Code School Opening in American Tobacco

Kicking down doors and busting through glass ceilings is just another day in the life for aspiring coders in Durham. Now there will be a new code school in Durham to help men and women learn skills in Java, CSS, HTML, Ruby on Rails, and other software languages that are needed for successful careers in technology.

A new code academy, The Iron Yard, is coming to Durham in June at the American Tobacco Campus.The school will partner with Smashing Boxes, a Durham-based technology shop to bring the intensive classes to life. This partnership is just another example of the growing technology sector in Durham, and the integral nature of thriving partnerships in the community.

The code school will hold 12-week courses that will combine practical application, mentorship, collaboration, and teaching, all within close proximity to successful Durham tech entrepreneurs at places like the American Underground and the Startup Factory, just two of many such entities here in town. Students will graduate from the school with the necessary skills to be hired as junior-level coders. There are an abundance of these kinds of jobs in Durham, and this school hopes to close the gap between skilled workers and the need for them.

The Iron Yard will join the ranks of Durham's educational institutions like North Carolina Central University, Duke University, and Durham Tech which prepare talented students to enter the workforce. The new school will also contribute to the growing technology buzz in Durham, already identified and affirmed by Google with its Tech Hub partnership with American Underground. That partnership allows technology developers to interact and have access to Google developers and products.

The Iron Yard and Smashing Boxes aim to teach students who have little or no prior development knowledge. This speaks to the inclusive nature of the technology community in Durham, where diversity is valued and encouraged. Recently Google helped fund Soar, a Durham-based program that connects women entrepreneurs with capital needed to help close the gender gap in entrepreneurship. These programs are just a couple of examples of how the Durham community seeks to support all of its members.

Look online to discover more reasons why Durham is a great place to visit, work, and do business.

Breaking News: Google Selects Durham's American Underground

Durham, NC.  A community where, among other things, entrepreneurs are regularly greeted by opportunity and support.  That sort of support makes this morning's announcement by American Underground that it will become part of an exclusive Google for Entrepreneurs Tech Hub Network all the more important. Durham is now one of of seven hubs throughout North America in the network that supports entrepreneurs and provides a stimulus for the economy in local communities.

“The American Underground is making great strides to ensure every entrepreneur in our network has an unparalleled opportunity to launch, grow and succeed,” said Adam Klein, chief strategist, American Underground. “Being selected as a Google for Entrepreneurs Tech Hub means that the 100-plus startups in our network are one giant leap closer to being the companies that capture imaginations and create jobs here and, as they grow, around the country.”

American Underground, along with Durham's other incubators, has really helped to drive that message home. "In Durham, the common refrain is more likely to be 'How can I help?' rather than 'Good luck with that.'" said Shelly Green, President and CEO of the Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau.  "Entrepreneurship has been part of Durham's DNA for hundreds of years, so this announcement is one that has implications for economic development across the board - tourism included," she added.

Google will support American Underground both financially and technologically. Hubs will have greater access to Google experts and products, and will participate in a number of Google events each year. Most importantly, hubs in the network will have access to each other, with Google facilitating quarterly calls and bringing hub partners together in-person to share lessons learned and best practices for entrepreneurs.

The Google for Entrepreneurs Tech Hub Network is the first formal network of this kind in the world. “Google heard consistently from tech hubs that they wanted to be part of a larger network, to learn from each other and collaborate together on ideas. We are happy to facilitate that,” said John Lyman, Head of Partnerships for Google for Entrepreneurs. “Our team has been incredibly impressed with the great work these hubs have done in their cities, and are excited to partner with them to do even more.”

Durham's stock-in-trade as a hub for entrepreneurs and startups has risen so sharply in recent years that it is regularly mentioned in the same breath as Silicon Valley, Austin, and Boston as a destination for visionaries looking for a place to get going.

The other six hubs in the network include: CoCo in Minneapolis, MN; 1871 in Chicago, IL; Communitech in Waterloo, Ontario; Nashville Entrepreneur Center in Nashville, TN; Galvanize in Denver, CO; and Grand Circus in Detroit, MI.

Learn more about Durham online.

Great Minds Get Back to Work

Durham is home to one of the country's fastest growing creative class workforces, and this community is determined to keep them coming.  

As the country looks for opportunities to stimulate job growth, all eyes are on Durham after President Obama's recent visit. Jeff Immelt, the head of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and CEO of GE, said Durham was selected because "it's got a lot of interesting businesses, and it's pretty much a cross-section of America in many ways." The President spoke at Cree and the rest of the Council went on to tour American Underground and McKinney. In Durham, President Obama pledged to focus on job creation and encouraged businesses to have the confidence in the investment environment and to put money to work by hiring more people.

Well, great minds think alike. The month of May saw non-traditional recruitment events from two of Durham's start-up heavy hitters. Bull City Forward presented their Social Venture and Start-Up Job Fair while Chris Heivley of LaunchBox Digital organized Tech Jobs Under the Big Top. The Art Institute of Raleigh-Durham also put on a job fair geared toward connecting recent grads with creative jobs. Fox 50 and the Durham JobLink also recently partnered to host the 2011 Career Expo, a free event designed to boost professional development and recruitment.

Durham Convention & Visitors Bureau has also launched a tool to support the growing hiring needs of the hospitality industry. Durhamhospitalityjobs.com not only serves lodging and food service, but all businesses related to hospitality, visitation and tourism.

These Durham-wide efforts to boost hiring are just the latest sign of a recovering economy, and further proof that Durham is creative, entrepreneurial, and where great things happen.

Accion Emprendedora to Serve Hispanic Micro-Entrepreneurs

Durham's community diversity is one of this place's most valued attributes - right up there with being entrepreneurial.  So the announcement of a new source of support to the Hispanic community is pretty big news in the place where great things happen. 

Durham is already home to several business incubators.  Bull City Forward, American Underground, Startup Stampede and more recently The Cookery, provide the necessary support to bring new business ventures and social enterprises to life. Through this network of innovators and social change makers came a empower an underserved set of entrepreneurs – Acción Emprededora, an incubator targeted to assist Hispanic micro-entrepreneurs.

Under the direction of Duke University's Fuqua School of Business Graduate, Alenjandro Snachez  and with the support of Bull City Forward, El Centro Hispano and the Latino Community Credit Union,  Acción Emprendedora will help entrepreneurs in the Hispanic community achieve some major goals.  The non-profit is dedicated to developing the Hispanic small business sector through trainings, technical assistance, networking and support through the process of obtaining financing.

Acción Emprendedora’s mission is to overcome poverty through entrepreneurship - they will launch their first round of classes in September.

The Cookery joins Durham Food and Entrepreneurship Community

The newest addition to Durham’s food and entrepreneurship communities opened its doors to an eager crowd of local food enthusiasts on Thursday night. Visitors got a first look at The Cookery, a for-hire commercial kitchen space which will operate both as a commercial kitchen for food trucks and catering businesses, and as a small food-business incubator.  Culinary entrepreneurs will be provided the tools they need, both intellectual and practical, to start and run their operation. Clients contract use of the facility on a monthly basis or by the hour where the kitchen is open 24 hours per day and 7 days per week.

Durham is routinely considered the Silicon Valley of the South Eastern US with incubators such as American Underground and Bull City Forward, and the Start Up Stampede as drivers of the growth.  Durham is also one of the country’s most vibrant and celebrated food markets and was on the NY Times list of the top 41 places in the world to visit in 2011 with its food culture highlighted as a component. The Cookery’s business model serves both markets by fostering creative culinary minds as they set out to become the next Durham’s local food scene success story.

Durham Gets MORE Entrepreneurial

Durham has always been a hotbed of entrepreneurialism - even the Great American Indian Trading Path ran through this place; a route that was an early manifestation of entrepreneurial activity.  In other words, Durham's brand can claim the spirit of entrepreneurialism at the genetic level.


Duke University announced a major move forward for those
interested in starting businesses in Durham.



Today, Duke University announced a major leap forward that builds upon Durham's previous successes in this area.  Duke alumna Kimberly Jenkins will assist Duke in its efforts to promote both entrepreneurship and innovation at Duke.  Click here for a story that more clearly addresses start ups in Durham.

"Durham continues to rise as a hub for start ups in a way that few communities can compete with regionally or nationally," said Shelly Green, the President and CEO of the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau.  This sentiment echoes repeated national rankings and recognition of Durham's promienence as a dynamic place to live, work, play and retire.  "This news is great for Duke and great for Durham," Ms. Green noted. 

Click here for more information about Duke's new initiative.

The Latest Iteration of Being a Startup Hub

Durham has always been a hub for startups...even before 1865 when Washington Duke came home after the Civil War and started in the tobacco business.  Seems to have worked out for him since with that modest start, Durham proceeded to lead the industrial revolution in the south with both tobacco and textile empires thriving here for the century to follow.

Now, in some of the very same buildings that housed those former manufacturing giants, Durham is again expressing its entrepreneurial nature as a massive influx of creative and business minded people come here to get their ideas off the ground.

The last several years have seen the startup landscape flourish in Durham, and the future is looking more lush every day.  With the recent opening of Bull City Forward as an incubator for social enterprises, and the impending opening of American Underground as a similar environment for tech companies, Durham is fast-tracking its growth in this direction.  Click here for a recent article on the subject.  Even the local blog Bull City Rising now has an editorial series devoted to this subject and a new correspondent focused on this beat.

"To call it exciting is an understatement.  We've always been a technology and innovation hub--after all RTP started here in 1959--but now we're seeing opportunities for small operations to call Durham home in a new way," said Shelly Green, President and CEO of the Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau.  "The fact is that more than 80% of relocating executives come to Durham as visitors first and then decide to move here.  We're now seeing the natural evolution of that with a previous generation setting the stage for newcomers to get their concepts off the ground here.  Durham is a place where great things happen, and we're hoping these businesses will stay in Durham," she added.

BCF and AU are only part of the picture.  There is a startup subculture in Durham, a place that often wins accolades for various aspects of its population.  See a searchable database of those here.  A new website, http://www.downtowndurhamstartups.com/, sponsored by shoeboxed.com, is a great clearing house for information on new businesses getting underway in Durham, but also in the surrounding area.  Their blog can be seen here.

Pursuant to being attractive to a younger demographic, Durham has an exciting dining scene with more than three dozen nationally celebrated restaurants, bakeries and food trucks for near round the clock options.  There is even a website devoted entirely to coffee shops and bakeries that rates them based on various criteria.  There is also a fare-free bus, The Bull City Connector, that services downtown Durham as some immediately adjacent parts of town including Duke and North Carolina Central Universities.

A visit to the official website for Durham's marketing agency sums up the current culture pretty well, "Durham is a colorful, creative, and entrepreneurial community and is the proud home of Research Triangle Park, Duke and North Carolina Central universities."  Sounds like startup mecca.