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Two Nonprofits Combine To Create Megaphone For Utah's Startup Scene

Silicon Slopes

Two Utah nonprofits are combining forces to raise the state’s profile in the tech and startup world.

Beehive Startups, which began as a website three years ago, and Silicon Slopes, a branding group that’s been around for about a decade, will now be under one roof.

Clint Betts, founder of Beehive Startups, will oversee the joint venture. He says Silicon Slopes will focus on the broader tech ecosystem while Beehive will work more on early-stage startups.

“This new organization exists entirely to empower Utah’s tech community to learn, connect and serve, kind of based on these three principles we’ve learned over the last three years,” he says.    

Their first major event will be the inaugural launch of a Silicon Slopes Summit from Jan. 19-20, featuring speakers from around the world.  

“And that is to build a national startup and tech event that just happens to be in Utah — to build what South by Southwest did for Austin, we hope Silicon Slopes Summit does for Utah,” says Betts.

There are about 5,000 tech companies in Utah, which attracted more than a $1 billion in venture capital last year. Betts says Utah still needs to draw a greater, more diverse talent pool to keep up this growth, a challenge he hopes their new organization can help tackle. 

Julia joined KUER in 2016 after a year reporting at the NPR member station in Reno, Nev. During her stint, she covered battleground politics, school overcrowding, and any story that would take her to the crystal blue shores of Lake Tahoe. Her work earned her two regional Edward R. Murrow awards. Originally from the mountains of Western North Carolina, Julia graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2008 with a degree in journalism. She’s worked as both a print and radio reporter in several states and several countries — from the 2008 Beijing Olympics to Dakar, Senegal. Her curiosity about the American West led her to take a spontaneous, one-way road trip to the Great Basin, where she intends to continue preaching the gospel of community journalism, public radio and podcasting. In her spare time, you’ll find her hanging with her beagle Bodhi, taking pictures of her food and watching Patrick Swayze movies.
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