The Silicon Flatirons Annual Report

Dear Silicon Flatirons Friends and Supporters,

We at Silicon Flatirons are gearing up for our 18th academic year as students arrive on campus in a few weeks. As we look to the coming year, we also reflect on the past year in this 2016-2017 Annual Report, delivered in a new digital format powered by PageDip.

From the CU Boulder campus to expanded international touchpoints, we continue to carry out our mission: to elevate the technology policy discussion, support our entrepreneurial community, and prepare students for thriving careers. Highlights from this year include:

  • For nearly a decade, Silicon Flatirons has been the nexus for the entrepreneurially minded at CU Boulder and a connector within the robust regional startup community. We’ve incubated several initiatives and have recently handed off a few of these to the campus level, creating space for us to focus on new and other areas.
  • Not only did we host more events in Denver, we’ve expanded our geographic reach with our first workshop in Paris and a partnership with a German university for spectrum policy research. And students in one of our clinics even presented in Switzerland on accessibility technology.
  • For the second cohort of the Governmental Entrepreneurial Leadership Accelerator (GELA), the State of Colorado joined the City and County of Denver as participants. By broadening the reach of this program, we are enabling more individuals and governments to benefit from innovative thinking.
  • We examined the future of the Internet of Things and the role of government oversight, if any, of security and reliability concerns, including spectrum interference. We convened leaders from government, academia, industry, and civil society for a discussion and followed with a Flatirons Report.

My colleagues and I are excited about these achievements and look forward to the next year of delivering on our mission. We hope to see you at the first event of our academic year, Entrepreneurs Unplugged featuring Jim Packer of Lionsgate, on August 31 at Colorado Law. In the meantime, please feel free to reach out to me at Phil.Weiser@colorado.edu.

Cheers,

Phil Signature JPEG

Phil Weiser
Executive Director
Silicon Flatirons

Know What’s Next