It's a beautiful day to brag about our founder and #spacecaptain Geoff Wood for our very first #gravimember spotlight!

Gravitate is going all in to help families this holiday, and we need your help. Our member Derek Brooks and his wife Kari, have connected us with three local families to learn what could make their holidays extra special. We've setup a Christmas tree at each Gravitate location where you can drop off (or order) presents to be given to the families detailed below

Over the past few months we've been in talks with several community leaders in West Des Moines about expanding the Gravitate community and programming to their fine city and I'm excited to share that we're now officially up and running with a second location: Gravitate Valley Junction at 318 5th Street (yeah!).

We're excited to welcome Paul Singh and Dana Duncan back to Iowa for the second year as part of their 40+ city North American Tech Tour. Last year, we based the majority of the visit in downtown Des Moines with day trips to both Cedar Rapids and Ames. This year, we're changing things up. They'll start the trip with two days in Iowa City and before anchoring their Central Iowa visit at our our new Gravitate Valley Junction location in West Des Moines.

Last week I was invited to give a five minute talk at Steve Case's Rise of the Rest Summit in Washington, DC, about Clay & Milk, a venture I'm involved in to help tell the story on the Iowa startup and innovation community. The Rise of the Rest Summit brought together entrepreneurs, investors and ecosystem builders from the nearly 30 cities who haver participated in Case's bus tours over the past few years. This post is the narrative of that talk.

We’re offering the chance to become a “Founding Member” of Gravitate Ames. Founding Members can join us by purchasing their first month’s membership today at 50% of our normal membership fees. We’ll hold that as a deposit now and you’ll be able to keep that rate for your first three months (yeah!).