Startup Weekend coming to Ottawa
By Francis Moran
Ottawa is about to finally get its own edition of Startup Weekend, a global phenomenon that has seen more than 45,000 technical and business people come together in more than 200 separate events around the world to spend a full weekend building new businesses. The intensive 54-hour company-building competition will take place in the nation’s capital April 27 to 29 at Shopify’s headquarters at 126 York Street in the Byward Market.
Although The Ottawa Network had a similar event a couple of years ago, this will be the first time the city has welcomed the official Startup Weekend, an initiative of the Kauffman Foundation, the large American NGO that promotes entrepreneurship. The event kicks off on Friday evening with rapid-fire pitches from participants who would like their ideas to be the focus of company-building teams over the weekend. All participants vote on which ideas will be workshopped, and teams form organically around each idea. The teams work feverishly all weekend, breaking occasionally for presentations, sleep and coffee, and present their ideas late on Sunday afternoon. A panel of judges selects the winning team.
