“Entrepreneurship is about relationships,” he says. “You always have to be pitching.”

How This First-Time Founder Got SoftBank, Nvidia And Microsoft To Write Him A Billion-Dollar Check – Wayve’s software can add self-driving powers to your vehicles, and on the cheap.

Kendall pulled it off with no revenue, no customers and no commercially available product.

Hellgate Venture Network – 7/18 – Missoula

The Hellgate Venture Network facilitates social networking both online and offline amongst entrepreneurs and advisors engaged in building growth businesses in Western Montana.

MEDA -Montana Economic Developers Association

• “AI won’t take your job. It’s somebody using AI that will take your job.”

  “41% of leaders (extremely familiar with AI) expect to redesign business processes from the ground up with AI.”

• Drive Electric Montana -7/16 – Bozeman (Looking to start a Missoula chapter if you’re interested)

  I think we have enough here on this email to officially start one in Bozeman (the next chapter will likely be in Missoula). That being said, members don’t have to live in Bozeman, nor do they have to be EV drivers. If you are interested in helping or joining our Bozeman Chapter (or even if you’re not), please fill out this SHORT FORM even if you can’t make our first meeting. This way, I can have a list of who is or isn’t interested.

Missoula Chamber of Commerce

• Missoula’s Future Growth Scenarios Open House – 7/17 and 7/23 – Missoula Public Library 4th Floor

  A set of three scenarios were developed to represent different approaches to addressing some of the critical housing affordability, equity, and climate issues faced by the community. The scenarios will be illustrated and described to show how they could affect Missoula’s future.

Great Falls Development Alliance

• GFDA Top Ten for 7-14-24

  The City of Great Falls and Malmstrom AFB celebrated the opening of the Scheels Aim High Big Sky Aquatic and Recreation Center! The center features an 8 lane lap pool, recreation pool with water slide, lazy river, full court gym with basketball, volleyball and pickle ball, weight and cardio equipment, fitness rooms, party and programming spaces, and a lounge with fire place. Congratulations and THANK YOU to everyone who helped make this great addition to our community a reality!

Montana Business

• How to build a purpose-driven company

  Find the connection between what you do and how it benefits the world, with these four tips.

• Think Your Shuttered Company is Immune to the Corporate Transparency Act? Think Again.
  New guidance could dramatically expand how many businesses have to file a beneficial ownership report, even when there’s seemingly no one left to file.
• Montana mining operation (North America’s only producer of platinum and palladium) hit by ransomware attack

  A cyberattack halted some operations at the Sibanye Stillwater mining operations in Montana Wednesday.

• Fortune Welcome to ‘The Great Detachment’: Workers are checked out—and so are their bosses

  “Managers simply are not showing-up for their employees,”

Funding and Building your Business

• How This First-Time Founder Got SoftBank, Nvidia And Microsoft To Write Him A Billion-Dollar Check – Wayve’s software can add self-driving powers to your vehicles, and on the cheap.

  Kendall pulled it off with no revenue, no customers and no commercially available product.

Incubators and R&D

• This startup makes rich, creamy butter out of CO2

  Savor, a Bay Area-based startup backed by Bill Gates, makes ingredients without animals, farmland, or fertilizer.

The Creative and Cultural Economy

• How Sourcebooks aims to disrupt traditional book publishing

  We’re about creating what’s next.

21st Century Education Initiative – “You Should Care…”

• University of Montana receives $250K to support storytelling in rural, Indigenous communities

  The funding will be used to launch four-day intensive audio journalism summer camps in Missoula in July 2024 and 2025.

• Michigan high school graduates will be able to attend community college tuition-free.

  It marks the realization of a goal Governor Gretchen Whitmer laid out during her 2024 State of the State address, WXYZ, Detroit’s ABC affiliate, reported.  “In our next budget, let’s make the first two years of community college in Michigan tuition free for every high school graduate,” she said back in January.

University of Montana & Montana State University Tech Transfer

• Montana State receives international recognition for scientific impact

  The Leiden ranking is based on articles published in scholarly journals and the impact those publications have on the international community. Impact is measured by the number of times the research is cited in articles by other scientists.

Government News & Events

• Nebraska Court Rules State Workers Must Return to the Office

  The governor at the time said that the pandemic was over and that the “common-sense expectation” of the public is that state employees are to be working in a state office.

• Missoula EV plan underway amid slow state adoption of vehicles due to lack of 4 wheel drive and pickups

  “So from 2021 to 2022, those numbers practically doubled.”

• Stackable certificates could be a lifeline for governments facing an IT talent crisis

  In an era of breakneck digital transformation, this incremental and cumulative approach to upskilling could be the answer to states and localities’ hiring woes.

Transportation

• Applying the New Traffic Safety Paradigm

  The new traffic safety paradigm recognizes exposure — total vehicle travel — as a risk factor, and therefore the additional casualties caused by planning decisions that induce more driving, and the safety benefits of VMT reductions.

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