Last night, more than 100 dreamers and doers gathered at CL Space to find out who won Creative Loafing/Creative Tampa Bay's 10/100/1000 Challenge. The room was abuzz with creative (of course) energy, starting with something we called a Pitch Party, in which anyone with an idea got two minutes to sell it to one of our visiting judges, a team of students from USF St. Pete's Sustainable Entrepreneurship & Innovation Alliance. When the two minutes was up, some yutz with a cowbell (that was me) rang the bell to indicate it was time to move on and pitch the next person, and so on. (The students — and some volunteers — wore "Pitch Me" nametags to be more easily identified.) Dennis Gallagher of The Green Can was cited for giving the best pitch of the evening, and he got special props for bringing a prop: one of the titular green receptacles that are part of his recycling system for apartment communities.
Then came the main reason for the proceedings: the announcement of the finalists in the 10/100/1000 competition.
This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2011.