The program highlights new companies and products poised to change the market.  All applicants are reviewed by SIIA’s Innovation Working Group,  the Forum’s Steering Committee,  and SIIA’s Education Board, then selected to participate in the Ed Tech Business Forum.

“The Software & Information Industry Association is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry.  SIIA provides global services in government relations, business development, corporate education and intellectual property protection to the leading companies that are setting the pace for the digital age.”

Day 3

We demoed.  We showed the crowd CentsCity!

The full day was Finovate.  From 8:30 am until 6 pm, 32 companies gave 7-minute demos of their financial and banking innovations.  It was one after another — some of our favorites being the folks from SmartyPig, TILE Financial, SimpliFi, and BrightScope.  Also really digging Credit.com and Home Account.

Skill-Life wasn’t scheduled until the bottom half of the final group, so we took stage at around 3:15 pm.  This was a new setting for us and CentsCity, so we spent a good portion of the day taking it in and making connections where we could.  The morning and afternoon sessions of demos were followed by 2 hour networking sessions.  Since we had not yet demoed, we spent the morning networking session meeting folks including contacts at FastCompany and Fidelity Investments.

The demo itself went wonderfully well.  By the time we got on stage, we had rehearsed it a number of times.  Both the pitching (Felix Lloyd) and the driving (Todd Waits) went as planned.  We finished with 40 seconds to spare and even gave a moment for the CentsCity soundbed to groove for the audience.

And how did the audience respond?  All signs were up!  The product is so different in look and function than anything that’s out there.  You could tell it caught everyone’s attention.

During the afternoon networking session, we had a table set up and got a constant flow of traffic.  Without getting into great detail here, we had significant conversations with a few venture capitalist, two very likely pilot customers, and a number of potential strategic partners.  Hopefully, more detail to come in future postings as these things take shape.

The “Best in Show” award somehow slipped us by, though the event organizers told us we lost out by hundredths of a point.  Hats off to the guys from BancVue and FirstROI — they guaranteed victory and they delivered.  Helluva demo from those guys with their Kasasa product.

And where did Wednesday leave us off?  Well, the night ended at a bar by the hotel with a few of the other demoing company execs and the good folks from Atomic PR.  More than that, it left us with lots to do in the days ahead and some important conversations to continue.

Day 4

Our final day in NYC was all about making the most of the time we still had in the city.  We met with a few people from the William J. Clinton Foundation, having originally come into contact with them at a meeting on Financial Education & Games at the Casey Foundation in Baltimore.  They had the opportunity to see CentsCity up close as we dug deep into the demo and our expected road ahead.  We’re now working to partner with the Clinton Foundation to have youth in Harlem learn financial skills through CentsCity during the next Financial Literacy Month (April 2010).

Otherwise, I had a great lunch with a potential investor and advisor at the Core Club, before we rushed off to the airport.

From what we’ve been able to track, CentsCity has attracted some coverage from the Wall Street Journal , Spend on Life, PaymentsViews, Student Lending Analytics, and Keeping Nickels.  We also had a recent interview with the Baltimore Sun, which has been looking closely at Financial Education and Video Games.

More to come.

The highlight of the afternoon was actually getting to check out the venue and take the stage for a rehearsal.  It’s a phenomenal looking space with big screens and all the work s everywhere.  A lot of time and effort has clearly been put into the planning of this event.  The list of companies with which we’ll be presenting includes some heavy hitters including Mint, which was recently acquired by Intuit.  And the audience is comprised of execs from Citibank, ING Direct, Wells Fargo, and other banks as well as a number of venture capitalists and influential press.  This will certainly be our biggest stage to date — an opportunity that we’ve worked hard to gain and intend to make the most of.

The rehearsal went off without a hitch, which we can only suppose is a good thing (we’re actually assuming that the rehearsal was a minor disaster so as to keep us honest for tomorrow).  We’re well prepared on this end and, more importantly, our innovation stands out on its own.  CentsCity has a look and feel that’s distinct and our potential value to financial service institutions is tremendous.

After rehearsal, we had the opportunity to have crepes with Heather Marold Thomason of Bad Feather and Andy Hieb of Dtek Digital Media.  These two companies have played major roles in the design and execution of the Skill-Life.com and CentsCity.com sites.  It was a rare opportunity to sit down with them face to face.  We got to talk shop (we’ve just put to print another round of 2,000 CentsCity Passports and are initiating another phase of development on the CentsCity beta that will include the introduction of our first in-world mini-game — the Ducket Dash!).  And, as it turns out, all of us have dogs that we love immensely.  Go Wendell!

For much of the evening, we met up with folks at a Finovate happy hour.  Among the most notables were John Waupsh and Gabriel Krajicek of BancVue and FirstRoi.  These guys were full of energy and personality.  They had some very interesting and insightful perspectives on the industry and CentsCity’s value to financial service institutions.  They also insisted that they would be hands-down the best demo tomorrow (turns out they lobbied to bring a lion on stage with them and/or a choir to hum the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”).  Of course, we then let them know that they were up against a giant in CentsCity and the Skill-Life team this year — they’d have to settle on being a great opening act!

Otherwise, it was a southern-cooking dinner for the Skill-Life team.  No need for details there aside from saying we tried to keep it light as much as is possible when choosing from a menu on which mac & cheese is a vegetable.

Now, it’s getting in game mode.  More to come.

These companies will be showcased to an audience of senior financial/banking/credit union executives, influential press, industry analysts, venture capitalists, bloggers, tech companies and entrepreneurs.  A few of the organizations already committed to attend include: Bank of America, Citibank, WSJ, Microsoft, HSBC, Wells Fargo, American Express, Dow Jones, the Financial Times, E*Trade Financial, SunTrust, ANZ, Capitol One, Financial Insights, Discover, Sybase, Cardinal Venture Capital, Intuit, Consumer Reports, DataMonitor, Canaan Partners, The Economist, BusinessWeek, and Aite Group.

Skill-Life will demo our CentsCity product and will introduce an expanded set of features to our current beta while on stage at Finovate this September 29th.  More info appears on the Netbanker blog, the text of which is also included below.

The demo portion went well and the problem of financial literacy is obvious — an easy sale.  I’m not certain that I spent enough time on the central question “how we make money.”  The challenge is having a company with a social mission and the intention of seeking foundation funding early on.  That inevitably comes across as something not terribly attractive to VC’s, and potentially, to angel investors as well.

The key, I think, is for us to embrace the mission-driven nature of Skill-Life while also making clear our plan for eventually reaching a consumer market.  As of today, we’ve got a good demo, a solid pitch, and a workable plan for getting to the next level.