Finding a local place that provides specific services can be a chore. You can try browsing the classified ads of a newspaper, or search Craigslist. However, neither of these services offers easy access to reviews, nor do they offer an easy way to see where these services are. Nowistar (“Now I Star”) is a new alternative site to find people with specific talents, along with reviews by other users that’s been rolled out in selected cities in the U.S. Más Wired took some time to conduct a Q&A session with the founder of Nowistar, Andre Telles.… more

Más Wired had a chance to catch a few minutes of Lorenzo Gomez’s time recently. As the Director of San Antonio’s Geekdom and Executive Director of The 80/20 Foundation — focusing on STEM, entrepreneurs and urban development — it seems to be quite a feat. Gomez, who started with Rackspace many years ago, told Más Wired that Central Texas and San Antonio are important parts of the country’s tech scene and that Latinos are one of the most entrepreneurial groups in the country.… more

Imagine arriving at your hotel in Cancún, México, logging on to their Wi-Fi and immediately having the hotel’s landing page pop up with personalized recommendations on restaurants you should visit, stores you need to stop by and the hotel spa you should book immediately. All tailored to meet your needs, in a visually stimulating interface. That is the concept behind Interesante, a Latino-owned startup that focuses on helping people discover interesting things, especially when they travel within the U.S.… more

What if you could get video, tweets, photos and news stories about a breaking event all in one place? Eric Ortiz, a Los Angeles native and journalist-turned-entrepreneur, asked himself the same question two years ago and decided to create a solution: Evrybit. A 2014 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, he’s the founder and CEO of the company that creates a mobile solution for live and collaborative reporting. The former sports editor, Ortiz told Más Wired that the inspiration for the company came from a conversation between he and his wife in November 2012 when he was working in Cambridge, Massachusetts.… more

One of our favorite panels at South by Southwest Interactive this year was with our multi-talented friend Mando Rayo, whose panel “Austin Breakfast Tacos: The Food, People & History” drew a full house. Rayo told the audience the story about how he went from being a taco lover, to a taco blogger (Taco Journalism), and finally to a taco book author (you can check out his book here). “Tech has been the main way we communicate with the community of taco fans. It’s allowed us to develop relationships online, talking tacos and offline, eating tacos through our taco tours and meet-ups,” he told Más Wired after the panel.… more

Latino startups miss out on a few rounds of funding by the time they get in front of venture capitalists (VC), which makes it even more important for Latino entrepreneurs to pitch and get into the VC game. We spoke to Rebecca Gonzales, assistant executive director at Avinde, a startup accelerator for women in Austin, Texas. Gonzales makes the point that entrepreneurs often bootstrap their companies (first round of funding) before going to their network, the “friends, family and fools” round (second round), before they actually go to VCs or angel investors.… more

Manos Accelerator launched last year with the goal of increasing the number of successful Latino-owned technology startups in Silicon Valley. Manos has already completed its first class of seven Latino-owned startups and today the Accelerator announced a two-year extension of its partnership with Google for Entrepreneurs. According to Manos, less than 1% of venture-backed startups are founded by Latinos, which is why they are focused on changing this number by developing and supporting the community of Latino entrepreneurs.… more

Latina girls have the potential to make a huge dent in tech innovation, and their biggest obstacle often tends to be Internet access. A panel at South by Southwest, “Latinas As New Leaders in Tech Innovation,” discussed this phenomenon with three different Latina perspectives on the issue. The panel included Laura Donnelly Gonzalez, founder of a Latina girls program, Latinitas, and Byrdie Franco-Rocha, who is the director for Latinos in Social Media (LATISM) chapter in Dallas.… more

At South by Southwest this year we ran into Ulysses Alvarado, founder of Tu Visión Canal, a video platform for Latinos. He described TVC as a social video sharing site and mobile app embracing Latino culture, allowing users to interact in a two-way video portal. Users can create their own video channels, upload to community channels, vote in video contests, as well as watch entertaining digital content. We asked Alvarado a few questions about his new company and why he thinks he can tae on YouTube.… more

Money, tech and mentors. These, according to panelists on Saturday’s “Black Women in Tech: Uncovering Barriers to Entry” panel at South by Southwest, are the top three barriers to black women looking to enter the tech space. Panelists included Blogalicious co-founder Stacey Ferguson, who is a technology intellectual property attorney, as well as startup founder Marissa Jennings, and tech CEO Aaron Saunders. The first barrier to entry is money. Jennings noted that her first crowd sourcing campaign was not a success, but she learned a lot from the experience and was able to leverage those lessons the next time she asked for money.… more