It was a busy and ambitious week here in St. Louis as many of you know! Startup Week kicked off on Monday and it lit the city up with innovation and incredible trendsetters that are setting the precedent for what our ecosystem will look like in the coming years. Let’s get into what you missed at our Thursday Gathering, STL Startup Week Showcase!

To kick things off we hosted the Startup Week Showcase, for the entirety of Venture Cafe. This was a presentation and a highlight of 40+ different emerging startups from a plethora of industries that allowed students, startups, entrepreneurs, and job seekers to connect with members of the community.

During that amazing expo-style event, we heard from Patavee Vanadilok, Immigration Attorney at Law Office of Patavee Vanadilok, P.C. Patavee lead Everything You Need To Know About H-1B Visa, which is vital to the U.S. economy and an essential mechanism for attracting elite talent to U.S. businesses. Whether you are a startup or company interested in sponsoring professionals for H-1B visas, a student ready to springboard your career in H-1B status or even someone just generally interested in learning about how the U.S. immigration system works, you definitely learned something from this session!

To cap off the night, we had TWO sessions going at the same time. First was the WiCyS St. Louis Kick Off Event! Women in Cybersecurity was held so that women in that industry, in our community, could get to know each other a bit more! Everyone is invited. They spend the hour speaking a bit about WiCyS and hearing from other women about their experience in the CyberSecurity industry, as well as what the future holds for affiliates.

The other event was the Battle of The Saints Student Pitch Competition which provided student entrepreneurs, ages 10-18, an opportunity to pitch a business concept to a panel of expert industry judges. The top business teams were awarded a portion of the $2000.00 available start-up capital generously provided by our sponsors Masterclock, Inc. & goBRANDgo!.

So as you can see, Venture was a abuzz last night with the kinds of serendipitous collisions that we are known for. Thanks for checking out this VenCaf Recap everyone and hopefully we’ll see you at the Closing Party tonight!