Several club members attended the April 15th Vertical Leap meeting. It was a great event. Vertical Leap has been around in another incarnation before, and the reinvigoration of it was the brain child of Dave Sanders. Dave is the president and co-founder of Avenue 80, a software development company here in town. Dave describes Vertical Leap as a get together for “founders” who are entrepreneurial-spirited folks willing to share ideas in an open forum.

The meetings rotate from place to place. The April meeting was held in the C3 and hosted by our own Mark Richter and IndianaTech. The May meeting is at Wunderkammer Company. Several local groups each presented a short briefing. Dave Gross (seen above) gave the presentation about the Fort Wayne inventors Club. Eight other organizations also briefed. There were two, in particular, that I immediately thought could be extremely useful for someone going through the invention process.

CoWork Fort Wayne, another project of Dave Sanders (man this dude is busy), provides low-cost office space to independent workers. (There are other benefits such as conference rooms.) This type of co-work space can be very important for independent inventors who work out of their home. If you need a space for a professional business meeting, for example, CoWork might be a tool you can use.

TekVenture was the other organization that I thought might be especially useful for club members. TekVenture is a member-based public art and technology laboratory. They recently moved into the old Allen County Sweeper Company building on Broadway. When fully established they will offer a variety of resources to members, such 3D printing and rapid prototyping.

One challenge for the independent inventor is always resources. Fortunately, Fort Wayne has an exceptional set of resources for club members to use. Our club offers a forum to share ideas about the invention process. The C3 provides an excellent collaboration space, CoWork Fort Wayne has formal work and meeting spaces, and TekVenture is a lab and prototyping center. Finally, Vertical Leap is a way to keep a finger on the pulse of the innovation community in Fort Wayne.

The next Vertical Leap meeting is 6:30 pm on May 13, 2015, check the Vertical Leap website for information.

If you have ideas about other resources that club members should learn about, please share them here.