Event Recap: February 2016 NY Tech Meetup

On Tuesday, February 9th, the IPG Media Lab attended the NY Tech Meetup at the Skirball Center for Performing Arts. A handpicked selection of New York City’s most promising startups took turns demoing their products to a capacity crowd, representing a wide array of industries from event planning to manufacturing. Below are some snapshots of the exhibitors:

TradeIt is a Fintech company that allows investors to place trades on the sites where they get their news. Let’s say you are reading about Apple’s amazing quarter on The Street. TradeIt powers the button on the article page that allows you to purchase shares of Apple immediately. With a secure API that plugs into financial news sites, TradeIt prompts the user to select their broker to execute the trade. This feature is currently live with 23 partners and available on both desktop and mobile apps.

Perhaps you would like a quick, affordable way to manufacture small goods. VooDoo Manufacturing can help you achieve your goal with their 3D printing warehouse located in Brooklyn. Consumers can upload a 3D model, enter a quantity, and purchase all through their eCommerce site. If they need help with the 3D model, VooDoo’s team of designers can assist with the creation process. Low volume orders of 20 units or less ship next day, while high volume orders of over 10,000 units take up to two weeks.

If you need help planning your next party, it is time to download Funnster, the event planning app. Hosts post events with time, date, location and invite their friends. They also choose favors that they will need for the party so their guests know exactly what to bring. They also have the option to simply share the cost of the party with the host. In order to acquire new users, Funnster is offering $40 towards booze for hosting a party through their app. Keep them in mind for your next soiree!

Rather than staying in and hosting, sometimes it’s more fun to hit the town. With all of the great locations available in New York City, DIDiT NY can help you narrow down the options. Their experience discovery app curates lists based on expert columnists’ advice. For example, you want to visit Beyoncé and Jay Z’s favorite dinner spots. DIDiT crawls through web content and curates mentions of the power couple’s dining habits and surfaces options to you. You can then save the locations and mark once you’ve “DIDiT.”

Now one thing that Beyonce and Jay Z certainly have is a massive social following. Shareablee monitors social conversations to provide insights on content engagement. They pull all interactions (likes, tweets, comments, etc.) across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Google+, and LinkedIn to build user profiles. Marketers can use this platform to measure their social footprint and discover the makeup of their target audience.

Rounding out this month’s Tech Meetup were a career building tool, a site for monitoring the public council in NYC, an educational interactive toy, a 3D sketching platform, and an app that punishes the user for being late. Overall, the meetup showcased a very impressive lineup of innovative and useful tech.