On Thursday, May 20th, at Open Book, MOJO Minnesota convened its first public gathering of folks committed to making Minnesota a great space to launch new technology and business.  In our 100+ crowd, we had venture capitalists, early-stage web entrepreneurs, college dropouts-turned CEOs, angel investors, programmers, engineers, 3 state legislators and an 8th grade budding tech entrepreneur (Thanks Tony Bruess for photo help!).  Special thanks to Sens. Kathy Saltzman and Julie Rosen and Rep. Tim Mahoney for their time and comments – and for being leaders in pushing innovation policy in Minnesota, including the recently-passed Angel Investment Tax Credit, enhanced R&D Tax Credit and Science & Technology Authority.  We were glad to honor their bi-partisan commitment to growing 21st century jobs in MN.

After an official “boring” welcome from Phil Wilson (trying his best to be low-key), Chico and Stan (amazing drummers – at right) disrupted the proceedings and our panelists were escorted off the stage.   We then did a quick intro of MOJO’s themes and how we want to impact on ideas, community, policy and dollars.  Fellow Agitator Andy Halper, a force of nature, led an interactive event involving numbers and names (it shall remain a mystery).  Jeff O’Dell, Agitator and founder of August Technology, gave a personal walk through his journey of entrepreneurship ups and downs – and how to deal with the latter (keep moving).  Interactive cellphone dialogue on innovation issues led into some final send-off action items (i.e., “Make Your Legislator an Innovation Agent”).

Thanks to our amazing Agitators for pulling off a great first MOJO event.  Thanks as well to GSP Consulting for legislative guidance, Open Book and Ovative for space support, Hanson Inc. (Matt and Chris) for website support, Primordial Soup for swag support, and our high-energy interns, Ceci Marn and Steele Lorenz, for constant effort.

MOJO is working on the plan for next 6 months.  Keep eyes open for future events, Agitator presentations and more innovation insurgency and collaboration.