Our friends at SocialMeter TV got published at La Segunda!*  Finally, the world will come to realize what a silly way to measure audiences´ engagement people meter is. Like Cristián Correa told the reporters, he and his team came up with the idea for SocialMeter TV when they realized that a show that had been widely commented on Twitter and Facebook got zero audience according to the measuring system based on people meter. “This can´t be possible”, Cristián said, and the idea of measuring audience´s engagement using social media tools began to take shape.

This could revolutionize the TV industry. We´ll definitely stay tuned.

*Actually, UPI released the information, if you take a close look at the author of the piece. UPI is a super-popular press agency among Chilean outlets. This means pretty much all reporters in the country heard about SocialMeter TV, and they will be published everywhere soon! That´s an insight at how the Chilean press works. Don´t tell anyone we told you about this, shhh!

Update! Friends at Edoome.com got featured by Emol! The article has plenty of comments and retweets, since Emol reaches a massive audience. Check it out here!

Yey for those who know how to embrace all the opportunities in Chile! Suppers at Edoome.com were selected as one of the finalists at the “Applícate” contest organized by “Fundación Un Techo Para Chile” and “Movistar Innova”. The best part of this is that Edoome.com has a social component that hits right on a sensitive spot in the Chilean society: education. You probably heard that Chileans have been discussing a whole lot about education since last year. It is great to see that Start-Up Chile has people who listen to what happens around them, and who work hard to improve things that are important for kids around the world.

The results of the contest will be out on June 1st. Lets cheer for our friends of Edoome.com so they can fulfill their dream to reduce the gap between public and private education by delivering a world class tool for everybody. Lets support our fiends with good vibes for them to make a great performance at the final stage of the contest. It is always worth to improve the quality of education and these guys are developing a great tool to do it. Check out their performance in the contest by clicking HERE

Update! Kloof got featured at Radio Bío-Bío!

We are sure this is what millions of people were expecting. No more Facebook profiles for your pet! Now you can get Klooff, the app for pet lovers allowing them to create profiles for their pets, post pics and turn those into products, among many other features. Klooff is specifically designed for you to get all coo-coo about your pet, and has features specifically designed for this instead of you having to use platforms that were just not created for this. Talk about customization.

The team leading the developing for Klooff is at NYC at the moment, launching the product over there before coming back to Chile to spread some NYC love among suppers. On Sunday, founder Alejandro Russo will be part of a panel at Uptown 2.0, an Internet Week event hosted by #IncubateNYC & Imagine Harlem. If you are in NY, stop by and cheer up for Alejandro.

You can download the app HERE

Start-Up Chile friends are familiar with our famous meetups: every week, we get our family together around drinks and a nice speaker who inspires us to get some networking time running after the talk. Meetups are pretty much a trend in Santiago at the moment, which is great news for us. Its a milestone in our mission to boost the local ecosystem for entrepreneurs in Chile. We run as many meetups as we can, and we attend even more.

But next week´s meetup? That´s a completely different story. Next wednesday´s meetup will have no comparison, no competition. Next week´s meetup is our way to give the Demo Day a fun and energetic end, so we will turn this into an unforgettable event. A storm. Expect to get excited, inspired, and all spiced-up and ready to rock your projects. For the Demo Day Meetup, we will have Jonathan Nelson, of Hackers&Founders; and Arne van Oosterom, of Design Thinking, to inspire us with a talk before a closing party. Yes, you read that right: party after the meetup to celebrate all the hard work we all have invested on the Demo Day!

When? May 23rd, 6.30pm

Where? Centro Cultural Amanda. Embajador Doussinague 1767, Local 0027D, Cobres de Vitacura , Santiago

Sign Up HERE

On Wednesday, some suppers will give a talk at Finis Terrae University. Friends at “la Finis” want to hear about how to get there: how to become a global entrepreneur and live off your ideas and creativity, building a successful business. Horacio Melo, Samir Rath and Marijn Berk will inspire the audience with their expertise.

Learn more about them below!

Horacio Melo, Start-Up Chile´s Executive Director: As a Commercial Engineer, he has worked for PyG and Latin American Airlines as a Marketing Manager. He is devoted to contribute in whatever is needed to turn Chile into a developed country. He strongly believes that entrepreneurship and innovation are key tools to achieve this goal. He enjoys soccer and outdoor/extreme sports in his spare time.

Samir Rath is an entrepreneur and angel investor working with entrepreneurs globally. Currently, he is the founder of Synovum Partners, a group of committed professionals who work with start-ups and SMEs to launch and grow impactful companies across geographical boundaries. In Chile, he is a co-founder of Mas Con Movil, a Startup Chile company, providing productivity solutions to the retail industry. He recently started a co-creative space Area51 in Cochin, India to facilitate interaction between entrepreneurs, freelancers, artists, musicians, mentors, industry experts and investors thus hoping to create a thriving innovation ecosystem. He is an associate partner in Acumen Fund, a non-profit private equity fund based in New York, which is redefining the way capitalism can be harnessed to address bottom-of-the-pyramid problems. Previously, he was instrumental in setting up one of the most prominent financial trading firms in Asia. He started his career as a macro-economist and worked with senior public officials and ministers from IMF, WB and various countries as well as advised financial institutions on expansion strategy for Asian markets. He is trained as an Integrated Circuits Engineer, is schooled in design thinking at AC4D and is currently part of an experimental business education initiative between IE, Spain and Brown University, USA.

Marijn Berk was named 2011′s best young entrepreneur, and was awarded a scholarship by the Kauffman foundation, which brought him to Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and Silicon Valley. But that’s not all. Berk is more than just a clever young businessman. He leads the way in creating clean portable power sources for mobile devices and making mobile products truly mobile. Berk designed his own patent-pending charging technology that optimizes power delivery to the phone without requiring a battery. By simplifying existing technologies he made the charger cheaper, easier to use and at the disposal of users in developing countries.

When? Wednesday, May 16th, 9am

Where? “Sala de Exposiciones” at Universidad Finis Terrae main campus, Pedro de Valdivia 1509

Update #4! The weekend is always an opportunity to have longer conversations about what we care most. That´s why yesterday, La Tercera published a short piece about the Demo Day and today we were covered in a full-page article! Check the written pieces HERE and HERE.

Update #3! Estrategia is joining the conversation, while in Spain some are saying what they need to fix the economy is something just like Start-Up Chile. We agree!

Update #2! La Tercera interviewed Hernán Kazah about his story and how he thinks the Demo Day can impact the local ecosystem for entrepreneurs. Check it out!

Update #1! El Confidencial is talking about us today, May 15th, and they posted the Demo Day trailer we worked so hard on. Happy dance, everyone!

The Start-Up Chile Demo Day, the first event of its kind ever done in Chile, is just 9 days away. Suppers have been making so much noise online about it, the media is beginning to pay attention. We are receiving many media inquiries asking Horacio Melo to tell them more about what´s about to happen. So far, the Start-Up Chile Demo Day has been commented on Revista Poder y Negocios, La Segunda, and Diario Financiero. Folks at Diario Financiero are putting some pressure! Their story published today is titled “Start-Up Chile seeks to raise USD$5 million on investments at the first Demo Day in the country”.

Let´s go for it!

*Picture for this article belongs to La Tercera, we claim no intelectual property over it.

Come and join us in this trip to get to know Sebastián Claro, a chilean entrepreneur that teaches entrepreneurship to defeat poverty in Africa. Learn more about it here!

Here is what Sebastián has to say about himself:

“I’m a a Social Entrepreneur having created three different ventures by the age of 23 focusing on sports nutrition, innovation consulting and the environmental impact of launderettes. Currently I’m the C.E.O of EmpreDiem, I have recently been awarded of MA from the University Adolfo Ibañez, in innovation and entrepreneurship, one of the best schools for business in Latin America.

I believe that teaching Entrepreneurship is the key to Defeat Poverty, so people be empowered with the problem and the solution. With the rights tools and having a Desing Thinking you can achieve business focusing over profits, in people and planet, creating social innovations.

I’m convinced that in any project that I get involved I must leave some mark or make a change, that give me the strength to continue.

I really love what I do, i want to dedicate my life to make the world a better place, I love to play soccer, and hang out with my friends and family., listen to new ideas and always start new things, co-creating constanly to always see different views of the same thing and get the best of each one.”

When? Wednesday, May 16th, at 7.30 pm

Where? Casa Lastarria (Lastarria 70, Santiago)

Sign Up HERE!

Gympact got mencioned at Mashable as one of the apps showing that today´s crazy success of some mobile apps is “a fundamental shift in the speed at which new ideas and new businesses can grow” rather than just a trend that will go down on the short term.

Ravi Mehta wrote an article titled “Why instagram won´t be the last billion dollar app”, in which he discusses different “ingredients” which, “when combined, (…) translate into explosive growth” he says. Among Mehta´s ingredients, there is “New Modes of Usages,” where Geolocation plays a key role and where Gympact is showcased as a very innovative app that mediates how people interact with the world around them.

Leaving prints in the sand of time, Gympact, congrats!

SaferTaxi got featured at Emol as “The App modernizing  how to call a cab”, emphasizing how Clemens Raemy and Jonathan Lo found a business opportunity in LatinAmerica rather than Europe and moved here leaving all fears aside. The article is a detailed story including how the idea was born, how and when did they team up with Cristóbal Llugany, and how customers are not charged when they use the app. Read it here!

The first Demo Day ever hosted in Chile is just 5 days away. Start-Up Chile entrepreneurs are getting excited and a bit nervous, we all are working extra hard to have the best Start-Up Chile Week, ever. We can´t wait for it to be May 23rd already and have all our friends at GAM ready to cheer for the 32 startups pitching on stage.

The press is getting pretty excited, too. You´ll see us around. So far, they have talked about us at  La Tercera, EmprenemJunts,  El Confidencial, Revista Poder y Negocios, La Segunda, Estrategia, and Diario Financiero. And we know there is plenty of more stories comming.

Be sure to keep in mind that, if you are a busy guy/gal and can´t attend the Demo Day during work hours, you can still attend the Start-Up Chile Demo Day big finale! We are giving the Demo Day a nice finishing touch with an inspiring meetup at Centro Cultural Amanda starting at 6.30 pm on Wednesday. Arne von Oosterom, from Design Thinking; and Jonathan Nelson, from Hackers & Founders, will be speakers at the Demo Day Meetup. A must-be-there event, for sure.

Get a detailed description of all the activities happening on May 23rd, HERE

Excitement is spreading like the flu at the Start-Up Chile offices. Are you ready for May 23rd?

Update! Here is a pic of Nicolás with Lino Barañao and Marco Antonio Raupp, both Minister of Science and Technology from Argentina and Brazil, respectively.

Start-Up Chile´s founder, Nicolás Shea, will participate as a speaker at The Ecomonist Innovation Summit to be held tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The magazine gathered Marco Antônio Raupp, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation of Brazil;  Lino Barañao, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation of Argentina, and Nicolás Shea, founder of Start-Up Chile. They will discuss the role of governments in promoting innovation and stimulating economic growth. Do we need to say how important we think this is? We´ll definitely stay tuned.

Learn more about the conference here.