Our recent partnership with StartUp Weekend is underway, and as promised, we will be making our rounds across the country to help early stage software companies become sustainable businesses.

Here is where we’re headed the next few weeks:

Startup Weekend, Washington D.C- Aug. 13-15
StartUp Weekend, San Diego- Aug. 20-22

StartUp Weekend is a challenge for web developers, marketing experts, business managers and graphic designers to form teams and build companies in a 54-hour period. It’s a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to come together to network with experts and make their ideas a reality. Teams can develop a concept, a demo or launch their finished product.

I will be attending these events, serving as a business mentor and  judging teams. I will also be speaking about the challenge of fundraising for new companies.

SocialDevCamp, Chicago- Aug. 13-15

SocialDevCamp is a weekend conference focused on how to utilize the social web. Hundreds of developers and enthusiasts come for talks on social applications, platforms, mobile applications and new media from those such as Andrew Mason of Groupon and Chriss Messina of Google. Developers can also compete in the Hackathon to develop and launch a new social app.

SproutBox is a sponsor and Mike Trotzke will be there to answer questions about SproutBox, development and board games.

MidVenturesLAUNCH, Chicago- Sept. 27-28

LAUNCH brings together venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and social media reps from across the Midwest to introduce new ideas to an audience of professionals. Over 800 entrepreneurs, techies and capitalists will be at the event. Companies who are ready to launch are provided the space, the targeted audience and three minutes to showcase their products. Startups compete for a panel of experts to see if their product reigns supreme.

LAUNCH will be held at the UIC forum. will be there to answer questions about SproutBox and see what great ideas entrepreneurs are coming up with.

Neither GainStudio nor FeedMagnet will be spending months building a billing application. That’s good because CheddarGetter already did. Instead, they’ve provided the CheddarGetter open source community with two more API wrappers, a simpler task by a long shot.

FeedMagnet’s PyCheddar is a Django compatible Python offering by Jason Ford and Luke Sneeringer designed to closely emulate Django models. Get it from GitHub here. Also available at PyPi. FeedMagnet is a social media aggregation, filtering and moderation engine. Follow them on Twitter @feedmagnet.

Hans at GainStudio recently wrote and released the initial version of yet another cleverly named library, cheddarsnake, a Python wrapper. GainStudio is a project and facility management tool for recording studios, audio-visual studios, advertising departments, and editing and post-production facilities. Follow them on Twitter @gainstudio.

More information about the CheddarGetter API is here.

In conjunction with sponsoring a couple of events in the Midwest, we’ve extended the deadline for new applications until August 15th. So, if you haven’t already, you still have time to submit your application to be the next Sprout! Just visit http://www.sproutbox.com/apply. TECH cocktail and Geek Dinner are two great events for the tech community and we wanted to lend them our support, but realized anyone we’ve met at the events would narrowly miss our deadline. We’ve received applications from entrepreneurs in over 20 states and 6 different countries, but we really wanted to give entrepreneurs at these events a chance to meet with us, ask questions, and still have time to submit a great application.

SproutBox is excited to be sponsoring TECH cocktail on August 6th in Chicago. Enthusiasts from all over the country will be in Chicago to continue to light the technology fire in the Midwest. TECH cocktail helps amplify the technology signal in under served markets and they have fun doing it! http://techcocktail.com

We’ll also be opening our doors to the Bloomington community and hosting Bloomington Geek Dinner on August 13th at the “Box”. Come by for pizza, drinks and tech talk with all the geeks of Bloomington! http://www.bloomingtongeekdinners.com/