Save the date! The 6th edition of the Luxembourg Startup Weekend will take place from 5 to 7 June at Technoport in Belval. If you want to launch your startup in 54 hours it will be the place to be! This time the theme will be the IoT i.e. the Internet of Things. Diego De Biasio, Technoport’s manager tells us more about the event. Registrations are now open!
The new edition of the Luxembourg Startup Weekend will take place in June, what is the theme for this 6th edition?
Yes indeed from 5-7 June @Technoport in Belval. After 5 generic editions of the Startup Weekend we decided that we had to change something and thus we went for a specific theme. The choice was quite straightforward and we picked the topic IoT (Internet of Things). I must say that we are all quite enthusiastic and looking forward to see what kind of projects will be presented.
Why did you choose that topic?
The choice was already decided during the last Startup Weekend in November 2014. It is a hot topic right now and enough generic to attract people from different horizons going from designers, to developers or marketing/communication and business development/strategy. We decided to keep the application sector of IoT open so that participants will be able to pitch any idea until it respects the main theme which is IoT (ideas could thus be touching medical applications, industry applications or B2C applications).
The Startup Weekend is about pitching the best business case at the end – nevertheless we will probably also ‘innovate’ in the awards by defining different categories as we are aware that we might have teams that will work more on the prototype or more on the business model. We want to keep this as open as possible. Awarding the best design could also be an option that we discussed.
Why do people participate to a Startup Weekend?
After 5 editions of SW we can probably say that most of the participants are looking for the experience of this event : the combination of validating an idea within 54 hours, in a team of people they do not necessarily know, with the input of experts and the final review of a jury. All this independently of if they have an idea or not at the start. They might get one during the process or learn what to do if they find a great idea in the future.
Historically speaking around 50% of the participants pitch an idea and we have an average of 65 participants per edition. What SW showed to us (the organizers) is that there is indeed an interesting mix of ‘entrepreneurial’ needs – those who have ideas and those who are perhaps just interested in an entrepreneurial journey or that are looking for something new.
Networking is thus a very important element of SW – that’s why we are looking to ensure a technical and business coaching permanence during the 54 hours with some business coaches and the FabLab for the rapid prototyping process. This is new compared to former editions.
Do you have any news of the projects created the previous years?
Some teams have decided to go on with their idea and some even launched a startup after a few months. At the beginning we were not necessarily expecting this but now after 5 editions it is of course something we would like to monitor closer and be able to support these teams even after the event which is often just the start of a potential interesting journey.
Doing thematic events might also be a source for finding interesting thematic experts / businesses that could help the teams that decide to move forward. So do not wait too long and join us for the event in June !
