Outside of Summer’s regular posts, sometimes our loyal supporters don’t know everything we’re up to. In fact, I’d say that the majority of what we do on a day-to-day, or even week-to-week basis goes on without most people knowing about it.

The newsletters, email alerts and event notices are mainly for telling you about things we hope are of value to YOU. Things we hope you can plug into and benefit from knowing or participating in. But in terms of the businesses we may be working with to help grow or the attraction projects we are working on, we don’t really spread the word for a variety of reasons (confidentiality chief amongst them.)

Either way, it occurred to us that there are some initiatives underway that we could share. In that light, (and since the cat’s out of the bag already), I thought I’d go into one of our latest endeavors: Fishin’ for Game Development Companies.

The Atari 2600 controller.

As most of you know, our mission is pretty simple: We exist to help create, grow and attract higher-wage jobs and knowledge-based businesses in Savannah, furthering the development of a an innovation-driven economy.

We all know (too well) that the economy is in the dumps, but thankfully not everyone is struggling so much.  Some companies, in fact, have plans to do some hiring in the new year.  Since that is more important than ever, we over here across the Rio Savannah wanted to take the time to give a much-deserved nod to one particular local high tech start-up, Rails Machine, and the impressive successes they’ve earned.

A handful of years back, Bradley Taylor and his wife decided to relocate from southern California where they were both working for ESRI (known for their GIS modeling and mapping software).  After surveying 5-10 midsized cities in the Southeast, they transplanted to (you guessed it) Savannah.  And boy are we glad they did!  (Hear an interview with Taylor about the early days of Rails Machine.)

You’re a company.  Maybe small, maybe new, maybe not.  You’re local – or just beyond – but you dream one day of breaching a larger, international market.  You just aren’t sure how to do that right now.  Need a place to start?  How ’bout here: SACC Edays, an annual trade and networking event now in its eleventh year that links Swedish and American entrepreneurs.

What the heck is Edays?

The Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce (SACC) presents Entrepreneurial Days (Edays) twice each year; once in the U.S. and once in Sweden to best connect business relations between the two countries.  The conferences serve as tools to encourage business and trade between two countries through practices in business cluster programs, business to business trade missions and business matchmaking.

Past participation has been impressive, with 2008’s Entrepreneurial Days in San Diego (April 7-9) attracting some 400 participants, with over 500 business matchmaking having been pre-scheduled. At the last Edays in Stockholm, over 430 participants attended with more than 130 people traveling from the U.S. representing 20 different U.S. states. More than 800 pre-scheduled business matchmaking meetings took place during this two-day event.

Apparently the Telfair Museum‘s Art and Technology Week was not enough to capture all the innovative artistry going on in Savannah.  This year the Telfair is proud to announce PULSE: Art and Technology Festival, a smorgasbord of visual and musical arts, robotics, lectures from the art world’s elite, highly specialized art fabrications and technologies, sound installations, circuitry, and multimedia mastery.

How up our alley is that??  Seriously.

The festival works to promote an edgier artistic perspective and more creative interpretation of technology.  It is free and open to the public (compliments of funding provided by the City of Savannah), family-friendly, and oriented around workshops geared toward students, artists, electricians, musicians, engineers, techies, and other nerds like us.

The festival commences on January 21and culminates on January 31 with Technology Family Day, featuring activities for children, appearances by guest artists, a concert by Minneapolis duo Beatrix JAR with live video by Allesandro Imperato.

Here’s just a taste of the action:

• January 21 – Gallery Talk on Digital Wheel Art by YoungHyun Chung
  New York-based artist YoungHyun Chung will discuss his interactive system that helps individuals with disabilities express themselves using digital projections.