 Hi everybody, this is Dave Vellante and we're here at the Tug events. This is the Cube where we extract the signal from the noise We're bringing the smartest people that we can find and help you understand how technologies being applied to solve business problems We're here with Dana Samuels who's the co-founder of Tug Dana first of all great event tonight. Thank you very much. Really appreciate you coming on Tell us a little bit more about about Tug. We had David on earlier. He gave us the background But give us your perspectives. Yeah, I mean I think Tug was created as a non-profit platform To connect the local venture and technology community with local startup nonprofits So its mission is to leverage that community to find resources and raise money for nonprofits to support youth entrepreneurship Education and social innovation and we target organizations that support youth that are the most at risk and are Kind of living in Boston and in New England's under resourced communities. So can you talk about some of those organizations? Yeah, so one of the organizations that was here tonight It's called inner city weightlifting and that's been one that's come to a lot of tug parties Actually, it's kind of a crowd favorite and this organization. It gets kids that have been associated with gangs and that potentially have you know, maybe a criminal record or a violent past or have somehow You know broken away from from the gang life and are looking for a way to You know start something new so it trains them in Olympic weightlifting and it gets them certified to be trainers So basically they're operating out of different gyms around Boston and these guys get their certification and they train people and It's a great way to keep them, you know off the streets and and it gives them a career path That's awesome. So tell me about how you guys started this I know Jeff Fagnan is one of your co-founders as well Where'd the idea come from and you know, how'd you get it off the ground? Yeah, I mean, I think the idea started with just a simple wine party amongst venture capitalists So back in I VCs love wine out there. That was the idea, right? so if you get wine and a bunch of VCs in a room you might be able to get them to pay a ticket price and Use those proceeds to give to a local non-profit and it was successful the first year and it was very successful the second year And it just kind of grew every year until one year we decided We were getting so much attention so much interest from the local community and we're raising so much money Why not form a 501c3 around it and do this, you know throughout the year and give grants to as many local Deserving nonprofits as we can it's a fantastic event. I mean the the mix of people here is terrific I mean young and old and and Entrepreneurs venture capitalists non-profit folks. I mean really is a unique type of arrangement. I've not seen anything like it Yeah, I know I mean we've got you know people from local venture firms service providers in the industry established tech companies startups nonprofits people that are sort of in the Investor community like anyone that sort of has any ties to venture capital or technology or Local nonprofits has been here tonight Boston's coming back in a big way in the in the tech business and Dana initiatives like this help a lot So thanks for all your good work and appreciate you coming on. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Take care I keep it right there. We're right back with our next guest