Louisiana Startup Bus ready to roll

The Louisiana Startup Bus is nearly full and ready to roll to Austin, Texas, next week to compete against nine other buses brimming with some of the nation’s top entrepreneurial talent. As the team Louisiana conductor, Terry Jones—who also leads the Baton Rouge Area Chamber’s Regional Innovation Organization—has narrowed more than 100 applicants down to a team of about 30. Of them, half are from Baton Rouge, including Jones. Other local riders are: Andrew Bursavich, Curtis Heroman, Connor Uffman, Evan Smith, Jarvis Brown, Jared Loftus, Jeff Pellegrin, Logan Leger, Markus Steck, Natalie Gillis, Natalie Noel, Rip Rittell, Stuart Adams and Tommy Talley. The rest of the team comes from New Orleans, Shreveport and Lafayette—and also three entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley, three from Chicago and one from Arkansas. “This is an intense competition, and we want Louisiana to win and to shine, so we’re putting our best on the bus,” Jones says. The Louisiana team will meet on Monday and leave for a statewide tour Tuesday. On Wednesday, they’ll return to Baton Rouge with six of the 10 Startup Buses, Jones says, and there will be an event open to the public to welcome them. That event will be held at the Cook Conference Center and Hotel at LSU, 3848 West Lakeshore Dr., and is tentatively set for 6:30 p.m. The Startup Bus competition wraps up in Austin at the South by Southwest festival March 9-10. The Louisiana team will split into five to seven groups that will come up with a startup pitch and build a website to accompany it. “It’s an intense week,” Jones says. “People get two to three hours of sleep a night, maybe.” More information is available at the team Louisiana Startup Bus website here. —Steve Sanoski