Kiwis are definitely making their mark felt at Demo, the conference underway near Palm Springs, California that is seen as an annual global showcase of the most promising new technology start-ups.
There's a podcast on the Demo website with Wellington-based PlanHQ founder Tim Norton, who presented at
Demo last year and picked up business and a good deal of investor interest as a result.
As I wrote this morning in the Herald, popular climate change awareness website Celsias.com pitched at Demo yesterday. You can see a video of the six minute presentation in the video collection at demo.com.
Celsias.com CEO Nick Lewis got in touch to tell me that the presentation had achieved the desired result.
"Our traffic has ballooned as word has gotten out," he said.
"We've had approaches from two corporates and six venture capital funds. None of that is money in the bank but we're cautiously optimistic that this is going to work out quite well."
There's an interesting piece on the pros and cons of being selected for Demo on Readwriteweb.com, the online home of Wellingtonian and Web 2.0 expert Richard MacManus.
Frank Gruber does a wrap-up on some of the companies that presented at Demo here. And there's more on Demo at Wired.com.
Also, check out Greenplug, the company that presented in the new green technology category alongside Celsias. I really like what these guys are doing - building one power adapter that can be standardised across thousands of different devices and is much more efficient than the power adapters that come with phone and laptops, music players and the like.
Here's a taster from the website: "Intelligent power supplies communicate with electronic devices and agree upon device power requirements for all devices connected to them. All cables and connectors are uniform; so, they work with any device! Being intelligent power sources, they eliminate wasted "phantom power" (power that is wasted when chargers are plugged in and either connected to devices that are fully charged or have no devices connected to them) and improve power utilisation and efficiency."
I'd pay $60 - $70 for one of these things. I hope Demo gives the company the exposure it needs to get some support from consumer electronics makers.
