(bright music) >> You know, there's a lot of negative press around the technology industry these days. The tech lash is somewhat understandable, people are struggling and yet the tech industry is booming, creating incredible wealth for a relatively select group of people. I get it. But the reality is, that the technology industry has guided us through the pandemic, allowing us to work remotely, securing our employees, keeping goods and services flowing, and using data and analytics to track COVID and accelerate the development of vaccines. And many in the tech industry are passionate about giving back and applying their talents to solve real world problems. I'll give you an example. After accidents, cancer is the number one cause of death among young people. In the middle of the 20th century, the survival rate for kids with cancer was 0.0%. Today, it's above 85%. Cancer in kids is much different than in adults. The types of cancer, the diagnoses, the treatments, they vary. Different types of research are required to attack the problem. And that takes money. And one of the people here in Boston and beyond that's using his talents, his creativity, his network, and yeah, his wealth, to attack this problem, is my friend, Chris Lynch, entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. Chris, awesome to see ya. Welcome back to theCUBE my friend. >> Thanks, Dave. It's great to be here. >> So, listen, this personal story of yours, how'd you get into, where's the passion come from for kids with cancer? >> Dave, it's actually related to one of my startup endeavors. When you're starting, bootstrapping your company, you're typically staying at people's homes to save money. >> Sleeping on couches. Yeah. >> Yeah, yeah. Pretty much. And for the years of these startups, I've developed relationships with families all over the world, 'cause I've literally lived with them for periods of time until the companies got to points where we didn't have to do that. And there was a family in Seattle that I used to stay with, and they had a son that was a similar age to one of mine and he ultimately passed of cancer. And I stayed with the family, and I stayed with them a few times while they were going through this, and I was touched, I was inspired by their courage, how positive they were. I was thinking in my own circumstance, how could I, I would just hate the world. And in these families, I stay there, they call me Uncle Chris. And I was having dinner at the family home and I was looking at the boy, and I excused myself, went to the bathroom and I started sobbing, and he knocks on the door, comes in and says, "Uncle Chris, it's okay. My dad tells me you can do anything. Just do whatever you can so that other kids don't have what I have." You know and... >> Wow. Wow. And I can see the emotion that you're feeling right now, bringing us back to that moment. >> Well. Yeah. >> It's unbelievable. All right, so you got Tech Tackles Cancer. Is this your latest venture? I think the last one was 2018. It's coming back, took a break 'cause of COVID, and this is going to go down on the 21st at The Sinclair in Harvard Square. Bring a bunch of people in. We got a number of people who have signed up to, actually you're one of them, of course, but to sing karaoke, raise a bunch of dough, and then there's like a little contest, right? So... (he chuckles) Alex, bring up that slide. I got to show the audience who we got here. And this is, Chris, this is your competition. So, here you go. We got, Steve Duplessie, right? That's a great picture, Steve. Thanks for doing this, right. Nathan Hall, who's at Pure Storage. Steiny, Ken Steinhardt, from INFINIDAT. And you got George Hope at HPE. And Joe Lemay, who's an inventor, he's the CEO of Rocketbook. Any of these guys worry you? >> I'm going to sleep easy tonight. (Dave laughs) >> So, how did you get into rock and roll? You wrote a blog one time. You quoted Nietzsche saying that life without music would be a mistake. Rock and roll. Rock on. How'd you get into rock and what's your passion there? >> Well, I always loved rock and roll but I had someone that was staying with us who was a student at BU, and he went to his semester abroad, he went to the UK. And he came back with all this punk rock music, the Sex Pistols and all this stuff. And I heard it and it just triggered something in me. And then I didn't want to do anything but play music and try to be a musician, and my grades and everything else suffered as a result. But music's always inspired me, the creativity, the boldness. A lot of things that I think I apply to my startup life. >> How could people help? Let's say they want to get involved. I mean, obviously, they can attend the event, they donate. What should people do? They could sing? >> Yeah. So they can certainly sponsor the event. There are a number of sponsorship opportunities. They can participate. They can volunteer for the event. It is an all-volunteer organization. Every dollar that we raise goes to the charities that we've listed. And we handle everything else through a lot of arm twisting and whatnot. >> Great. So it's June 24th, sorry, June 21st, at The Sinclair, which is right in Harvard Square. So it's live band karaoke, right? >> Correct. >> I've seen some of the, we're going to share a little clip there. And so, it's a call to action to all you rock and roll technology gods out there. You know, we showed you the five folks plus Chris who were doing it, and so we're dying to see you up there again, you must be really excited about it. >> I am, I am. I'm going to be much better than last time. >> Okay. Well, so just on that note we'll close with a little taste of what's in store for June 21st. We'll see you there. ♪ Now my loneliness ♪ ♪ Is killing me now ♪ ♪ You know I still believe ♪ ♪ Midnight, midnight to six ♪ ♪ Midnight, midnight to six ♪ ♪ Midnight, midnight to six ♪ ♪ Believe in things that you don't understand ♪ ♪ then you're su... ♪ (bright music)

(upbeat music) >> On June 21st in Cambridge mass at the Sinclair in Harvard Square, Tech Tackles Cancer is back after a COVID hiatus with live band karaoke and some local tech celebrities raising money for a great cause. The Cube is a media sponsor of the event and Josh Epstein, local marketing exec and one of the events organizers is here to tell us more. Josh, good to see you, welcome. >> Good to be here, Dave. >> So tell us about this event. What's going on? What are the logistics? How's that all work? >> Yeah, we're super excited. So as you said, June 21st at the Sinclair in Harvard Square, Sinclair, if you haven't been there is just the great old school rock club. So we'll be there from 6:00 to 10:00. We will have live band karaoke. So the main event and kind of the primary fundraising approach here is that we have some celebrity technology rock gods these featured performers like Chris Lynch who was the founder of Tech Tackles Cancer, who are are raising money from basically now, up until June 21st. Then at the event, their fundraising will culminate with them singing a live song backed by a live band. And the awards will be given out to the most money raised, the best performance and the best stage presence. So it will be a lot of fun. >> So the fundraising format is I sign up to sing do the karaoke with a live band which is a little bit different. And then I raise as much dough as possible. So obviously that's competitive. >> It's competitive, I think that we ask for a minimum of $10,000 targeted for each of the fundraisers but knowing these guys, knowing guys like Chris Lynch, they don't like to lose. So the bet here is that people are going to go out, they're going to hit their network and they are going to look to kind of raise the most money. So we anticipate this to be a great event with a lot of money raised and a lot of fun. >> So we have a graphic from Alex. If you could bring that up of the people who have signed up for this already. We got Steve Duplessie, founder of of ESG, senior analyst. They sold their company to Tech Target, which is awesome. Congratulations to those guys and thank you for stepping up. George Hope, who heads partner sales for HPE, Joe Lemay of Rocketbook Nathan Hall from Pure Storage, system engineering guy and of course, Steiny, Ken Steinhardt from Infinidat. He was at EMC, he's the field CTO now. He's going to be up there singing. So of course, Chris. >> Absolutely, these are just the early entrance here. So we just started really working our networks. And obviously, I'm a Boston tech guy kind of working the storage networks, the networking networks and kind of the other folks that are around. So as we come out of stealth here in April and start really recruiting, we anticipate having probably 10 to 15 of these featured performers, really fundraising performers that we'll sing. And then we're also obviously soliciting broader donations from anyone who wants to come to the event or just give to the cause and the corporate sponsorships as well. >> All right, so you got corporate sponsorships. You can sing, you can donate you can be there just to support it. That's fantastic and the awards, how's that work? >> Yeah, so we're excited. So first off, most money raised wins an award. So we'll have a leaderboard on the website, we'll be able to kind of track who's raised what, at the event, we're going to have some celebrity judges that will be actually voting for their favorites and then have a crowdsource component as well. So we'll introduce what that mechanism is. But as people, either at the events or a watching in streamed live on LinkedIn live, we'll actually vote for their favorite performance as well as their their pick for best stage presence which we know in rock and roll is half the battle. >> Now this cause has raised a bunch of, I think last time, you guys did this, it was probably a quarter million or close to it and you support multiple causes. What causes are you supporting? >> Sure, yeah, actually I think since they founded the event several years ago they raised over $2 million. This year for this format where we're looking, we can really up our game here but this year we're supporting two really great causes that are both focused on pediatric cancer. The first is St. Batrick's that is really committed to raising funds for research to really help stamp out pediatric cancer really. The approach to researching cures and treatments to pediatric cancer is very different from regular adult cancer. So St. Batrick's does a great job of picking those research projects that really target in on those pediatric cancer causes. And then the second is one mission. And one mission really outlooks to help make pediatric cancer patients that are spending time in the hospital, making their time less stressful, less painful, less sad, less boring. And so they do a lot of fundraising and contributions targeting children's hospitals, really around the country for those pediatric cancer floors. >> Josh, amazing cause. Thanks so much for coming onto the Cube and explaining all that. >> Great, thanks David. >> All right, June 21st, go to ttcfund.org, Tech Tackles Cancer fund, ttcffund.org for more information and you can donate. We'll see you there. (soft music)

[Music] you know there's a lot of negative press around the technology industry these days the tech lash that's somewhat understandable people are struggling and yet the tech industry is booming creating incredible wealth for a relatively select group of people i get it but the reality is that the technology industry has guided us through the pandemic allowing us to work remotely securing our employees keeping goods and services flowing and using data and analytics to track covet and accelerate the development of vaccines and many in the tech industry are passionate about giving back and applying their talents to solve real world problems i'll give an example after accidents cancer is the number one cause of death among young people in the middle of the 20th century the survival rate for kids with cancer was 0.0 percent today it's above 85 percent cancer in kids is a much different than in adults the types of cancer the diagnoses the treatments they vary different types of research are required to attack the problem and that takes money and one of the people here in boston and beyond that's using his talents his creativity his network and yeah his wealth to attack this problem is my friend chris lynch entrepreneur investor and philanthropist chris awesome to see you welcome back to thecube my friend thanks dave it's great to be here so listen this personal story of yours how did you get into where's the passion come from for kids with cancer dave it's actually related to one of my startup endeavors when you're starting bootstrapping company you're typically staying at people's homes and you know to save money sleeping on couches yeah yeah pretty much and um you know through the years of these startups i've developed relationships with families all over the world you know because i've literally lived with them you know for periods of time until the companies get to points where we didn't have to do that and um there was a family in seattle that i used to stay with and they had a son that was a similar age to one of mine and he ultimately passed of cancer and i stayed with the family and i stayed with them a few times while they were going through this and i was touched i was inspired by their courage how positive they were i was thinking in my own circumstance how could i i would just hate the world and you know in the you know in these families i stay there you know they call me uncle chris and um i was having dinner at the you know at the family home and i was looking at the boy and uh i excused myself went to the to the bathroom and i started sobbing and um he knocks on the door comes comes in and says uncle chris it's okay my dad tells me you can do anything just do whatever you can so that other kids don't have what i have you know in it wow wow and i can see the emotion that you're feeling right now bringing bringing us back to that moment it's it's unbelievable and and the thing is when you started st baldrick's it wasn't it was obviously about the kids but it was also about the family as well right because they're going through right i mean you know we all know as parents how hard it is to be a parent can you imagine having a parent that's you know got a disease like that so it's not just about you know the the cancer and the research it's about the supporting the families as well right that's right and that's why one mission is you know one one of our um you know big beneficiaries you know of of the work we do um because it's obviously we want to find cures um but people you know families are affected every day and we need to provide them the kind of support um you know that that they any child should have and any family should have in this circumstance all right so you got tech tackles cancer this is your latest venture i think the last one was uh 2018. it's coming back took a break because of covid obviously uh but so it's live band karaoke it's the tech industry your network and beyond really kind of giving back how does that all work well basically you know we we once i learned that pediatric cancer was different and that there was it was underfunded we wanted to raise awareness for that we wanted to raise funds to take a different approach applying sort of venture principles how i invest in companies and find the best research in the world which is not in any four walls of any sort of research center so we get the best research from around the world and that we decided to put the money invest the money as well as the support services around those that you know are affected today yeah okay so we've got actually so what's going to happen and this is going to go down on the the 21st at the sinclair and harvard square bring a bunch of people in we've got a number of people who have signed up to actually you're one of them of course but to to sing karaoke raise a bunch of dough and then there's a little contest right no alex bring up that slide i gotta i gotta show the audience who we got here this is chris this is your competition uh so here you go you got we got steve duplessi right he has great picture steve thanks for doing this right nathan hall who's at pure storage steiny ken steinhardt from infinidat and you got george hope at hpe and joe lemay who's uh he's inventor he's a ceo a rocket book any of these guys where are you i'm going to sleep easy tonight [Laughter] how did you get into rock and roll you wrote a blog one time you you quoted nietzsche is saying that life without music would be a mistake you know rock and roll rock on how did you get into rock and roll well i always loved rock and roll but i had that was staying with us he was a student at bu and he he went to his semester abroad he went to the uk and he came back with all this punk rock music the sex pistols and all the stuff and um i heard it and it just triggered something in me and that i didn't want to do anything but play music and you know try to be a musician and um you know my grades and everything else suffered as a result but music's always inspired me the creativity the boldness a lot of things that i think i apply to my startup life how can people help let's say they want to get involved i mean obviously they can attend the event they donate what what should people do they could sing yeah so they could they could certainly sponsor the event there are a number of sponsorship opportunities um they can participate they can volunteer for the event it is an all volunteer organization every dollar that we raise goes to the charities that we've listed um and we handle everything else through a lot of arm twisting and you know and whatnot great so it's june 24th uh sorry june 21st at the sinclair which is right in harvard square so it's live band karaoke right i've seen some of the we're gonna share a little a little a little clip there and so it's a call to action to all you you rock and roll technology gods out there you know we showed you the the five folks plus chris who were doing it um and so we're dying to to see you up there again you must be really excited about it i am i am i'm going to be much better than last time okay well so just on that note we'll close with a little taste of what's in store for june 21st we'll see you there [Music] midnight midnight midnight midnight six midnight midnight six things that you don't understand in yourself [Music] you