Sweb In the News

And then there were four. Round 2 of the San Antonio Business Journal’s Social Madness competition is over, and the list of participants has been cut in half. Last week, eight companies were competing in each size bracket. Now, there are four.
Round 3 officially began at 12:01 a.m. today and will last through July 1.

Drumroll please.

In the small category, The San Antonio Orthopaedic Group will face off against Rudkin Productions, and Visual Net Design will compete against OCI Group.

In the medium category, Aguillon & Associates LLC is facing Sweb Development, and T Bar M Resort and Conference Center is paired off against KGBTexas.communications.

A San Antonio businesswoman was recently featured in Cosmopolitan for Latinas Magazine, as a recipient of one their “Fun Fearless Latina” awards.

Magaly Chocano, CEO and founder of Sweb Development, began her business in San Antonio just over four years ago, and was the first creator of a mobile app builder for businesses.

Chocano, a native of Madrid, Spain, said she moved to San Antonio to study Communications at The University of Texas – San Antonio, when she decided to pursue a career in technology.

“I don’t have a technology background, and actually, what I wanted to do when I started my business four and a half years ago was learn about technology,” Chocano said. “So I kind of threw myself in as a web development company at first.”

The San Antonio Express-News and the University of Texas at San Antonio will hold a town hall on comprehensive immigration reform at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Buena Vista Building at UTSA’s Downtown Campus.

The town hall comes at the peak of congressional negotiations on a piece of legislation that made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday night with 48 Republican amendments, including one that denies gay and lesbian couples the right to sponsor their foreign-born partners for immigration.

Dems who agreed to that controversial amendment said they were forced to do so or risk the bipartisanship needed for passage. The bill calls for increased border security, a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants and long-needed reforms to the legalization process, which is central to streamlining the immigration process, long the cause for illegal immigration.

The UTSA town hall also comes as San Antonio prepares for its participation in the first iMarch on Washington in support of immigration reform.

Magaly Chocano, a San Antonio business owner in the high-tech industry has been honored nationally by Cosmopolitan for Latinas.

Chocano is one of 12 women business owners in the U.S. honored by Cosmo for Latinas as a “Fun, Fearless Latina.” Chocano is recognized for her creation of the first build-your-own-app platform for iOS, called Sweb Apps.

As many San Antonio’s tech company executives will tell you, finding enough highly skilled, talented employees often is an uphill battle. That’s downright frustrating in a city gunning to gain ground in the tech industry.

And as some of San Antonio’s brightest tech minds — who moved here from other countries and are fighting for either renewal of a temporary work visa or permanent citizenship — will tell you, resolving residency issues is a long emotional battle.

So, in support for “smart and comprehensive immigration reform,” some of San Antonio’s key innovators and leaders will take part in an honest discussion on Wednesday night, May 22nd at tech coworking organization Geekdom from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

A diverse delegation of San Antonians attended the Chamber of Commerce sponsored SA to DC trip last month.

As expected, sequestration was a primary topic of conversation, as members tried to determine the effect that spending cuts would have on San Antonio’s economy.

As these cuts trickle down into the budgets of various agencies, we know that the largest firms will be advocating and lobbying for their own industries.

However, the voices of small businesses must also be heard — especially since they represent the backbone of our local economy. Therefore, it was energizing to be a part of a very strong Alamo City contingent that joined forces in Washington, D.C., to make sure that the voices of small businesses were also represented in conversations with legislators and agency staff.