o What: Clark County PubTalk.
o When: 5 to 8 p.m. Tuesday.
o Where: Fort Vancouver Artillery Barracks, 600 East Hatheway Road, Vancouver.
o Cost: Registration is $30.
o Information: Register by clicking here.
Watch Matt Franklin’s “Shark Tank” audition video.
Matt Franklin, a Portland entrepreneur who has appeared on the popular ABC TV business competition show “Shark Tank,” will be a featured guest at Clark County PubTalk on Tuesday evening.
Franklin’s company is called Bottle Rocket Labs, which produces marketing, sales and training videos for high-technology clients. He appeared on “Shark Tank,” with a Texas technology entrepreneur as one of the “sharks,” to promote a product called PostureNow, a posture-correction brace for men and women.
Franklin’s LinkedIn biography suggests his humorous touch: “As seen on ABC’s ‘Shark Tank,’ we brought the issue of poor posture to mainstream America. We took a beer-inspired idea scratched out on a cocktail napkin at the Shanghai Tunnel and turned it into a million-dollar product,” Franklin wrote.
o What: Clark County PubTalk.
o When: 5 to 8 p.m. Tuesday.
o Where: Fort Vancouver Artillery Barracks, 600 East Hatheway Road, Vancouver.
o Cost: Registration is $30.
o Information: Register by clicking here.
The theme of the PubTalk event is “Swimming with the Sharks: Business Pitch Competition.” Four local companies will pitch their products to an expert panel of “sharks,” who will choose a winner to receive $1,000 cash and an invitation to a summer angel investor network event.
The “shark” panel is comprised of:
• Jennifer Fox, executive director of the Oregon Translational Research and Development Institute and the OTRADI Bioscience Incubator, or OBI. OTRADI is an Oregon state-funded nonprofit that advances bioscience research, commercialization and business incubation. The OBI is Oregon’s only bioscience-specific incubator.
• Dennis McNannay, executive director of Oregon BioScience Association. McNannay has over 25 years of successful management experience and was co-founder of CrossCurrent Inc., the leading provider of surgical planning and revenue management software for the neuro, spine and general orthopedic markets.
• Jit Banerjee, director of business development at Oregon Health & Science University. Banerjee is responsible for developing OHSU’s assets into commercial opportunities and for cultivating strategic alliances with industry, governmental, and nongovernmental agencies and provide support to OHSU’s startup companies. He previously worked at Deloitte Consulting in its strategy and operations group.
• Duffy DuFrense, CEO of MedRock, a Portland medical device firm, as well as a partner in venture capital firm Alignment Ventures. DuFrense has more than 30 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical and medical device industries. He is a strategic advisory group member at Oregon Health & Science University.
PubTalk is from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Fort Vancouver Artillery Barracks, 600 East Hatheway Road. Registration is $30 and is available at http://swwdc.org/.
The event is sponsored by Southwest Washington Workforce Development Council and Columbia River Economic Development Council.
