2019 Retrospective: The Year at Upstate Interactive
Published in
4 min readDec 17, 2019
It’s been quite the year at Upstate Interactive! There have been a lot of firsts, a lot of exciting milestones, and a lot of great opportunities to connect with our tech community. As we put this retrospective together we realize what a truly amazing year it’s been. Thank you for your support in 2019!
The Milestones
- New website: We followed the same discovery process that we do when creating products for our own clients to launch our redesigned website in March. Get a look into our process here.
- First Los Angeles-based client: We began working with IngleDodd Media in April to create a custom web app for the film/TV sales and marketing firm.
- New Advisor: Assured Information Security CEO Charles Green joined our advisory board in May. Meet him on our blog.
- First International Crypto Payment: In August, we received payment in the form of Dai stablecoin for the first time from an international blockchain client. This makes it much easier to work with clients outside the US.
- Nomination for Doug: UI Partner Doug Crescenzi was nominated for the Community Catalyst Award by Upstate Unleashed.
- First Company Retreat: We took the team to Austin, Texas, in September! Read about how we organized the event here.
- New Podcast: UI Partner Peter Smith, Design Technologist James Patrick Gibson, and UI/UX Designer Josiah Ludovico started their own video podcast, Aligned, in October. See the first episode here.
- Award for Zoe: UI Partner Zoe Koulouris received the 40 Under Forty 2019 Award from CNY Business Journal in November.
The Events
- Doug spoke on a blockchain panel at Techstars Startup Week Buffalo in September.
- UI Partner Kseniya Lifanova traveled to Osaka, Japan, for DevCon5 in October.
- Peter and Zoe spoke about implementing agile scrum with website projects in their “Designing Interactivity” workshop at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School.
- Kseniya co-hosted “Ethereum, Solidity, and Truffle Workshop” at November’s Santa Barbara Blockchain Summit.
- Peter and Zoe headed to Boston to speak at jsMobileConf in November, sharing their presentation, “Revealing 5 Mysteries of Cross-Platform Apps.”
- Kseniya presented her workshop “Token Development: A Crash Course Introduction” at Women Who Code’s Connect NYC conference in December.
The Meetups
The Blogs
Team
- UI Spotlight: Partner and Software Developer Kseniya Lifanova
- UI Spotlight: Partner and Software Engineer Peter Smith
- UI Spotlight: Partner and Software Engineer Doug Crescenzi
- UI Spotlight: Partner and Software Developer Zoe Koulouris (from 2018, but we can’t leave her out!)
- UI Spotlight: Software Engineer Lauren Adam
- UI Spotlight: Software Engineer Intern Yohann Pereira
- UI Spotlight: Operations Manager Ingrid Johanns
- What Is a Design Technologist? An Interview With James Patrick Gibson
Tech
- Learning Opportunities for Women in Tech
- 7 Female Founders to Know in CNY
- Blockchain Apps We’re Loving Right Now
- Using Ethereum in Different Industries
- Smart Contract Use Cases in Transport/Logistics
Software Development
- Creating a Contract With a Smart Contract
- Who Guards the Wine Guardians? Integrating Zendesk and Zingtree APIs in an Angular Application
- Ethereum vs. Hyperledger: Which Is Better?
- What You Need to Know About Sails.js
- Resources for Learning Vue.js
- What’s the Difference Between Agile and Scrum in Software Development?
Process
