Innovate MIA puts spotlight on startup community

If you think the next week is all about art, you may be surprised to learn there are also six entrepreneurship events vying for your time.

And that is all by design.

In much the way that Art Basel helped put Miami’s arts community on the international map, organizers of the first Innovate MIA hope their weeklong grouping of events will shine a light on the city’s growing tech startup community and its position as the gateway to Latin America.

Many of the events — ending with Florida International University’s Americas Venture Capital Conference — are after Art Basel. That’s also why the third annual AVCC was moved to Dec. 13-14 from its previous mid-November dates.

“Our message is come for Art Basel, and stay for AVCC,” said Juan Pablo Cappello, a lawyer, entrepreneur and investor who is on the steering committee of the venture capital conference and several other Innovate MIA events. And all week, there will be plenty of opportunities for Miami’s entrepreneurs, creatives and investors to mingle with their counterparts from all over the Americas and beyond.

In addition to the AVCC, there’s Incubate Miami’s DemoDay, where its class of startups present their companies, the martial arts-inspired TekFight and HackDay, which dangles a $50,000 cash prize. Endeavor, the global nonprofit that promotes high-impact entrepreneurship in emerging economies, is bringing its two-day International Selection Panel to Miami, and Wayra, an international accelerator, is holding a one-day event to showcase its promising startups from Latin America and Spain. It’s all part of Innovate MIA week: “I don’t think anything like it has ever been organized here in South Florida,” Cappello said.

The AVCC will be the big draw, with about 300 people expected to attend the two-day event at the JW Marriott Brickell. The conference, themed “Data, Design & Dollars,” will feature thought leaders from all over the world, particularly Latin America, and presentations by 29 selected companies. This year, the format has been overhauled and energized, with lots of short talks and more time for question-and-answer sessions and networking, said Jerry Haar, associate dean of FIU’s College of Business, director of the Pino Global Entrepreneurship Center and AVCC co-chair.

The AVCC’s 36 speakers include Martin Varsavsky, Argentine tech entrepreneur, investor and founder of Viatel, Ya.com, Jazztel and FON; Hernan J. Kazah, co-founder and managing partner at Kaszek Ventures and co-founder of Mercadolibre; and Jason L. Baptiste, CEO and co-founder of Onswipe. There’s also Michael Jackson, former COO of Skype and now a venture capitalist; Albert Santalo, founder and CEO of Miami-based CareCloud; and Bedy Yang of 500 Startups.

Chosen from more than 100 applicants, the 29 presenting companies hailing from all over the Americas will be giving either two-minute or five-minute pitches, fielding questions from a panel of judges and competing for prize packages valued at about $50,000. Eight of the startups are from South Florida: itMD, Kairos, Trapezoid Digital Security, Esenem, LiveNinja, OnTrade, Rokk3r Labs and Zavee.

The presenting companies have “proven innovation, proven management teams and the ability to scale well and be a pan-regional player,” said Faquiry Diaz Cala, president of Tres Mares Group and co-chair of AVCC. “The word is out this is a great place to come and pitch to great investors in addition to potentially being one of the prize winners.”

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Commission postpones Jackson decision

Miami-Dade County Commissioners postponed Tuesday voting on a resolution concerning the future shape of the governing board of the Jackson Health System.

Commissioner Rebeca Sosa asked for the delay and no one opposed the move.

In October, the commission voted 6-5 to make permanent a seven-member Jackson board, selected by a nominating committee of nine persons, five of whom would be board members. The commission would then approve the nominees.

That resolution was pushed hard by Commission Chairman Joe Martinez. Martinez, who lost the mayoral race, left the board in November, and Commissioner Barbara Jordan led an effort to reconsider.

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Video: Prince William Visits Kate in the Hospital

News broke Monday that royal bride Catherine Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, is expecting her first child with Prince William, and ET has new footage of the prince visiting Kate at the hospital, and an update from the Palace about her current condition.

PICS: Baby on the Way: Will & Kate's Royal Romance

The Palace said in a statement Tuesday, "The Duchess of Cambridge is continuing to feel better. She and the Duke are immensely grateful for the good wishes they have received. She will remain in hospital at present and will continue to be treated for Hyperemesis Gravidarum."

Her Royal Highness is suffering from a severe form of morning sickness. William looked like he was in good spirits as he exited King Edward VII Hospital in London on Tuesday evening.

ET can confirm that the queen and other members of the royal family found out about Kate’s pregnancy on Monday. Sources tell People.com that the queen won't be visiting her granddaughter-in-law while she remains in the hospital, mainly because her visit would interfere with the running of the hospital.

Watch the video for more, and keep checking ETonline for the latest on the Duchess' health.

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Singer loses bid to wrest $250M from Argentina

Paul Singer’s last-ditch attempt to get cash from Argentina this year has failed.

A motion by Singer’s hedge fund, Elliott Management, requesting that the South American country put up a security deposit of $250 million by Dec. 10 was denied by a federal appeals court today.

“Since we will not have a big payment for ages (if ever), this looks like a huge blow to [Elliott’s] strategy,” said sovereign-debt expert Anna Gelpern,

The appellate slap-down of the billionaire hedgie is the second in a week. Last week, the same panel overturned a decision by a District Court judge that would have required Argentina to put $1.3 billion in escrow to pay Elliott by Dec. 15, pending further appeals in a court battle that has dragged on for a decade.

Argentina is scheduled to pay $3 billion on Dec. 15 to exchange bondholders who agreed to big write downs on their debt. Elliott and other so-called holdouts did not agree to the restructuring and are demanding full repayment.

District Judge Thomas Griesa ruled Singer and his band of holdout bondholders are entitled to get paid in full when Argentina made payments to the others.

Argentina President Cristina Kirchner has repeatedly said that the country would never pay Singer and the other holdouts.

In the wake of Griesa’s ruling, when it appeared Argentina might make no payment in order to avoid paying Singer — which could have caused the restructured bonds to default — the price of those bonds went into a tailspin while the price of insuring the country’s debt skyrocketed.

The prices of both returned to more normal levels this week.

The concerns of exchange bondholders — as well as other third parties involved in making the payments, such as Bank of New York — were ignored by Griesa.

But the appeals court decided to give them time to make their case. It allowed the other bondholders — led by hedge funds Gramercy, Brevan Howard and Alliance Bernstein — to intervene in the case.

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Manhattan also set up a schedule for a fuller hearing of the argument, which stretches into late February.

Elliott tried to amend the process via its emergency motion requesting a security deposit as a “good faith” effort by Argentina. Singer’s $20 billion hedge fund argued that if its motion wasn’t granted by Dec. 15, it might get nothing.

“Argentina is . . . actively planning to evade the [court order] by attempting to move offshore its payment structure under the exchange bonds and will use the time to implement such plans,” said lawyer Ted Olsen in Elliott’s motion.

The hedge fund had made such arguments before, citing speculation in the Argentine press. However, a source close to Elliott told The Post it was “highly unlikely” that such work-arounds would be successful.

While Elliott’s emergency motion was a long shot, its demand for $250 million so incensed the exchange bondholders that they quickly shot back at Singer — asking the appeals court to force the billionaire to post $2 billion to an escrow account to help cover losses they might incur if it granted Elliott’s request and Argentina refused to post the security deposit.

Previously, Argentina broached the notion of reopening its debt exchange just days before the appeals court reinstituted its stay. Bondholders who had feared default were encouraged by that, believing it signaled Argentina that was open to negotiating with Elliott behind closed doors.

Those plans are believed to be on ice now, as the country works on its new brief.

mcelarier@nypost.com

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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving

This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.

“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.

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Lesbian bride who married partner at West Point is ’still processing all of the emotions’

As Brenda Sue Fulton stood in the back of West Point’s Cadet Chapel on Saturday, about to marry longtime partner Penelope Gnesin, an old friend said to her, "Well roomie, did you ever think this would happen?"

“No, not in a million years,’ ” said Fulton, originally of Stuart, Fla., as she and Gnesin became the first same-sex couple to marry at West Point’s Cadet Chapel.

“It was amazing,” Fulton told The Miami Herald on Sunday. “I’m still processing all of the emotions. There were so many of our friends from the Army, the Navy, the Marines, the Air Force, the Coast Guard, straight and gay. Family and friends. We had 250 people there and it was just overwhelming.”

Nadine Smith, a friend of Fulton’s and executive director of Equality Florida, the state’s largest gay-rights group, described the Fulton-Gnesin nuptials as “a big deal.”

“And yet despite her service to our country and this historic wedding at West Point, her marriage will not be recognized when she returns to her home state of Florida,” Smith said.

Fulton graduated from Martin County High School and attended West Point from 1976-80. She was among the first class of women to graduate from West Point.

“That was the the place where I first said the Cadet Prayer. That includes the language, ‘Make me choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong. And never settle for a half-truth when the whole can be won.’ That inspired us when we formed the LGBT West Point alumni, we assumed that as our motto.”

Fulton served five-and-a-half years in the Army. She served for five years in the Signal Corps in Germany, as a platoon leader, staff officer, and company commander.

In January 1986, Fulton left the Army. She didn’t want to continue hiding her sexual orientation.

“My obligation was complete,” Fulton said. “I just couldn’t continue to tell the white-lies and half-truths knowing I was gay. I left the Army as a captain.”

After leaving the military, Fulton went into the pharmaceuticals business.

Fulton, 53, and Gnesin, 52, have been together for 17 years.

“We met at a community sing at the local Presbyterian church,” Fulton said. “Penny was a choral director in her free time. I had been singing a long time. I saw her smile and I was done for. She heard my voice and came right over.”

Gnesin retired from AT&T after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The couple lives in Asbury Park, N.J.

Fulton was active in the movement to end ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ She is executive director of Knights Out, West Point’s LGBT group for alumni, staff and faculty. Also, she is a founder and communications director of OutServe, an association of active LGBT military personnel.

She’s a bit overwhelmed by how quickly the gay-rights movement seems to be advancing. When ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ ended in September 2011, it didn’t occur to Fulton that she would soon marry Gnesin at West Point. (New York State began allowing same-sex marriages two months before DADT ended.)

“Marriage seemed a lot farther away than service,” she said.

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Obama Is Taking Himself and #My2K to Twitter This Afternoon

What a day for Twitter! First the Pope, then the Royal Baby, and now President Obama will come online to answer questions about the fiscal cliff. A @WhiteHouse tweet with the distincitive “-bo” signature, announced not long ago that the big guy himself will be taking questions online, starting at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Good to see lots of folks on twitter speaking out on extending middle class tax cuts. I’ll answer some Qs on that at 2ET. Ask w/ #My2k –bo

— The White House (@whitehouse) December 3, 2012

Unfortunately, he’s sticking with the troublesome #My2K hashtag that conservatives have already seized upon in a back-and-forth battle for messaging. Trying to mobilize your supporters through social media is all well and good, but the problem with any genuinely open town hall, is that anyone can invite themselves—even those who disagree with you and might be louder than your friends. (Plus, any reasonably popular hashtag moves much to fast for anyone to follow it or have an actual conversation on Twitter anyway.)

RELATED: Don’t Expect Too Much From Social Media Town Halls

But ask away! Maybe you’ll get luck and get RT’d by the President himself. And then find yourself becoming the next conservative meme as soon as the hashtag-averse pundits start making fun of your question. Should be a fun afternoon.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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'Les Miserables' Stars Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway React to Oscar Buzz

Les Miserables is one of two upcoming films (the other: Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained) that have been swarmed with Oscar buzz before they open in theaters December 25. Flattered yet carefully reserved about how the buzz can easily result in a sting, Les Mis' stars discussed the overwhelming hype from the critics.

Hugh Jackman--who plays the musical film's main character, "Jean Valjean"--said that while the Oscar buzz doesn't mean much to him personally unless it becomes realized, he's excited at the notion of what an Oscar would do for the musical genre.

VIDEO: First Look: Stars of 'Les Mis' Singing Live on Set

"I'm really happy to be in the film and I think Tom (Hooper, director) has done an amazing job, and I know the film moves people," said Jackman, who recently ended a stint on Broadway. "Movie musicals are really hard to get made in Hollywood. It's a huge risk; they're expensive; they often don't work; and when they're bad, they stink to high heavens. I'm a lover of musical theater and I hope movie musicals get made more often, so if there is recognition for the movie--fantastic."

The musical film is based on a long-running musical of the same name, which is based on French author Victor Hugo's 1862 novel of the same title (translates as The Poor Ones, The Unfortunate, or simply, The Miserable), which focuses on life in France in the early 19th century. Anne Hathaway ("Fantine") plays one of the miserables, a poor factory worker.

VIDEO: Closer Look Into Emotional 'Les Miserables'

"It's flattering. I'd be lying if I didn't say it doesn't thrill me that people are predicting this," Hathaway said of the Oscar buzz. "However, I've also have been doing this long enough to know that nothing's set in stone...So, I'm just really enjoying people's reaction to the film. It's so gratifying to have tried something new...and to hear that people are responding to it."

The new aspect to which Hathaway referred is the film's decision to have the cast sing the songs live during each take on the set rather than lip sync to a prior recording performed in a studio. While it was challenging for the actors to belt out the film's ballads take after take, Hathaway maintains that it was a liberating experience.

RELATED: Hathaway Reveals 'Obsessive' Movie Diet

"I think it gave us all a sense of freedom and ability to invent in the moment," she said, elaborating that dense emotions can't be replicated with lip-syncing.

Les Miserables is in theaters December 25.

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R train to Whitehall resumes for first time since Sandy

AP

Service on the R train to the Whitehall Street Station resume today for the first time since Sandy.

The MTA resumed R train service today to Whitehall Street station in Manhattan for the first time since the system was shuttered for monster storm Sandy.

Trains had been stopping at 34th Street because of serious damage to the Lower Manhattan station and the line’s signals system.

“The resumption of service to the Whitehall Street station will restore a vital link to Midtown’s West Side for Staten Islanders and also ease crowding along the Lexington Avenue Line,” said Governor Cuomo.

There is still no Brooklyn-Manhattan R train service because of flooding damage to the Montague Tube, which carries the trains under the East River.

Service between the two boroughs is expected to resume by the end of the month.

“Transit workers continue to work around the clock to bring the Montague Tube back online, which will complete the R Line link from lower Manhattan to Downtown Brooklyn,” said MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota.

jennifer.fermino@nypost.com

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The business behind the artist: Miami’s art gallery scene still evolving

This week, thousands of art collectors, museum trustees, artists, journalists and hipsters from around the globe will arrive for the phenomenon known as Art Basel Miami Beach. The centerpiece of the week: works shown at the convention center by more than 260 of the world’s top galleries.

Only two of those are from Miami.

While Art Basel has helped transform the city’s reputation from beach-and-party scene to arts destination in the years since its 2002 Miami Beach debut, the region’s gallery identity is still coming into its own.

“Certainly Miami as an art town registers mightily because of the foundations, the collectors who have done an extraordinary job,” said Linda Blumberg, executive director of the Art Dealers Association of America. “I think there’s a definite international awareness there. But the gallery scene probably has a bit of a ways to go. That doesn’t mean it’s not really fascinating and interesting.”

The gallery business, especially where newer artists are concerned, is a game of risk, faith and passion. Once a gallery takes on an artist who shows promise, they become an evangelist on their behalf, showing their work in-house and at fairs, presenting it to museums and curators and potential collectors and bearing the cost of that promotion.

For contemporary artists, most galleries take work on consignment, meaning they get a cut of as much as 50 percent when works sell. While local art galleries have been growing in number and popularity in the last several years — just try to find parking during the monthly art walk in Miami’s hot Wynwood neighborhood — even some of the area’s top art dealers say that while business overall is good, they struggle in the local marketplace.

“Our problem is that we have to do lots of art fairs in order to connect with the market that we need to connect with to sell the work that we have,” said Fredric Snitzer, a Miami-Dade gallery owner for 35 years. “The better the work is, the harder it is to sell in Miami. And that ain’t good.”

A handful of serious collectors call Miami home and store their own collections in Miami, including the Braman, Rubell, Margulies and de la Cruz families. But outside a relatively small local group, many gallerists say, their clients come from other parts of the country and world.

And some gallerists point out the troubling reality that even the powerhouse Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin could not stay open in Miami for more than a few years.

“The fact that big galleries have not been able to sustain their business models in South Florida tells you we’re obviously not at this high established point,” said gallery owner David Castillo. “It’s not like we’ve arrived, let’s sit back and watch Hauser & Wirth open down the street.”

Still, Miami’s gallery business has come a long way since the early 1970s, when a few dealers on Bay Harbor Island’s Kane Concourse were selling high-end pieces but the local scene was hardly embraced.

Virginia Miller, who owns ArtSpace/Virginia Miller Galleries in Coral Gables, first opened in 1974 to showcase Florida artists, though her focus soon added an international scope. She and other longtime observers credit several factors for Miami’s transformation, including the community’s diversity, the establishment of important museums, the Art Miami fair that started 23 years ago, the presence of major collections and, of course, Art Basel Miami Beach.

Read More..