With great excitement and anticipation, I'm happy to announce that RepreZen has been selected to participate in Startup Bootcamp FinTech, a premier accelerator program here in New York.

Over this intense three-month program, we'll be working on our strategy and exploring possible engagements with the SBC FinTech partners, including Deutsche Bank, MasterCard, Thomson Reuters, Santander and others. We'll also have the benefit of an amazingly talented and diverse group of program mentors from Startup Bootcamp and their extended network. We'll be co-working in SBC's Silicon Alley workspace with nine other promising fintech startups from all over the world.

Along with CTO Tanya Fesenko and Integration Lead Andy Lowry, I spent a long weekend in the Selection Days event.

Friday was orientation, pitch and presentation training.  Saturday and Sunday took us through a gruelling but incredibly engaging series of meetings with program sponsors and mentors. Think entrepreneurial geeks speed-dating with various future versions of themselves.

I have to say that even if we hadn't been selected, the introductions, insights, and pure excitement generated during these interviews made for two of the most valuable days we've spent as a team.  It also confirmed what we've heard time and again in talking with enterprise IT professionals and their business counterparts:

• Integration is on the critical path for every strategic IT investment:  digital transformation, omnichannel, mobility, IoT, microservices... Everything that matters is integration-intensive.
• API Management helps, but only after API design and implementation. And heavyweight, remedial integration platforms are no longer viable in today's agile environment.
• An API design platform that addresses interface mismatch at the source by enabling deep interoperability is the next logical step, and the only long-term strategy to integrate faster, at lower cost.

After these meetings, we spent two hours at Tavern 29 while the partners deliberated; then returned for selection announcements, hugs, handshakes, photos & Champagne all around. "Exhilarating" would be an understatement.

Our sincere thanks to the SBC directors and partners for the vote of confidence, and the opportunity that comes with it. Congratulations to the other nine startups in our cohort, and to everyone who participated in Selection Days. We can't wait to get started!