HOTCoffee, the bi-weekly assembly of business professionals, students, faculty, and others interested in entrepreneurship in Huntsville, hosts a series of speakers who share their start-up experiences and tackle how-to questions from attendees. Upcoming speakers include Matt Fowler, founder of real estate technology venture Solid Earth, on Oct. 30, and Peggy Sammon, serial entrepreneur and current CEO of HudsonAlpha-based GeneCapture Inc., on Nov. 14.
Each speaker is allotted seven minutes to tell his or her story, after which a networking event enables audience members to interact with the speaker one-on-one. All speakers exemplify the start-up culture in Huntsville/Madison County and, in turn, energize and inspire other start-up spirits. To date, they have included Bryan Powell, founder of MetaBahn contract software designers, and Brandon Kruse, who as a teenager founded DialMaxx and who is now a serial entrepreneur developing the West Huntsville business incubator and co-working space.
HOTCoffee, originally Huntsville Open Tech Coffee, is hosted by the ICE Lab of the College of Business Administration at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). Founded in September 2013, HOTCoffee meets every other Friday morning throughout the year at 7:45 a.m. in the UAH Shelby Center for Science and Technology, room 107. It is open to the public at no charge.
The ICE Lab is engaged in building the entrepreneurial ecosystem for the Huntsville/Madison County community and engaging students in the process. Other ICE Lab initiatives include the Competitive Coaching Clinic, convening every other Friday afternoon at HudsonAlpha, and Accelerator Workshops, two-hour skills-building sessions designed to strengthen the start-up skills among entrepreneurs, held weekly in collaboration with the Small Business Development Center at the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber of Commerce.