Winslow Porter. Video art by Sabrina Ratte, Mr. Div, Yoshi Sodeoka and Andreas Nicholas Fischer
Wednesday (Jan. 23), 7 p.m. @ The Counting Room, 44 Berry Street, Brooklyn

PandoMonthly Presents
A fireside chat with Chad Dickerson (CEO, Etsy)
Thursday (Jan. 24), 6 p.m. @ Projective L.E.S., 72 Allen Street

dd:COLLECTIVE - The Changing Retail Environment (Presented by Digital DUMBO)
Featured speakers include Philippe von Borries (Co-Founder, Refinery29), Keith George (General Manager, Gilt Man by Gilt Groupe) and Claire Mazur (Co-Founder, Of a Kind).
Thursday (Jan 24), 6:30 p.m. @ Huge, 45 Main St , Ste 220, Brooklyn

Dinner, Cupcakes, Wine & Technology!
Introducing the inaugural NJ Tech Gals meetup!
Thursday (Jan 24), 7 p.m. @ Hoboken Business Center, 50 Harrison Street (2nd Fl), Hoboken

Nike+ Accelerator (powered by TechStars) Recruiting Tour
Join the team from Nike and TechStars to hear about the Nike+ Accelerator. Some local quantified self demos. And the team from Nike will be bringing along some SWAG, including some Nike+ FuelBands!
Thursday (Jan 24), 7 p.m. @ TechStars NYC HQ , 36 Cooper Square, 6th Fl.

Power Breakfast
With Susan Feldman (cofounder, One Kings Lane)
Friday (Jan. 25), 8 a.m. @ Fordham Graduate School of Business, 113 W. 60th Street, 12th Fl.

NYC Mobile Startup Weekend
Where developers, designers, marketers, product managers and buddying entrepreneurs gather together to share ideas, form teams and spend the weekend building and launching a startup.
Friday (Jan. 25), 6 p.m. @ WeWork Soho Lounge, 154 Grand Street

2013 Brooklyn Inventgenuity Festival: Digital By Hand
A popular annual winter celebration of making things for kids and their parents. With public projects and workshops led by Beam Center’s faculty of artists, engineers and big thinkers. This year’s theme: Digital by Hand.
Saturday (Jan. 26), 11 a.m. @ The Invisible Dog Art Center, 51 Bergen Street

Amusemi 1 Year Anniversary Party + Dinner
Celebrate the anniversary of our first startup dining event. Register for Amusemi to get on the guest list.
Saturday (Jan. 26), 7 p.m. @ TBD

More events on the horizon...
TEDxBroadway: Industry leaders envision the future of Broadway on Jan. 28 @ New World Stages
NYC Gaming January: Demo Night on Jan. 29 @ Microsoft
Brooklyn Tech Meetup with Victoria Brown on Jan. 29 @ Feil Hall, Brooklyn Law School
Lemonade Heroes Yacht Party featuring a chance to Audition for a TV Series! on Jan. 30 @ Hornblower Inifinity
Entrepreneurship in the Beer Industry on Jan. 30 @ Professor Thoms
dd:SOCIAL - 4 Year Anniversary & dd:A-LIST Crowdfunding Launch on Jan. 31 @ The DUMBO Loft
Business Insider Presents: Social Commerce Summit on Feb. 06 @ Pier 60
UX Design and User Experience Optimization Trends on Feb. 06 @ Anchin
Hearst Fashion Hackathon 2013 on Feb. 09 @ Hearst
Social Media Week NY 2013 on Feb. 18 @ Metropolitan Pavilion
AIPAC Technology Division: Launch Event w/Dan Senor on Feb. 27 @ Bloomberg Tower

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Happy Community Manager Appreciation Day to all ye community managers out there! You guys 'n gals are on the front lines engaging with customers every day, putting out fires, making your customers smile, fostering conversation. Community is important and you guys are making it happen. Stay awesome! :) To celebrate, bitly is organizing a breakfast this Friday and later this month is the Community Manager UNconference.

My buddy Eyal and the good folks at WIN are organizing a must-attend conference later this month on February 21: Funding the Best in Global Innovation. There'll be a rockstar lineup of speakers including David Pakman (Venrock), Brian Cohen (NY Angels), Kirill Sheynkman (RTP Ventures), John Frankel (ff Ventures), David Kidder (Clickable), Esther Dyson (angel investor) and more. GarysGuide readers get a special 30 percent off, using the code "ecosystem." WIN, for the record, is on a mission to create a top-notch global ecosystem connecting the New York venture community with leading international tech startups.

The Lawrence Field Center for Entrepreneurship at Baruch College, the CUNY Institute for Virtual Enterprise (IVE) and IBM are hosting the inaugural SmartPitch Challenge to celebrate New York City as a center for innovation and new business development. Nice! The challenge kicks-off this Friday on February 1, and it's open to current students at New York colleges and universities.

Don't forget, the much-anticipated Lemonade Heroes Yacht Party is this Wednesday. The attendee list is shaping up to be pretty amazing, and of course I'll be there rocking the red carpet in my red tie ;-) Hope to see y'all there. (FYI, the boat will be docked. So, tempting as it sounds to take her out to sea and head for the Caribbean, it's prolly not gonna happen.)

Random Nugget: "Innovation is hard because 'solving problems people didn't know they had' and 'building something no one needs' look identical at first." - Aaron Levie (founder and CEO, Box).

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

MIT Clean Energy Prize NYC Kickoff
The world's premier student competition for early-stage clean tech ventures, with over $300K in prizes.
Monday (Jan. 28), 6 p.m. @ Morrison & Foerster, 1290 Avenue of the Americas

Data Privacy & Protection Day Town Hall & Breakfast
With Deborah Marrone (FTC), Milan Patel (Special Agent, FBI), Clark Russell (Asst. Attorney General, Internet Bureau, New York), Craig Spiezle (Exec. Director, Online Trust Alliance) and others.
Tuesday (Jan. 29), 8 a.m. @ Baruch College - William and Anita Newman Conference Center, 151 E. 25th Street, 7th Fl.

Mobile Payments Roundtable
With Jay Bhattacharya (Zipmark), Alex Taub (Dwolla), Yitz Mendlowitz (Paay), Jeff McGregor (Dash), Micah Bergdale (Bytemark), David Olk (ShopKeep), Neil Platt (Fiserv), Jim Schinella (Manilla) and others.
Tuesday (Jan. 29), 8:30 a.m. @ Frankfurt Kurnit, 488 Madison Avenue

Brooklyn Tech Meetup
With Victoria Brown (CEO, BigThink), GetGlue and Behance.
Tuesday (Jan. 29), 7 p.m. @ Feil Hall at Brooklyn Law School, 205 State Street, 22nd Fl., Brooklyn

Fashion+TechNY Meetup with AngelHack & Hearst Media
With Liza Kindred (Third Wave Fashion), David Goldberg (FreshNeck), Jill Sherman (Modalyst), Melissa Fudor (inSparq), Michael Rosom (Eye On Response), Sabine Seymour (Moondial) and Vale Kerbage (Leechee NY).
Tuesday (Jan. 29), 7 p.m. @ Hearst Interactive Media, 300 West 57th Street

Lemonade Heroes Yacht Party featuring a chance to Audition for a TV Series!
A night of dancing, mixing & mingling. On a yacht. With a chance to audition for an entrepreneurship TV series!
Wednesday (Jan. 30), 6 p.m. @ Hornblower Inifinity, 353 West Street, Pier 40

Entrepreneurship in the Beer Industry
With Chris Gallant (GM and cofounder, Bronx Brewery), Justin Philips (owner and operator, Beer Table) and Jordan Elpern-Waxman (founder, Craft Beer Co).
Wednesday (Jan. 30), 7 p.m. @ Professor Thoms, 219 2nd Avenue

DreamIt Health Road Show (NYC)
Meet the managing directors of DreamIt Health, network with other healthtech entrepreneurs and get your questions answered about their inaugural accelerator program.
Wednesday (Jan. 30), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly West, 10 E. 21st Street

Start-Up City: If You Can Make it Here ... Part 1: Getting Into the Game
With Rachel Haot (Chief Digital Officer, Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment), Mo Koyfman (Spark Capital), Clifford Schorer (EIR, Columbia Business School), David Rose (Gust), Rob Fassino (XO Group) and moderated by Bianca Bosker (senior tech editor, Huffington Post).
Thursday (Jan. 31), 6 p.m. @ Long Island University (Brooklyn Campus), 1 University Plaza, Brooklyn

Digital Dumbo dd:SOCIAL 4 Year Anniversary
Thursday (Jan. 31), 6:30 p.m. @ The DUMBO Loft, 155 Water Street, Brooklyn

Start-Up City: If You Can Make it Here ... Part 2: Tales from the Alley
With Ben McKean (founder and CEO, Savored), Vinicius Vacanti (cofounder and CEO, Yipit), Kathryn Minshew (founder and CEO, The Daily Muse), Kellee Khalil (founder, Lover.ly), Hursh Agrawal (cofounder, Branch) and moderated by Caroline McCarthy (business marketing manager, Google).
Thursday (Jan. 31), 7:30 p.m. @ Long Island University (Brooklyn Campus), 1 University Plaza, Brooklyn

Decoded Fashion Hackathon
Saturday (Feb. 2), 10 a.m. @ The Alley, 500 7th Avenue, 17th Fl.

Startup Singles Pre-Valentines Day Happy Hour
Is your Valentine this year your startup team members? That might be good for your startup, but not for your social life.
Wednesday (Feb. 6), 6 p.m. @ Tom & Jerry, 288 Elizabeth Street

More events on the horizon...
February 2013 NY Tech Meetup on Feb. 5 @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts
Business Insider Presents: Social Commerce Summit on Feb. 6 @ Pier 60
Critical New UX Design Optimization Research on Feb. 6 @ Anchin
Startup Singles Pre-Valentines Day Happy Hour on Feb. 6 @ Tom & Jerry
Advanced LinkedIn Marketing: Beyond the Request to Connect on Feb. 7 @ Infor
Hearst Fashion Hackathon 2013 on Feb. 9 @ Hearst
Tech@NYU DemoDays on Feb. 9 @ eBay NYC
February 2013 NY Enterprise Technology Meetup on Feb. 12 @ Cooley
Investor Feedback Forum on Feb. 14 @ Microsoft
Columbia Business School PE/VC Conference on Feb. 15 @ Alfred Lerner Hall at Columbia University
HackInteractive on Feb. 16 @ General Assembly
Social Media Week NY 2013 on Feb. 18 @ Metropolitan Pavilion
Funding the Best in Global Innovation II on Feb. 20 @ SNR Denton
AIPAC Technology Division: Launch Event w/Dan Senor on Feb. 27 @ Bloomberg Tower

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Congrats to the Ravens for winning the Super Bowl! Best of the commercials? That'd be Chrysler's So God Made A Farmer ad. Beyoncé rocked the half-time show (and flashed the Illuminati sign?). Yes, there was a brief blackout, enough to unleash a torrent of funny tweets. Oreos won the night, social-media wise. And finally, there was Shaq, lip-syncing to Beyoncé's "Halo." 

R.I.P., Mayor Koch. You will be missed. New York is the greatest city in the world. But there was a time when the future looked bleak, and Mayor Koch deserves some of the credit for bringing the city back from the brink.

The NYC EDC is planning the 4th Annual BigApps competition. Help them out by completing this brief survey by Friday. Also, wanna help the city reinvent the payphone? Submit your prototype idea by February 18. Demo Day is March 5.

PILOT Health Tech NYC is an awesome new program that matches early-stage healthcare technology companies with key New York healthcare service organizations. It will provide funding of up to $100,000 each to 10 innovative pilot projects. Deadline is February 10. And GE and StartUp Health are announcing a three-year entrepreneurship program to provide expertise, resources and growth opportunities for consumer health companies. Deadline to apply is February 8.

Check out the New York State Collegiate Business Plan Competition. Current undergrad and grad students from New York City colleges are eligible. Deadline for applying is midnight of March 1. For more details, contact Lesley Stroll.

Love is in the air! And that means I've got a few Valentine's Day-themed events for you this week: Startup Singles Happy Hour, The Chocolate Business at a Glance and Dating & Technology.

This Saturday is the much-anticipated Hearst Fashion Hackathon. Prizes include access to exclusive VIP Fashion Week shows, use of your hack in NYFW events, mentorship from Hearst, and $10,000-plus in cash prizes! And speaking of Fashion Week, hope to run into some of you there later this week.

Congrats to Alex, Sachin, Rameet, Alexis, Vipin, Carter and many other friends for getting selected to the NYC Venture Fellows program. And congrats to Eugene Chung, the new Managing Director of TechStars NYC!

More interesting events this week: PandoMonthly (with First Round's Josh Kopelman), A Peek Into the World of Digital Art (with the New Museum's Lauren Cornell) and The Impact of Digital on Movie Going (with NBC Universal's Jon Gibs). And coming up: One of a Kind, where you can donate your old startup t-shirts, on February 13. And on February 16 comes HackInteractive (in partnership with CampInteractive), for hacking solutions to solve problems in student learning today.

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

The Impact of Digital on Movie Going: Jon Gibs SVP Research NBC Universal
AppNexus President Michael Rubenstein will host a fireside chat with Jon Gibs (SVP Research, NBC Universal).
Monday (Feb. 4), 6 p.m. @ AppNexus, 28 W. 23rd Street

Ultra Light Startups Investor Feedback Forum
Panelists include Arie Abecassis (DreamIt Ventures), Jordan Bettman (Bain Capital), Eliot Durbin (BOLDstart Ventures) and Mark Lodish (Solon Mack). Demos by MyBillRegistry, LienLog, Minteye, Merocrat, Epion Health, Threadmatcher, Standbuy and Handybook.
Tuesday (Feb. 5), 6:30 p.m. @ NYU Stern, 44 W. 4th Street, KMC 1-70

The Japan Society Presents: How to Create Your Own Humanoid
With Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro (director, Intelligent Robotics Lab at Osaka University), Erico Guizzo (senior editor, IEEE Spectrum) and Heather McKnight (founder, Marilyn Monrobot).
Tuesday (Feb. 5), 6:30 p.m. @ Japan Society, 333 E. 47th Street

February NY Tech Meetup
You know the drill. Five-minute demos. A bunch of amazing new startups. Now hopefully you've snagged one of those elusive tickets!
Tuesday (Feb. 5), 7 p.m. @ NYU Skirball Center For The Performing Arts, 566 Laguardia Place

From Wall Street to Silicon Alley
With Charles Birnbaum (Foursquare), James Moran (Yipit), James Queen (Spotify) and Nihar Singhal (SeatGeek).
Tuesday (Feb. 5), 8 p.m. @ General Assembly East, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Business Insider Presents: Social Commerce Summit
Rockstar list of speakers including John Caplan (OpenSky), Ben Fischman (Rue La La), Chris Fralic (First Round Capital), Michelle Lam (True&Co), Doug Mack (One Kings Lane), Chris Bolte (WalmartLabs) and others.
Wednesday (Feb. 6), 8 a.m. @ Pier 60, 23rd Street and 11th Avenue

Canadian Technology Accelerator Demo Night
Demos by I Think Security, Organimi, Ooka Island, Picatic, Sweet IQ and Wedding Republic.
Wednesday (Feb. 6), 6 p.m. @ AppNexus, 28 W. 23rd Street, 4th Fl.

Startup Singles Pre-Valentines Day Happy Hour
Is your Valentine this year your startup team members? That might be good for your startup, but not for your social life!
Wednesday (Feb. 6), 6 p.m. @ Tom & Jerry, 288 Elizabeth Street

Projective Space Demo Night
Demos by Topi, Gander, Get Maid, Martini, Offmap, SeedInvest, DataNitro and Wun Wun.
Wednesday (Feb. 6), 6:30 p.m. @ Projective Space L.E.S., 72 Allen Street, 3rd Fl.

Wearable Computing Meetup
With Eric Migicovsky (creator of the $10M Kickstarter-funded Pebble Smart Watch)
Wednesday (Feb. 6), 7 p.m. @ Pivotal Labs, 841 Broadway, 8th Fl.

PandoMonthly Presents
With Josh Kopelman (founder & managing director, First Round Capital)
Thursday (Feb. 7), 6 p.m. @ Projective Space L.E.S., 72 Allen Street, 3rd Fl.

Startup Funeral
All proceeds will go to HackNY, supporting the next generation of hackers.
Friday (Feb. 8), 8 p.m. @ New Work City Funeral Home, 412 Broadway, 2nd Fl.

Hearst Fashion Hackathon 2013
Prizes include access to exclusive VIP Fashion Week shows & events, use of your hack in NYFW events, mentorship from Hearst Corporation and $10k+ in cash prizes!
Saturday (Feb. 9), 9 a.m. @ Hearst, 300 W. 57th Street, 3rd Fl.

Science and the City
A hackfest dedicated to Citizen Science for Cities. Examples range from tracking your trash, studying the bacteria in your wallet, building social networks for cyclists or preparing for the next hurricane.
Saturday (Feb. 9), 9 a.m. @ NYU ITP Tisch School of Arts, 721 Broadway

Tech@NYU DemoDays
Hosting students from around the city to demo off cool projects they have been working on. Followed by a short talk from Greg Leppert (cofounder, Svpply).
Saturday (Feb. 9), 5 p.m. @ eBay NYC, 625 6th Avenue, 3rd Fl.

More events on the horizon...
Cocktails & Conversation with Joanne Wilson & Rohini Dey on Feb. 12 @ Vermilion
February 2013 NY Enterprise Technology Meetup on Feb. 12 @ Cooley
Mobile + Commerce Demo Night on Feb. 13 @ AOL Ventures
February Growth Hacker Meetup (with Cezary Pietrzak from Appboy) on Feb 13. @ NYU Stern School of Business
Electric Locomotive (with Dane Atkinson, CEO of SumAll) on Feb. 13 @ The Kraine Theater
One Of A Kind Party: Open Bar / Clothes Donation by StartupThreads, Amicus, AlleyNYC & Coalition for Queens on Feb. 13 @ 1OAK
Columbia Business School PE/VC Conference on Feb. 15 @ Alfred Lerner Hall at Columbia University
HackInteractive on Feb. 16 @ General Assembly
Social Media Week NY 2013 on Feb. 18 @ Metropolitan Pavilion
NYTECH Presents: Killer Strategies from the Worlds Greatest Innovators on Feb. 19 @ Morgan Stanley
Funding the Best in Global Innovation II on Feb. 20 @ SNR Denton
AIPAC Technology Division: Launch Event w/Dan Senor on Feb. 27 @ Bloomberg Tower

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

First things first: Stop reading this and go watch "House of Cards" on Netflix. Yup, it's that good. You're welcome!

Back? Okay! Hope y'all survived the weekend #snow-pocalypse (a.k.a. Nemo) and had a blast sledding in the park, hurling snowballs at each other and making elaborate snow sculptures. Here's an awesome Vine mashup of the storm that my friends Kelsey and Steve made.

Now that you've had your winter fun, it's time to get ready for spring. And that can only mean one thing: internships! That's right. It's that time of the year again, when bright-eyed young kids will be running around your offices eager to learn the ropes, change the world, and...err... get you your early-morning fix of decaf-grande-mocha-soy lattes.  So, who's looking for interns? Everybody, that's who! Squarespace, Metamorphic Ventures, UrbanDaddy, HowAboutWe, ff Ventures, MoviePass, Birchbox, Artsicle, Learnvest and many, many more.

Want $40,000, four months of free office space and access to Esther Dyson, Jeff Stewart, David Pakman and John Frankel? Well, duh. You, my friend, need to apply to the awesome ERA Accelerator, pronto! Deadline is March 7.

Speaking of accelerators, DreamIt is holding a meet-and-greet event next Wednesday, where you'll get to meet some of their partners, alumni and heavy hitters. In more accelerator news, west coast pirate Dave McClure and his merry band of 500 Startuppers will be coming ashore this Friday to give us all a little taste of what they've been building at their Demo Day. And in still more accelerator news, The New York Times Company  is launching timeSpace, a new incubator initiative to bring entrepreneurs to their HQ for four months to refine and grow their businesses. They're looking for three to five early-stage companies focused on the media space with a product launched. Deadline is February 19.

Applications to the 2013 TechCrunch NYC Disrupt Startup Battlefield are open. Deadline is February 22. TechCrunch is also holding a pitch-off competition + meetup tomorrow.

Congrats to the Drobe team for winning the Hearst Fashion Hackathon yesterday!

Don't forget, if you wanna help the city reinvent the payphone, submit your prototype idea by February 18. And if you wanna hang with Zac Posen 'n Dennis Crowley at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, I have an extra pass. Email me if interested.

AIPAC Technology Division is having its launch event on February 27 at Bloomberg HQ, featuring Dan Senor (co-author of Start-Up Nation: Story of Israel's Economic Miracle). AIPAC Tech's host committee includes Alan Patricof (Greycroft), Avi Fogel (NY Angels), Jordan Levy (SoftBank) and others.

Startup Bus (where you get on a bus with 30 strangers and hack your way across America) is going to SXSW. Here's your invite code. Got questions? Email Jon Gottfried, your StartupBus East Coast Conductor!

As you all know, red is my favorite color (gasp, surprise). And lately it's been everywhere, from the red carpet at the Grammys last night to the red roses many of you are getting on Valentine's Day and, of course, red is the color for Chinese New Year. To all my friends who celebrate, Gong Xi Fa Cai! (and hope you get lots of Red envelopes ;-))

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

On Deck Sports and Technology Conference
With rockstar list of speakers including Bob Bowman (MLB Advanced Media), Tiki Barber (former NFL), Alexis Ohanian (cofounder, Reddit), Ben Lerer (Lerer Ventures), Ryan Spoon (ESPN Digital Media) and others.
Tuesday (Feb. 12), 8 a.m. @ Bohemian National Hall, 321 E. 73rd Street

Cocktails & Conversation
85 Broads invites you for cocktails and conversation with Joanne Wilson (angel investor) & Rohini Dey (restaurateur).
Tuesday (Feb. 12), 6 p.m. @ Vermilion, 480 Lexington Avenue

TechCrunch NYC Meetup
60-second pitch-off competition for entrepreneurs looking to launch their product at the Disrupt conference in May. Plus there's beer. Enough said.
Tuesday (Feb. 12), 6 p.m. @ Santos Party House, 96 Lafayette Street

NY Enterprise Technology Meetup
Demos by Aerohive Networks, DataSift, MapR Technologies, Datadog and Videolicious.
Tuesday (Feb. 12), 6:30 p.m. @ Cooley, 1114 Avenue of the Americas

Startup Weekend Strategic Partnership Series
With Nancy Jo (VP Strategy & Biz Dev, Bravo Digital Media), Leora Schacter (VP Digital Strategy and Planning, Food Network) and Ryan Osbourne (VP Digital Innovations, NBC News).
Tuesday (Feb. 12), 7 p.m. @ General Assembly East, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

Digital Disruption: Media in Non-Profits
With William Baker (President Emeritus WNET / Channel 13 PBS), Don Undeen (Media Lab, Metropolitan Museum of Art) and Suzy Gooch (Director, Metropolitan Opera).
Wednesday (Feb. 13), 6 p.m. @ McMahon Hall, 155 W. 60th Street, #109

NYC Real Estate Technology Startups Demos
With Efrem Weiss (PivotDesk), Oisin Hanrahan (Handybook) and Nate Friedman (Living There).
Wednesday (Feb 13), 6:30 p.m. @ TechStars NYC, 36 Cooper Square, 6th Fl.

Visas for Startups: A Panel on Immigration Policy and Entrepreneurship
With Jeremy Robbins (Director, Office of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg), Michael Wildes (Wildes & Weinberg), Owen Davis (NYC Seed), Cyrus Mehta and moderated by Professor Jonathan Askin (Brooklyn Law).
Wednesday (Feb. 13), 7 p.m. @ Geraldo's Cafe at Brooklyn Law, 205 State St, 1st Fl., Feil Hall, Brooklyn

One Of A Kind Party
Open Bar / Clothes Donation by StartupThreads, Amicus, AlleyNYC & Coalition for Queens.
Wednesday (Feb. 13), 8 p.m. @ 1Oak, 453 W. 17th Street

Decoded Fashion - Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week
Keynotes by Zac Posen (fashion designer) and Dennis Crowley (Founder & CEO, Foursquare), as well as the fashion hackathon finale. The top three ideas will be presented on the runway and the winning app will be launched by the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
Thursday (Feb. 14), 9 a.m. @ Lincoln Center, 33 W. 60th Street

Columbia Business School 19th Annual PE/VC Conference
Keynote by Steve Case (chairman & CEO, Revolution and cofounder, America Online)
Friday (Feb. 15), 9 a.m. @ Alfred Lerner Hall at Columbia University, 2920 Broadway

HackInteractive
An education-themed, code-for-a-cause hackathon. Amazing prizes, access to awesome APIs, and delicious food. Hack the weekend to benefit CampInteractive’s programming. Hosted by Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian.
Saturday (Feb. 16), 9 a.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

More events on the horizon...
Social Media Week NY 2013 on Feb. 18 @ Metropolitan Pavilion
NY Tech for Local Business Meetups Social Media Week event: SoLoCo on Feb. 18 @ Wix Lounge
NYTECH Presents: Killer Strategies from the Worlds Greatest Innovators on Feb. 19 @ Morgan Stanley
Business Design & Tech Transforming The World on Feb. 19 @ Centre For Social Innovation Pop-Up Space
Funding the Best in Global Innovation II on Feb. 20 @ SNR Denton
Get To Know DreamIt - NYC on Feb 20. @ Bulls Head Tavern
NJ Tech Meetup 33 on Feb. 21 @ Howe Center
Unleash the Beast: How to Hack a Hackathon Save the World and Make Your Parents Proud on Feb. 21 @ Internet Media Labs
Fireside Chat with Kickstarter Cofounder Charles Adler on Feb. 21 @ Meetup HQ
Analytics Roundtable on Feb. 26 @ SNR Denton
AIPAC Technology Division: Launch Event w/ Dan Senor on Feb. 27 @ Bloomberg Tower
2nd Annual NYU Entrepreneurs Festival on Mar. 1 @ Tisch Hall
NYC EDU Startup Weekend on Mar. 1 @ Alley NYC

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)

This is a guest post from Gary Sharma (aka “The Guy with the Red Tie”), founder and CEO of GarysGuide and proud owner of a whole bunch of black suits, white shirts and, at last count, over 40 red ties. You can reach him at gary [at] garysguide.com.

Last week was crazy. First, the pope resigned (last time that happened? 1415). Then, a 55-foot-wide meteor crashed into the little Russian town of Chelyabinsk, sparking a 300-kiloton blast. Whoa. And then, an asteroid narrowly missed Earth (by a mere 17,000 miles). Yikes. Aaaand then....then everybody really went crazy and started doing the Harlem Shake! Google's doing it. So are Facebook and Linkedin. Even my friends at WeWork, BuzzFeed, CollegeHumor, NYU Stern & ERA have gotten in on the action. There's a cute puppy version and even a bookmarklet. Yup, it was a crazy, crazy week indeed!

Wanna hang out with David Pakman (Venrock), Esther Dyson (angel investor), John Frankel (ff Venture Capital) and other top investors at the Funding the Best in Global Innovation conference this Wednesday? But of course you do! I have a couple of free passes; email me if interested. (You also get 30 percent off with discount code "innovation").

My buddy Steve Rosenbaum (NYC EDC’s entrepreneur at large) is doing another virtual office hours tomorrow (12-1pm) to answer all your startup & entrepreneurship questions. Register here.

This week is Social Media Week. What does that mean? Why, a ton of social media events, of course! ;-) Three events I like are: New York City's Tech Future, The State of Civic Technology and Health Tech Innovation in NY.

This Wednesday at the Museum of Jewish Heritage is Running Away with the Band, a revealing conversation with music industry legend Ted Cohen (three decades in the business helping shape the careers of The Who, Prince, The Beach Boys, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols and Van Halen). Go check it out.

Our "ULTIMATE Guide to SXSW 2013 Parties" list is shaping up quite nicely! 115 events and counting. Hopefully y'all have been smart and RSVP'd. You have, right? Here's a few you're gonna like: Klout Afternoon Delight, Innovation City, The MoPub, Metamarkets, Prolific Interactive Party, OpenWeb Pool Party and Mashable's MashBash. Rumor also has it that last year's uber-popular Conduit Corner is coming back, but this time as a carnival! Stay tuned for more details ;-)

I've been to photo hackathons, fashion hackathons, local hackathons, even food hackathons. And then, I came across a brain hackathon. Yeah, you heard that right. My buddy Ramzi Abdoch (whose team, Swatchit, won the Decoded Fashion hackathon, congrats!) told me all about it. One of the rules? Your project must involve a brain-computer interface. Yup, better watch out, the Matrix is coming, people!

A few weeks ago, I raved about the food at Danny Meyer's Maialino. Later that day, I got an email from Danny himself, appreciative of my enthusiasm. A few days ago, I ran into him in person. He remembered my comments and thanked me again. There's a lesson here for all founders and CEOs: Always be aware of your customer, appreciate their feedback (good or bad) and always make them feel special. If Danny can do it while running an empire of 24 restaurants, so can you! (I also highly recommend you check out his book, which is chock full of business wisdom).

And to all my Jewish friends, I wish you (in advance) Happy Purim! (Hope you enjoy your Se`udat Purim!)

And now let's see what's going down in the Alley this week...

[SMW] We Built This City: The State of Civic Technology
With Jessica Lawrence (New York Tech Meetup), Noel Hidalgo (Code For America), Lara Torvi (NYC Dept. of IT & Telecomm), Beth Viner (IDEO), Betsy Scherzer (NYC EDC) and others.
Tuesday (Feb. 19), 2:30 p.m. @ Bloomberg Tower, 731 Lexington Avenue

Confessions of a Social Butterfly: Managing the Future of Social Media
With Jeanette Horan (CIO, IBM), Fred Santarpia (Chief Digital Officer, Conde Nast Entertainment) and others.
Tuesday (Feb. 19), 6:30 p.m. @ Capitale, 130 Bowery

Funding the Best in Global Innovation II
With David Pakman (Venrock), Brian Cohen (New York Angels), Matt Turck (Bloomberg), Kirill Sheynkman (RTP Ventures), John Frankel (ff Venture Capital), Esther Dyson (angel investor), Ellie Wheeler (Greycroft), Adam Ludwin (RRE), Ann Li (NYCEDC) and more.
Wednesday (Feb. 20), 8:30 a.m. @ SNR Denton, 1221 Avenue of the Americas

Running Away with the Band
A revealing conversation with music industry legend Ted Cohen (three decades in the business helping shape the careers of The Who, Prince, The Beach Boys, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols and others).
Wednesday (Feb. 20), 12 p.m. @ The Museum of Jewish Heritage, 33 Battery Place, The Pit

Get To Know DreamIt Ventures (Happy Hour)
Wednesday (Feb. 20), 6 p.m. @ Bulls Head Tavern, 295 3rd Avenue

NYC Data Business Meetup #13
With Mike Simone (global head, CitiData platform), Emile Werr (head of enterprise data architecture, NYSE EuroNext) and Raj Patil (former data innovation CTO, UBS). Talks by Quantopian, Plaid and ZestFinance.
Wednesday (Feb. 20), 6 p.m. @ Bloomberg Tower, 731 Lexington Avenue

The Intersection of Tech & Media in NYC
A Conversation with Rachel Haot (Chief Digital Officer, NYC)
Wednesday (Feb. 20), 6 p.m. @ TimesCenter @ The New York Times Building, 242 W. 41st Street

[SMW] Its Complicated: Dating and Relationships in the Digital Age
With Sam Yagan (cofounder & CEO, OkCupid), Brian Schechter (cofounder & Co-CEO, How About We) and others. Moderated by Joyce Chang (executive editor, Cosmopolitan).
Wednesday (Feb. 20), 9:30 p.m. @ Hearst Tower, 300 W. 57th Street

[SMW] New York Citys Tech Future
With Alan Patricof (Greycroft Partners), Ann Li (NYC EDC), Jonathan Bowles (Center for an Urban Future), Steve Rosenbaum (entrepreneur-at-large, NYCEDC) and others.
Thursday (Feb. 21), 9:30 a.m. @ Bloomberg LP, 731 Lexington Avenue

Lean Startup Meetup: Fireside Chat
With Charles Adler (Cofounder, Kickstarter).
Thursday (Feb. 21), 7 p.m. @ Meetup HQ, 632 Broadway, 9th Fl.

Queens Tech Meetup 6
With Wiley Cerilli (CEO and founder, SinglePlatform, sold to Constant Contact for over $100M). Demos by Derby Jackpot and Falcon.
Thursday (Feb. 21), 7 p.m. @ Hunter's Point Plaza, 47-40 21st Street, 10th Fl., Long Island City

Tails and Rails: Tech Innovation for Pets and People
One-day hackathon bringing together technologists to build a better life for pets. Develop apps for pet food, pet adoption and pet recreation. Hosted by Mashable and Purina.
Saturday (Feb. 23), 10 a.m. @ Harbor Room at SoHo Grand, 310 West Broadway

Assembled E-Commerce
With Shauna Mei (AHAlife), Adam Schwartz (BustedTees), Alex Taub (Dwolla), Andrew Kortina (Venmo), John Rote (Bonobos), Nihal Mehta (LocalResponse), Shan-Lyn Ma (Chloe+Isabel) and others.
Saturday (Feb. 23), 12 p.m. @ General Assembly, 902 Broadway, 4th Fl.

More events on the horizon...
Entrepreneurs Roundtable 55 on Feb. 25 @ NYU Stern
Analytics Roundtable on Feb. 26 @ SNR Denton
Is Ownership Obsolete? When Sharing Isnt Enough on Feb. 26 @ Studio X NYC
The Story of the Paper App on Feb. 26 @ Huge
AIPAC Technology Division: Launch Event w/ Dan Senor on Feb. 27 @ Bloomberg Tower
IA Ventures on Leveraging Big Data on Feb. 28 @ Orrick
Mobile UX Design Four-Part Series: Theory, Science, Optimization & Design on Feb. 28 @ Venue
2nd Annual NYU Entrepreneurs Festival on Mar. 1 @ Tisch Hall
NYC EDU Startup Weekend on Mar. 1 @ Alley NYC
Startup Funeral on Mar. 1 @ New Work City
BRITE 2013 Conference on Mar. 4 @ Columbia University Lerner Hall
Founders@Fail: How To Build A Community on Mar. 4 @ General Assembly East
In NYC for SxSW? Join us for Brunch! on Mar. 10 @ Venue
Unleash the Beast: How to Hack a Hackathon Save the World and Make Your Parents Proud on Mar. 14 @ Internet Media Labs

Until next week. Stay thirsty social, my friends! ;)