Today’s the big game! By the end of tonight there will probably be a new football hero for many fans. Unfortunately, even being the star of one of the world’s biggest sporting events doesn’t guarantee a carefree future. Football is a brutal sport that takes a terrible toll on the body. This is doubly bad for players. First, it causes all kinds of long-term health problems, and, second, it shortens careers significantly. This becomes a major problem for retired players who no longer have a source of income and are dealing with the physical aftermath of a career in football. Nobody wants to see their heroes down and out, which is why Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund was started. They’re based in Northbrook, IL, and they “provide financial assistance and coordinate social services to dire need retired NFL players who are pioneers of the game and have greatly contributed to the NFL’s status as the most popular sport in America.”
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For the most part illness is an individual problem. You get sick, you go to a doctor if it’s serious enough, and it eventually gets better with or without treatment. But sometimes your illness can be a public health issue. If you get something like influenza or food poisoning, there’s a good chance that information about your illness could help lots of other people stay healthy. At times like these “when new health risks emerge or well-known problems re-emerge, it is public health laboratories that analyze the threat and provide the answers needed to mount an effective response.” The Association of Public Health Laboratories is a non-profit organization based in Silver Spring, MD that “works to strengthen laboratories serving the public’s health in the US and globally.” The organization’s membership spans across all kinds of laboratories ranging from the public health labs mentioned in their name to environmental and agricultural labs. Many are government labs, but there are also corporate and non-profit labs included.
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Yesterday, I was watching a tv news segment on holiday etiquette, and a viewer e-mailed in a question about how to deal with throwing a party when nearly every guest has submitted “dietary restrictions.” The “expert” responded that the host should just serve what she wants to serve considering that none of her friends are likely at risk for starvation. My guess is that a lot of the guests don’t really have dietary restrictions but dietary preferences; however, there seems to be an increasing number of people whose health is significantly affected by eating certain things. A lot of these reactions are caused by autoimmune diseases, which are caused by “an overactive immune response of the body against substances and tissues normally present in the body.” I’m not sure if autoimmune diseases are becoming more prevalent or if they’re just getting more attention, but IMMCO Diagnostics based in Buffalo, NY has built its business on battling autoimmune diseases. They incorporate “innovative medical devices, diagnostic laboratory testing expertise and pioneering research for a comprehensive solution to autoimmune disease diagnostics.”
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For most people health is a deeply personal issue that is only to be talked about with close friends, family, and medical professionals, yet “public health” is a term that you hear used more and more. It’s because health isn’t an independent outcome–it’s closely tied to the health of others in your community. You’re better off if your peers are healthy, which is why governments and non-profits direct so many resources to improving public health. One of the organizations that does this work in New York, NY is Public Health Solutions. They are an “organization that develops, implements and advocates dynamic solutions to prevent disease and improve community health.” They were founded in 1957, and since then they’ve been building upon a “foundation of rigorous scientific research to link research and practice in dynamic ways to improve the health of communities.”
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When I was a kid, there were two kinds of visits to the doctor’s office: ones where I had to get a shot and ones where I didn’t. Children will never be able to understand how lucky they are to have the opportunity to get poked in the arm with a needle so that they can be vaccinated. Tomorrow’s kids will be even luckier to get poked if Liquidia Technologies keeps innovating. They’re a Research Triangle Park, NC based company that is “developing engineered particle-based vaccines and therapeutics that have the potential to dramatically improve the quality of human life.” Liquidia Technologies was founded in 2004 based on discoveries made by a Professor Joseph DeSimone of UNC, and since then they’ve raised a ton of financing.
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When I think of the energy industry, I think of big machines like oil drills, windmills, and coal elevators. Microbes and genetics just don’t come to mind. Synthetic Genomics is a company that is aiming to change that. Energy is just one of the industries that they are working to disrupt as they develop “breakthrough genomic-driven solutions for major global issues.” Right now Synthetic Genomics, which is based in La Jolla, CA, has put a heavy emphasis on working with the energy and chemical industries because there is so much potential for gain–especially in terms of the environment; however, they’re also working on things like food production, human health, and water availability. It’s all about “turning novel science into life-changing solutions.”
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Now that our country has a shiny new AA+ credit rating (that’s a downgrade from AAA in case you were wondering), we’re going to have to get far more serious about cutting our government’s deficit spending. Considering that 23% of Federal spending is on health care and that health care costs are consistently growing faster than GDP, we’re going to have to find a way to spend less on health care. Oddly enough, there seem to be a lot of people who strongly believe that cutting costs and improving health care can go hand in hand. Some of those people run the New England Healthcare Institute, a Cambridge, MA based non-profit organization that is “dedicated to transforming health care for the benefit of patients and their families.” They realize how broken our system is, and they’re taking an evidence-based approach towards fixing it.
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The idea of having my genome sequenced kind of freaks me out. I’m certainly warming to it, but I don’t like the idea of finding out about a deep, dark family secret or the fact that I’m predisposed to some kind of cancer from a DNA test. I know it’s irrational, and I know that I’ll overcome it eventually. I fully expect that within 20 years every child born in the U.S. will have his or her genome sequenced at birth. So maybe I should just the bite the bullet and get my genome sequenced. But if I’m going to do that, I need your help. The other day I came across a post about Palo Alto, CA based DNAnexus on Hacker News (an awesome site for programmers and people interested in startups). The post was focused on the company’s referral program that offers $20,000 and a full genome sequencing to anyone who refers a software engineer that they hire. That clearly caught my attention (I am trying to run a business here), but, more importantly, it introduced me to what DNAnexus is doing. A single genome contains over 100 gigabytes of data. Storing and analyzing this data requires some serious hardware, especially if you want to do it on a large scale. DNAnexus is an “early-stage software technology company that aims to become the data platform of the genome era.”
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While I was fishing yesterday (in a winter hat during the month of June I might add), I was tying knots, casting, wading through the river, and catching and releasing lots of fish. Though I wouldn’t by any means call it a strenuous workout, I was certainly putting all of my joints to use–from my fingers to my ankles. Most young people take for granted that their bodies work like they were built to, but it’s not so easy for some people. We often associate arthritis with aging, and it’s definitely linked to that, but it’s a group of disorders that can affect people of all ages (2/3 of people with arthritis are under the age of 65 according to the CDC). There are more than 100 types of arthritis and related conditions, which is why theArthritis Foundation was founded in 1948. They’re an Atlanta, GA based non-profit organization that “helps people take control of arthritis by providing public health education; pursuing public policy and legislation; and conducting evidence-based programs to improve the quality of life for those living with arthritis.” Considering how debilitating arthritis can be for the more than 50 million people who suffer from it, it’s a good thing that the Arthritis Foundation is doing what they do.
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Everything that I learned about DNA I learned from the O.J. Simpson trial and Jurassic Park. That’s not entirely true, but it’s scarily close. DNA analysis seemed so futuristic back then, but now it’s an everyday type thing. Still, there continues to be a ton of innovation in the world of molecular DNA diagnostics, and one of the leaders is OpGen, which used to be headquartered in Madison, WI, but is now located in Gaithersburg, MD. OpGen’s business is based on “a unique and powerful Optical Mapping Technology that rapidly generates high-resolution, ordered, whole genome restriction maps from single DNA molecules.” I’d explain that to you if I could, but I think you’re better off reading OpGen’s explanation of Optical Mapping.
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I was a senior in high school on September 11, 2001. We were told what had happened during our morning announcements period, and a few of who had free periods after went to the beach across the street from our school’s campus. We knew that on a clear day you could usually see the Twin Towers from there, but all we could see was a plume of smoke. We listened on the radio and heard reports of the towers falling and rumors of other attacks in the works. I was deeply affected by what happened that day, and since then I have been waiting for our country to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. Yesterday, a group of NAVY SEALs did just that under the command of the Central Intelligence Agency, which is based in Washington, DC but operates all over the world. I am extremely grateful to all of those who were involved–especially for those who risked their lives to make us safer. It’s a reminder of how important it is for our government agencies to have top talent working for them. WIthout great people working at the CIA and in our armed forces, bin Laden would still be at large.
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Children are by definition immature. They can be confusing, frustrating, and annoying for adults, but nobody should ever be surprised when children act like… children. But when is it something more? Psychiatric and learning disorder issues can be particularly hard to diagnose in kids. Yet identifying and treating such issues as early as possible is essential to ensuring that a child can live a full and happy life. The Child Mind Institute is a New York, NY based non-profit that “is devoted to transforming mental health care for the world’s children to enable them to reach their full potential.” By focusing on finding new ways to identify and treat childhood psychiatric and learning disorders, the Child Mind Institute is helping those who are least equipped to help themselves.
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The Washington Media Scholars Program is an exciting case competition run by a wonderful non-profit. If you enter, you’ll have a chance at a scholarship, a trip to DC, networking opportunities, and even extra credit for a class. Find out how to enter here.
Cancer sucks. We’ve all dealt with the pain it causes at some point. But things are getting better. We’re constantly making progress towards more effective cancer treatments, and a big reason for this is that we’re starting to treat different types of cancer as individual diseases. This means that organizations focused on specific cancers are becoming increasingly important. Take for example the Caring for Carcinoid Foundation based in Boston, MA. They’re a non-profit that aims “to discover a cure for carcinoid and related neuroendocrine tumors” while also working “to eliminate the suffering of patients, families, and caregivers affected by neuroendocrine tumors.” The Caring for Carcinoid Foundation is extremely research focused, which is why they direct “100% of all individual donations to fund breakthrough scientific research of carcinoid and related neuroendocrine tumors.” They’ve already awarded more than $6 million in research grants, and that number is going to keep on growing.
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In just the past year and a half, I’ve lost two important people in my life to cancer. Chances are that you’ve been similarly affected by the disease considering that 1 in 4 deaths in this country are caused by cancer and that there were more than 1.5 million new cancer cases last year. The numbers sound grim, but every year we’re getting better and better at treating cancer. One of the major trends that I keep hearing about is that doctors are starting to see cancers as individual diseases instead of as one disease that affects many areas of the body. Precision Therapeutics is a Pittsburgh, PA based company that is taking this idea once step further. They believe that cancer should be treated at an individual level. In other words, they see every single case of cancer as potentially unique, and they want to help doctors and patients find the best way to treat it.
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In the history of human existence, there are few technological advances that have had as much of a positive effect on our species as the development of vaccines. The truly amazing thing about vaccines is how cost effective they are when it comes to improving the human condition. A single intervention can give an individual lifelong immunity from or resistance to a variety of diseases, and the marginal cost of a vaccine dose after development is often ridiculously low. One of the great vaccine triumphs in human history was Dr. Albert B. Sabin’s development of the oral live virus polio vaccine. He was a scientist who “dedicated his entire professional career to the elimination of human suffering though his groundbreaking medical advances” and “waged a tireless campaign against poverty and ignorance throughout his lifetime.” In 1993 he passed away, and the Sabin Vaccine Institute was founded in his honor. It is a Washington, DC based non-profit organization that is “dedicated to reducing needless human suffering from vaccine preventable and neglected tropical diseases through prevention and treatment.”
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You can sell anything to new parents. They want to create a perfect world for their new baby, so they often tend to go overboard on things like strollers, cribs, mobiles, and clothes. Recently, an expensive new option for parents-to-be has come to market. It seems a little out there at first, but it has the potential to be the most valuable purchase/investment that a parent could make. It’s having your child’s stem cells banked at birth by freezing the blood from the umbilical cord. The mention of stem cells often creates a lot of controversy, but that’s almost always directed at embryonic stem cell research. There are plenty of other ways to procure stem cells—and umbilical cord blood is one of the best, especially for individual medical use. Stem cell therapies are still pretty uncommon, but the hope is that future therapies will be available to those who have had their stem cells banked—and there’s already a long list of diseases that have been treated with stem cells from cord blood. Cord Blood Registry in San Bruno, CA is the world’s “largest and most experience cord blood bank” having “already saved cord blood for more than 325,000 newborns.” Banking cord blood may not be all that common yet, but if you’re going to do it, it looks like Cord Blood Registry is the place to go.
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If you watch the news enough, there’s a good chance that you’ll never want to leave the house. The world is a dangerous place, and things like terrorist attacks, Black Friday stampedes, and infectious diseases are out there waiting for us. Obviously most of these dangers are overhyped—but who knows what to believe and what not to believe? Hopefully our public health agencies and their employees. They’re the ones that we need to be well informed and well connected, which is why the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials exists. It’s a Washington, DC based non-profit organization that is “dedicated to formulating and influencing sound public health policy and to assuring excellence in state-based public health practice.” They do this by bringing public health officials together and keeping them connected.
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Just two weeks ago we were talking about market failures and externalities when we looked at The Institute for Market Transformation. Today we’re going to look at an organization that focuses on a single issue that is dominated by externalities. Antibiotics are truly wonder drugs. They can cure all kinds of ailments. One of their few downfalls is that the more that they’re used, the less effective they become. Now, this isn’t an individual drug resistance, but a worldwide one. If I use an antibiotic today, it may not work as well for you next year. Unfortunately, individual incentives for both doctors and patients lead to antibiotic overuse. The Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics is a Boston, MA based non-profit organization that does exactly what its name says. Their “specialized staff provides field consultations and lend specialized expertise to guide policy makers, provider organizations, and other stakeholders seeking to improve antimicrobial supply, use, and management decisions.”
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Did you know that you can get Amazon Prime for free
if you’re a college student? That means unlimited, free two-day shipping on everything you buy.
For the past couple of months we’ve been including more numbers than usual in our daily posts—things like three-year growth rates and annual revenues. Since we’ve been looking mostly at companies on the Inc. 500, we figure that it’s useful information. If simple numbers like those intimidate you, then today’s company is definitely not for you. However, if your response to our daily posts is to seek out more numbers and dig into annual reports and other similar documents, then you’re in luck. MCG is a Providence, RI based company that does mathematical, statistical, and strategic consulting. Their motto is “Nothing is too complex.” The first person listed on their Management Team page is their Chief Analytics Officer, so that should tell you a lot about MCG’s focus. And I almost forgot—MCG has grown at an 834.4% rate over the past three years to $2.2 million in revenue (they were only founded in 2006).
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Despite how much complaining goes on about the state of health care in this country, the truth is that we live in a remarkable time for medical treatment—especially in emergency situations. With 911, ambulances, and hospitals, we are extremely adept at addressing urgent medical situations. But what happens when those situations happen somewhere that traditional services can’t reach? That’s where Seattle, WA based Remote Medical International steps in. They provide “equipment, training, telemedicine, and onsite medical care for anyone who works or plays where going to the hospital is not an option.” They are yet another Inc. 500 company that seems to have found a great market niche. Over the past three years, Remote Medical International has increased revenues 1184% to $5.2 million. The coolest thing about that growth is that Remote Medical International is offering services that save lives—lives that may not have been saved just a few years ago.
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While on a fishing trip last month, I met a guy who was telling me about his daughter’s coursework in forensics. He mentioned that her college’s program has its own house for practicing crime scene investigation. Apparently, it’s filled with all kind of carnage—you know, bullet holes, blood stains, and other—ahem—bodily fluids. I told the guy that I didn’t understand how this house was any different from most college housing after a good weekend, but he didn’t seem to appreciate the humor. My point is that the area of forensics is growing, and Kalamazoo, MI based Forensic Fluids Laboratories is a perfect example of this. They’re an Inc. 500 company with 1,680.7% three-year revenue growth and $2.8 million in annual revenue. Forensic Fluids Laboratories specializes in testing oral fluids—in other words, spit—with a heavy emphasis on drug testing.
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If you’re anything like me, you’ve run into this problem before. You’re sitting around the house, and your lab mice are frolicking around. One of them starts misbehaving and you need to scold it, but you can’t because you don’t know it’s name. They all look the same, and you are completely clueless as to who the troublemaker is. Ok, I actually don’t have mice in my house, and I hope that you don’t either, but if you’ve ever worked with lab mice you probably know that identifying them is kind of important.Somark Innovation is a San Diego, CA based company that makes that a lot easier. They’ve developed technology called Labstamp that “applies automated tail tattoos for mouse identification.” The tattoos are human readable, permanent, and available with 46,656 unique alpha-numeric IDs.
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Over the past year I’ve seen cancer do a lot of damage, and I know that I will see it do more damage as I move through life. Still, I believe by the time I’m starting to get old, cancer won’t be nearly as much of a worry as something else that we haven’t even heard of yet. It doesn’t seem all that long ago when most cancers seemed like a death sentence, but now the majority of cancers have strong treatment options. The problem with cancer treatment is that its short-term effects are often worse than those of the disease. The Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation is trying to change this. They are a New York City based non-profit organization that was started by thankful patients of an oncologist/hematologist whose name is, obviously, Samuel Waxman. The Foundation is “dedicated to supporting a focused research program to develop targeted cancer cell-specific therapies with minimal toxicity, such as differentiation therapy.”
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Yesterday we talked about how regenerative medicine is making it more and more likely that you’ll be able to heal from a stupid Fourth of July injury. Today we’re going to talk about a company that makes it super simple to make an appointment for a doctor (or dentist) to check out that injury that you’re embarrassed to tell anyone about. The company is called ZocDoc, and they’re based in New York City. They’ll not only help you find a doctor or dentist who specializes in what you need, but they’ll also allow you to make an appointment with just a few clicks. You can even check up on reviews of the doctor before you book him or her, and once you’ve had your appointment, you can add a review. ZocDoc has only rolled out in a few areas so far, so you can’t find any kind of doctor in any city or town, but I’m sure that’s in the plans once the business model gets rolling.
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Last week a friend was telling me that his wife, who is in her residency, was going to have to work in the ER on the Fourth of July. I have to imagine that’s one of the most active nights of the year with injuries from fireworks, barbecues, and gunshots (especially in Chicago). All you need is a little imagination to come up with some nasty scenarios that would have ruined your holiday and left you with a permanent injury like my friend who passed out at a barbecue and now has perfect grill marks on his forearm—yes, that means he put his arm down twice. Usually these types of injuries aren’t funny, and they can be extremely traumatic with lasting consequences. Luckily, we’re entering an age of regenerative medicine in which injuries may not be so permanent. Advanced BioHealing is a La Jolla, CA based company that “develops and commercializes living cell therapies that repair damaged human tissue and enable the body to heal itself.” Their current product is called Dermagraft, and it’s a “a bio-engineered skin substitute that assists in restoring damaged tissue and supports the body’s natural healing process.” Right now it’s FDA approved to treat diabetic foot ulcers, but it appears that Advanced BioHealing also has a product called TransCyte that might be used to treat the kind of burns that fireworks or barbecues could cause.
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When I was growing up, I suffered from a pretty bad case of asthma. I didn’t have scary attacks like some people do, but I had triggers that would have me wheezing for hours. Running always did it. So did cigarette smoke. Sometimes it was freshly cut grass, or some other unknown allergen. If I caught a cold, it was significantly worse because of the way my lungs reacted. I saw doctors, I got tests (I was apparently operating at half of normal lung capacity), and I tried medications. Nothing really helped, and a lot of the medications had side effects that made me feel even worse. Luckily, I eventually outgrew my asthma, but I wonder if I could have dealt with it more effectively if I had the opportunity to interact with other kids who were in a similar situation. A site like PatientsLikeMe would have been perfect. Put simply, it’s an online community for patients with similar conditions, doctors, and organizations to interact and share experiences. The Cambridge, MA based company was started in 2004 by 3 MIT engineers who had their lives touched by ALS, and it’s the kind of “healthcare reform” that nobody can argue against—by the patients and for the patients.
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If you woke up this morning with a sore throat, what would you do? I bet many of you would get on the computer, type your symptoms into Google, and probably end up on WebMD trying to self-diagnose. I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing (maybe we should leave the diagnosing for the doctors), but it’s how most of us operate these days. We have a remarkable amount of medical information available at our fingertips, and WebMD, which is based in NYC with a significant presence in a number of other cities, is responsible for a lot of it. They consider themselves “the leading provider of health information services, serving consumers, physicians, other healthcare professionals, employers and health plans.” If you read that closely, you probably noticed that WebMD’s business goes well beyond their consumer facing website.
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One of the books that I’ve been reading lately is SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance
. It’s a great follow-up to the original Freakonomics
, and it once again shows how changing your mindset can lead you to all kinds of new ideas (this is a really important lesson for your career). One of the companies that is mentioned in the book is Intellectual Ventures, a Bellevue, WA based invention company. They’re all about ideas. Things like product design, product development, manufacturing, marketing, sales, and service all come later, and Intellectual Ventures doesn’t want anything thing to do with those processes. They just invent, invent, invent. The company isn’t tied to one specific area—they’re working on problems like stopping Malaria, preventing hurricanes, and counteracting negative effects from climate change should they ever happen.
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I was traveling yesterday, so I scheduled yesterday’s post and hopped on a plane. Little did I know that my server would somehow forget to do what I told it. Sorry! If you’re looking for yesterday’s post, you can find it here. (Or if you’re reading by e-mail, just scroll down.)
There are a lot of people who aren’t very thrilled with healthcare in the United States. Yes, it can be atrociously expensive, but at least we have access to pretty much any medical procedure out there. Whether it’s something very basic or something that has never been tried before, the US certainly has the medical infrastructure to get the job done. There are plenty of countries in the world where even the most basic medical care is out of reach, and there are other countries where basic medical care becomes out of reach due to a crisis. That’s where New York City based Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) comes in. They provide “aid in nearly 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care, or natural disasters.” Doctors Without Borders does this by recruiting both medical and non-medical personnel to travel abroad to offer a level of medical assistance that is well beyond what is typically available.
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Last night I went to an event for National Coaching Fellows (I’m on their board). It was held at an art gallery, and it went extremely well. For the past few years, the organization has been struggling to feel legitimate (that’s a common problem with startups, non-profit or for-profit). Holding an event at a place with expensive art on the walls made a drastic difference—it felt real. Even though I’m not all that interested in art, there was no doubt in my mind that the art on the walls played a huge role in the mood of the event. RxArt is a New York City based non-profit that is taking advantage of this effect in a very different way. They curate contemporary art exhibitions in healthcare facilities to “relieve stress and anxiety, while increasing appreciation for contemporary art” for patients and staff. Considering how cold hospitals and doctor’s offices usually feel, I think this is an amazing idea.
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