How many of you have set a New Year’s Resolution and failed to keep it because you didn’t have enough help to get you over the hump, or maybe you didn’t keep it because there wasn’t anyone else pushing you or keeping you motivated? Maybe you didn’t keep it because when the task is out of sight, it’s out of mind. Well…lucky for all you coders and potential coders, Code Year is hoping to solve all of those problems for you this year–at least when it comes to learning to code.

Code Year, a project from Codecademy, promises to help the hundreds of thousands participants to learn enough code to build their own app or website by the end of 2012. Code Year bring lessons in the form of a game to participants each week through email. Participants started the year learning Javascript. The program awards badges to help keep the participants motivated.

So what connection does this have to SproutBox? Besides the fact that we think this is a totally awesome idea, we are going to host the first of many Code Year Meetups in Bloomington. Anyone who has signed up for Code Year (and yes, you can still sign up and start to learn how to code) will get together on February 7th, at 7pm at SproutBox and chat with other coders. We’ll have some developers here to help you solve that problem you just haven’t been able to figure out or give you insight and tips. We’ll give coders a chance to meet up with other coders and help each other out or show off what you’ve already learned. It’s always great to connect with someone trying to reach the same goal you are to help push you and keep you on the right track.

We are really excited to host this event. It allows our team to network and share the passion of development with participants and engage them in the Bloomington tech scene and even meet some of our Sprouts, like Squad. Code Year is a great opportunity for anyone wanting to learn how to code or even just to better your skills, so join us at the meetup and we’ll help you stick with your resolution!

Interested in joining Code Year? Make sure you sign up so you don’t get behind!

Make sure to RSVP and come join us!

  |    |    |  

Max Yoder is exactly the kind of founder SproutBox is looking for. 
He’s straightforward, smart, humble, opinionated and driven. His
 startup, Quipol, is only a few weeks old, was built on a shoestring 
budget and is already making waves across the world.

Quipol is quite simple. It’s an embeddable polling application. How it 
impacts user behavior is what is fascinating. Much like Twitter and
 FormSpring, its constraints and simplicity make it greater than the 
sum of its parts.

Quipols are incredibly easy to build and share,
 allowing creators to engage their users while simultaneously unlocking
 the opinions and perspectives of their audience.  A Quipol helps focus
 and direct the conversation around content, minimizing the typical 
internet comments free-for-all. By leveraging networks like Facebook 
and Twitter, Quipol makes polls social, driving users back to the 
original embed source. This combination of higher engagement, enhanced data collection, and increased traffic is a game 
changer for anyone with an audience.

The easiest way to describe a Quipol is to embed one:

Through perseverance (as in continually offering to do others’ laundry), Max has surrounded himself with an all-star team of Indiana advisors, including top minds from 
KA+A, SproutBox and Gravity Labs. He created personalized videos to 
send early adopters in the press. Each month, he dedicates 
61% of his income from his day job to his startup. He is a crazy one.

We’re proud to have Max and Quipol as a part of the SproutBox family.

To find out more about Quipol check out some of the recent press coverage on
 The Next Web and NBC Chicago.

  |    |    |  

Bloomington’s Startup Weekend winner, Fundships, participated in the Startup Weekend Global Battle this past week. Fundships enables people and their friends to create scholarships around causes they care about. Fundship’s team consisting of IU students and alums, and even a lone Purdue student, worked for over 54 hours in one weekend to develop their product and winner’s video for the global competition.

Last week, I blogged and asked you for your help. Fundships needed anyone and everyone to vote for them in the Global Battle. For six days, voting was open to the public, anyone could visit the Global Battle website and vote for any of the 50 contestants. Yesterday, Fundships held their breath while winners were announced. There were over 32,000 votes cast all over the world. Over 29 countries were represented in the battle and the ideas fell into nine different industries. Of those 50 contestants, Fundships, unfortunately, did not win. AwesomeShip, from Hong Kong, which pushes notifications of shipment status to customers via twitter, SMS, Facebook, or email, won pulling in over 5,000 votes. Fundships did however, place in the top 20, coming in at 17th place. That ranked them at 4th in the US! What an awesome accomplishment for Bloomington and the Fundships team.

What’s next for them? Even though they didn’t win, they are going to continue working to finish the product. All of the support they received over the past six days has really fueled them to get things really going to get a working product up for everyone to start using. So if anyone is interested in lending a helping hand, don’t hesitate to contact one of the team members.

We are very excited for you guys and very proud of what you have done to help put Bloomington on the map, globally and with Startup Weekend!

  |    |    |