On Monday, Xconomy is hosting an event featuring Jason Mendelson, a metro Detroit native and a University of Michigan alum who went on to co-found the Foundry Group, a highly successful venture fund based in Boulder, CO.
Mendelson will discuss how to sustain and nurture a startup ecosystem. After his chat, a panel of local entrepreneurs will join him on stage to continue the discussion. Tickets to the Xconomy Xchange are still available, and as we get closer to the day of the event, we’d like to introduce our panelists.
Carla Walker-Miller is the founder and CEO of Walker-Miller Energy Services. With offices in Detroit and Columbus, OH, the company provides renewable and sustainable energy products, energy audits and efficiency studies, asset management, procurement support, and other energy-related equipment and services. She began her energy industry career with Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1981.
Walker-Miller is also the founder and executive director of the Water Assistance Volunteer Effort (WAVE), a non-profit corporation dedicated to helping low-income Detroit families maintain access to water and sewerage services. Since 2003, WAVE has paid more than $330,000 in water and sewer bills for needy families.
Moses Lee is the founder of Seelio, an Ann Arbor-based startup. Seelio has developed an online networking platform to help students and fledgling professionals showcase their talent that Lee has characterized as an alternative to LinkedIn. Standard resumes often aren’t able to adequately capture the abilities of college students and new grads because students don’t have a lot of professional work experience, Lee told Xconomy last year.
To strut their stuff, Seelio users, for example, can create a page that details a fictional company they created for a business course, complete with photos, videos, and information about the business model, potential customers, marketing strategy, and sales goals. They can also post about their internships and work experience, as well as their other hobbies and passions.
Seelio also built an enterprise version of its platform for schools. Seelio for Educators offers users exclusive, school-specific activity feeds and custom analytics tools. Lee pointed out that an increasing number of universities want students to graduate with more than just a transcript, which is where Seelio comes in.
“They want a rich body of work they can show a potential employer, and employers really want to see what students have done and how they can add value to the company,” he added.
