Startups Dodge Balls for Charity
Go Ahead, Make Your Jokes, Mr. Jokey Joke-maker. But Let Me Hit You With Some Knowledge
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BY JOE PROCOPIO
@jproco
10.3.13
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Filed Under: NEWS: Startups

This coming Saturday, a bunch of local Triangle companies, including several startups, will go balls out to support a local charity, thanks to the organizational efforts of Magnus Health and a whole lot of sponsors and dodgeballers.
As part of its drive to help the Boys & Girls Clubs of Wake County, Magnus decided they wanted to get the kids their own bus. Buses are expensive, so they turned to their friends and friends of friends and thus the RDUIDCC (RDU International Dodgeball Charity Challenge) was born.
Note that this event is not officially sanctioned by the American Dodgeball Association of America (ADAA).
Of course Automated Insights signed up and sponsored a team, and of course everyone at the company wanted to be on said team, and of course we had several competitions and tryouts over a fourteen-day period to determine who made the final cut.
We're competitive about everything.
And honestly, you had us at dodgeball.
This is an inaugural event, implying that there will be more dodgeball tournaments in the future (Magnus supports a different charity each year). It will take place at W. Martin and S. Harrington streets in downtown Raleigh (streets will be blocked off) on Saturday starting at 10:30 with the Final Four scheduled at 2:00.
The weather promises to be excellent.
Afterwards, there will be an awards ceremony and block party with four food/drink trucks and four more neighborhood partners, all of whom are donating a percentage of sales.
Along with Automated Insights, the startup and startup-related companies I know who will be playing are KnowledgeTree, TransLoc, ChannelAdvisor, Windstream Hosted Solutions, Foursaken Media, Citrix, HQ Raleigh, Bandwidth, StepLeader, Republic Wireless, and the Royalty Exchange.
Oh, also Brooks Bell. This is great because we're told they scored higher than us on the Best Places to Work award - so we're holding a grudge. If we both get past round 1, we'll meet in round 2.
Then it gets ugly.
Here's where you come in.
If you'd like to get involved, even if you don't want to get pelted with dodgeballs (or come watch me get pelted with dodgeballs), you can donate to the cause here.
Now, when you're choosing a team to help, I can't come right out and say you should choose Team Automated Insights. Oh wait! I can TOTALLY ask you to choose Team Automated Insights. You should do that.
Look, I love to see startups get together, whether it's for a project, a beer, or getting smashed in the face by an 8-inch playground ball. It would be awesome of you to help this worthy cause and then come on out on Saturday afternoon for what promises to be a good time.
Companies We Mentioned In This Post
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