Twiistup 5 Takes Off from Santa Monica Airport

Twiistup 5 just set a new bar for startup tech events, not just in LA, but across the globe. Set in "Hanger 8? at the Santa Monica airport, Twiistup transformed the open space into live set straight from of Blade Runner. Drenched in atomosphere setting lights and music, game-changing entrepreneurs, investors, bloggers, innovators, and the reporters charged with covering them, Twiistup 5 reminded us that in the tech economy, ideas are never bankrupt.

I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story...

Part II - The Showoffs:

Twiistup featured 10 handpicked startups to feature during Twiistup from the hundreds to apply.

Causecast , dubbed "a one stop philanthropy shop" by TechCrunch, is a platform where media, philanthropy, social networking, entertainment and education converge to serve a greater purpose.

Cogi (Judges Favorite) set out with a simple goal - give professionals a way to effortlessly recall and track everything in their important conversations through the use of an intuitive, browser-based service that seamlessly transcribes the important parts of conversation - the 'COGent Ideas' or Cogi.

eHow - More than 27 million people visit eHow.com each month to search more than 300,000 articles that are professionally written with clear and concise directions on how to do things. It also has a rapidly-growing library of articles created by eHow's members and a large library of professional instructional videos.

FixYa empowers individuals to repair and improve upon their already-purchased possessions. The company also offers business services to manufacturers and retail businesses through its custom partnership opportunities.

GoGreenSolar is global group of professionals dedicated to improve the distribution of renewable energy products, services and financing for people everywhere.

Meebo is a new communications and media company that's re-writing the way people have conversations and communicate on the Web.

RoboDynamics is built by passionate people who want to use technology to shift the status quo and leverage state-of-the-art technology in robotics to change the way people live and work.

TheScene connects individuals to the hottest places, people and events in their area. The Scene's trendsetting community is on the pulse of nightlife and entertainment in various cities throughout the world.

Viewdle is a facial-recognition powered digital media platform for indexing, searching and monetizing video assets.

Yammer is a tool for making companies and organizations more productive through the exchange of short frequent answers to one simple question: 'What are you working on?'

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Part III - LA Weekly

The LA Weekly's Alexia Tsotsis covered the event and featured a quote from yours truly,

"Immersing people in a creative atmosphere is the best way to speed it up, as judge Brian Solis pointed out. 'This thing is so much bigger than all the parties, it's about the social economy, the one on one interactions between all of the entrepreneurs,' Solis emphasized as he spoke of a post-geographical need to contribute to something bigger. As the "showoffs" vied to impress the extraordinary panel of judges (superstar tech journalist and author Sarah Lacy, social media maestro and PR 2.0 founder Brian Solis , Somewhat Frank creator Frank Gruber, Citrusbyte head Will Jessup , Mixergy founder Andrew Warner and Heavybagmedia minx Jackie Peters), each start-up put it's best foot forward."