Lunch 2.0

Lunch Five-O was a huge success due to the enthusiasm expressed by attendees in Honolulu (many who attended in their most formal Aloha shirts and slippaz) who loved the Lunch 2.0 concept. Thanks again HiBEAM for letting us eat your lunch!

There were more than 30 folks who came to talk with old friends and to make new ones who share their passion for technology. Both ChipIn and People Bridge presented overviews of their companies with Q&A’s afterwards with the CEO’s re: their business models, hiring, technology approach, etc.

The neighborhood teaser video from People Bridge, which was viewed on the overhead as people were finishing off their lunch with freshly baked cookies, can be viewed here.

ChipIn surprised the attendees by announcing their selection to launch a new Widget authoring platform at the DEMO conference. When asked about the new product, Carnet, CEO of ChipIn said, “Sproutbuilder enables anyone to quickly and easily build sophisticated promotional widgets.” I guess we’ll have to wait until Jan 28th to see what he means! In the meantime, you can sign up here for a beta account and see what Carnet has to say on his new Sprout Blog.

Leading up to the event there was a great number of colorful regrets in attendance from the Facebook event page (on the right are a few of my favorites). For fans, you can add Lunch20Hawaii to FB here.HiBEAM wanted to reach out to those who couldn’t make it and encourage their interest in connecting and collaborating with others in Hawaii’s tech community.

Rachel from HiBEAM says, “…if you are looking to do something cool with high tech in HI, we encourage you to contact us and see how we can be of value to you.”

Click the image to the right to watch a quick video to let you see a few of the people from the event. It opens with a quick intro from HiBEAM. Of note, for any software developer out there wanting to code in paradise, you might like what Matt McVickar has to say…

At the end of the event one of the Lunch 2.0 Hawaii organizers gave a quick 2 minute description of Lunch 2.0 in Silicon Valley and its strong force in bringing people together almost weekly. At that point, someone yelled out, “who’s going to host the next Lunch 2.0 Hawaii?” Without hesitation and to a round of applause Lorenz from Blue Lava Technology raised his hand to volunteer. We’ll update you all when the next date is chosen. In the meantime, sign up for Blue Lava Technology’s beta list for ilovephotos which is launching spring of ‘08.

Rain, Wind or Shine… Lunch w/ Aloha!

Upcoming Events

• Wednesday, January 16 - Citrix, Santa Clara Silicon Valley
• Thursday, January 17 - e-Storm, FiDi, San Francisco
• Friday, January 18 - Hyves, Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Friday, January 18 - Zumobi, Waterfront, Seattle
• Friday, January 18 - digital-telepathy, San Diego, CA
• Thursday, January 31- TBA, SoMa, San Francisco
• Wednesday, February 6 - Paglo, Palo Alto, Silicon Valley
• Friday, February 15 - blist, Seattle
• TBD - Blue Lava Technology, Honolulu, HI