Three years ago, NY announced it’s first ever class of “Venture Fellows” – a program that brings entrepreneurs from around the world to learn from a who’s who of NYC Mentors.

This week, they announced the third class of Venture Fellows, and it’s an awesome group.

The program begins on February 25th with a series of events, including an opening reception, meetings with leading New York City companies, workshops, panel discussions, and cultural events. “In its two years of existence, NYC Venture Fellows has taken an innovative approach towards nurturing the next generation of entrepreneurial talent in our City,” said Seth Pinsky, the NYCEDC President. “By providing emerging entrepreneurs with the mentorship needed for their businesses to take critical steps forward.” The plan is to continue to seed NYC with the best and brightest entrepreneurs.

I’m proud that I was able to participate in the nomination process, and a number of the entrepreneurs chosen were folks I was able to nominate.

The 2013 class of NYC Venture Fellows class is awesome! Here’s the list – Amit Avner, Co-founder & CEO of Taykey; Edward Barrow, CEO & Founder of idio; Piraye Beim, Founder & CEO of Celmatix Inc; Constantin Bjerke, Founder & CEO of Crane.tv; Adam Braun, Founder & CEO of Pencils of Promise; Rameet Chawla, Founder & Lead Information Architect of Fueled; Carter Cleveland, Founder & CEO of Artsy; Reese Fernandez, President & Founding Partner of Rags2Riches; Jason Freedman, Founder & CEO of 42Floors; Jeremy Friedman, Founder & CEO of Schoology; Ari Goldberg, CEO of StyleCaster; Pep Gomez, CEO & Founder of Fever; Vipin Goyal, CEO & Co-founder of SideTour; Urs Haeusler, CEO of DealMarket; Sachin Kamdar, CEO of Parse.ly; Riggs Kubiak, Founder & CEO of Honest Buildings; Lily Liu, Founder & CEO of PublicStuff; Meghan Messenger, Co-founder & Chief of Staff of Next Jump; Jason Richelson, Founder & CEO of ShopKeep POS; Elias Roman, CEO of Songza; Benzi Ronen, Founder & CEO of Farmigo; Rachel Schechtman, Founder of STORY; Mei Shibata, Co-founder of ThinkEco; Zach Sims, Co-founder & CEO of Codecademy; Shane Snow, Co-founder of Contently; David Steinberger, CEO of comiXology; Alex Torrenegra, Co-founder of VoiceBunny; Alexis Tryon, Founder & CEO of Artsicle; Eben Upton, Executive Director of Raspberry Pi; and K Young, CEO of Mortar Data.

Congratulations to this year’s class of remarkable fellows!


The Innovate NYC Schools Challenge

If you’ve got a great idea for technological innovation in education – New York’s ED department is issuing a cool challenge. The nation’s first district-sponsored software challenge will be focused on closing the gap in middle school math outcomes and enhancing classroom interaction and management. The goal is to develop a new model for creating technology-driven solutions to some of the most pressing challenges identified by NYC educators.

Developers from around the world are invited to submit applications, solution-oriented games and programs to enhance the classroom experience through teaching, learning and engagement. These submissions will be reviewed by a panel of iZone educators and nationally recognized experts from a variety of areas, including user experience design, leading media publications, venture capital firms and the education sector. Winners of the challenge will receive over $100,000 in cash and prizes, and participants become eligible for consideration for a pilot program in iZone schools.

You can find out more about the challenge, and how to enter here. Like so many of these cool NY tech challenges, this is being powered by Challenge Post.

Events this week: (via Garry’s Guide)

Monday, Feb 04 6:00pm Free
The Impact of Digital on Movie Going: Jon Gibs SVP Research NBC Universal
AppNexus, 28 W 23rd St
AppNexus President Michael Rubenstein will host a fireside chat with Jon Gibs (SVP Research, NBC Universal).

Wednesday, Feb 06 8:00am
Business Insider Presents: Social Commerce Summit
Pier 60, 23rd Street and 11th Ave
Rockstar list of speakers including John Caplan (OpenSky), Ben Fischman (Rue La La), Chris Fralic (First Round Capital), Michelle Lam (True&Co), Doug Mack (One Kings Lane), Chris Bolte (WalmartLabs) and others.

Thursday, Feb 07 6:00pm Free
AppNexus: A Peek Into the World of Digital Art: Lauren Cornell New Museum
AppNexus, 28 W 23rd St
A fireside chat with the New Museum’s Karen Wong & Lauren Cornell

That’s it for this week. Send nice thoughts to your favorite groundhog – as spring is now just around the corner.

Tips, events, or N.Y. Tech news? Email me at Srosenbaum (at) nycedc (dot) com.

Alissa McCue

Alissa McCue

Alissa McCue has over 10 years of marketing and public relations experience working for top brands in retail and technology. As Senior Manager of Public Relations at ShopKeep, a leading iPad Point of Sale System, Alissa is focused on highlighting ShopKeep's major achievements and thought leadership in the POS and technology space for independent businesses.