September 29, 2010 1 Comment
Amtrak introduced Tuesday a $117 billion public plan to build a high-speed rail corridor in the northeast “Megaregion” connecting Washington, D.C., New York City and Boston.
If built, the service would cut the trip between Awesome DC and Awesome NYC to 96 minutes, or about one hour quicker than the fastest service available now. Washington, D.C., to Boston would be achievable in three hours. Read more of this post
September 9, 2010 2 Comments
The American Institute for Economic Research, a non-profit, compiled the College Destination Index , which ranks the nation’s top cities for college students to live. After San Francisco and New York, our beloved Washington, D.C., is nominated the best city for college kids in the country.
The AIER selected the top 75 cities for the index from 222 metropolitan statistical areas with at least 15,000 students.
The rankings are based on 12 criteria, including student diversity, cost of living and unemployment rate. Read more of this post
July 3, 2010 Leave a comment
Starting with our favorite part of the world:
Awesome Washington D.C.: There are few more historical places to see fireworks than Washington D.C. (and by “few” we mean Boston and Philadelphia). Thomas Jefferson hosted the first official Fourth of July celebration on the lawn of his mansion more than 200 years ago and now fireworks soar over the D.C. skyline each year as the National Symphony commemorates our independence.
June 23, 2010 5 Comments
Those of you in Social Media or Technology space, here is the list of related global events for the summer you might be interested in attending including a few of them in Washington, D.C.:
June 21-23, 2010, Denver, CO: Hosted by WebmasterRadio.FM, AffCon 2010 is a conference series designed specifically to meet the needs of affiliate marketers. As such, admission is FREE for all working affiliates to attend! Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to meet and share ideas with the brightest business people in the affiliate marketing industry. Pulling together an amazing lineup of session panelists and speakers (including super affiliates), AffCon 2010 – Denver also features an exhibit hall, general and targeted skills sessions, networking and WebmasterRadio.FM’s epic AffiliateBash. Get registered today! Read more of this post
June 9, 2010 Leave a comment
Gail Huff, the chick in the middle, wife of Massachusetts senator Scott Brown and long-time television reporter in Boston, is now joining her husband in the nation’s capital. Huff has gotten a part-time job at Washington, D.C.-based station WJLA.
According to the Washington Post, she will avoid reporting on politics, focusing on medical, consumer and investigative stories.
The Post reports that Huff’s contract with WJLA runs for two years — meaning that it will run out just as her husband is up for re-election in 2012. She will work three days a week, and split her time between Washington and her Massachusetts home.
Huff had worked at Boston-area station WCVB for 17 years.
Feel free to connect with me via awesomize.me
May 3, 2010 Leave a comment
by Kamran Abdi
It was just earlier this year a report came out that positioned DC as the most expensive place for office rental in the nation even topping the NYC. According to a new quarterly report from Cushman & Wakefield, the office market in the District’s central business district is showing signs of stabilizing, and rental rates last quarter were down from a year ago.
Average rents in Washington’s central business district were $47.07 per square foot, the second-highest in the nation, topped only by Midtown New York at $61.93. Average rents in the first quarter in D.C. were down 7.5 percent from a year earlier. read more…
March 10, 2010 2 Comments
by Elias Shams
Thanks again to the collapse of the financial market, our government money printing machine, and companies moving their headquarters to DC, jobs in Washington, D.C. are growing quickly. In 2008, the city produced more in goods and services than almost anywhere in the country.
According to research by Forbes, D.C. and nine other cities (among them: Boston, Los Angeles and a host of metros in Texas) are best surviving the downturn in part because they specialize in industries that are relatively insulated from economic volatility. Federal and state jobs all but guarantee the health of a local economy, and nowhere is there more government-related work than in Washington. The city has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, at 6.2%, and its output amounts to $362.3 billion, more than three times the average for the country’s largest cities. Read more…
December 22, 2009 Leave a comment
One company the Washingtonian techies and VCs should thank to is TECH cocktail DC. They have been around since May of 2006. The company is a community building startup founded by Frank Gruber and Eric Olson that offers events and community-powered projects open to bloggers, technology enthusiasts, entrepreneurs & professionals interested in technology in under served technology communities.
Their mission is to amplify the technology signal in under served markets and have fun doing it which is right along our mission in Awesome DC for the entire DC and not just our technology sector.
Referring to my recent coverage comparing our Potomac River with California Silicon Valley, not every city has a sense of community seen in technology rich areas like Silicon Valley. TECH cocktail DC hopes to remedy the situation by creating a place for bloggers, technologists, entrepreneurs and other business professionals to meet, share ideas and have some fun. TECH cocktail is not exclusive to Chicago, and is open to the public in hopes people from around the globe will be able to participate. In the past TECH cocktail has also hosted events in Chicago, Boulder and Boston.
As for the two dudes behind the company, ERIC OLSON is a Massachusetts native and Bentley College alumnus who now resides in Chicago. Eric is currently working on TransFS.com – a comparison shopping website for credit card processing (with more financial services to come). Eric is also an MBA student at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Prior to TransFS.com Eric worked as an Associate at DFJ Portage Venture Partners where he worked on evaluating and investing in the top technology startups in the Midwest. Prior to DFJ Portage Eric was in Partner Development at Google and in Business Development for Chicago-based startup FeedBurner, which was acquired by Google in June 2007.
The other co-founder is FRANK GRUBER is a product strategist and evangelist for AOL in the social networking & platforms group. Frank has lead the AIM team to create the AIM Lifestream and was also responsible for the myAOL suite. Frank’s expert analysis on Web 2.0, social media and emerging technologies have been featured in TechCrunch, Read Write Web, iMediaConnection and on SOMEWHAT FRANK. Frank also produces a video podcast called SOMEWHAT FRANK TV. Growing up in the Chicagoland area, Mr. Gruber received his Master’s Degree in Computer Information Systems from Northwestern University, and his Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Information Systems from Purdue University. Frank is also the co-founder of Shiny Heart Ventures. Frank was named of the 100 DC Tech Titans by Washingtonian Magazine in May 2009.
Tech cocktail events are open to everyone, You can be blogged or podcast. I have been attending most of their events and they are packed and awesome. They gave away a HP Envy laptop last time I attended their event.
Here is their interview during one of their events. Good luck hearing them.
Elias Shams
Kamran Abdi
Tatiana Sorabi
