Cebu tech community supports local entrepreneurs via Startup Weekend

Aiming to support local entrepreneurs and startup enthusiasts, Cebu's local tech community via TechTalks.ph, along with volunteers, is organizing the first Startup Weekend event in Cebu. This event will be happening on May 11-13, 2012 at the UP Cebu in Cebu City.  

 

Startup Weekend is a 54-hour event that gives the participants a venue to come together and share ideas, create business plans, build  prototypes, and learn whether an idea can be a viable business. This hands-on experience is done over the course of the weekend starting on Friday to Sunday only. 

 

These 54-hour events are organized by volunteers of Startup Weekend, a nonprofit organization based in Seattle, Washington, USA. In 2010, the organization received a grant from the largest foundation for entrepreneurship in the world - Kauffman Foundation. Right now, there had been 468 events done, 190 events in planning, with almost 5000 teams created since its conception.

 

The event is perfect for developers, designers or even non-technical people who want a hands-on experience building a business. This is the kind crowd expected in the event where they will blend together, learn new skills, build their network, educate themselves on how to launch a business, mentorship and engage in "co-founder" dating.

 

Startup Weekend Cebu is also expected to bring in mentors, not just from technopreneurs in Cebu but also from different parts of the country and Asia, including Eric Su from Piclyf. It will also bring in judges that includes Winston Damarillo, CEO of Morphlabs.

 

Event organizers include techies and entrepreneurs like Dave Overton from Sym.ph, Mark Buenconsejo from Caresharing, Ms. Tins from TechTalks, freelancers, and business owners too. SWCebu has also partnered with local online media sponsors like zerothreetwo.com and Cebu Bloggers Society to increase the mileage of the event.

 

So far, the confirmed organizations who have showed their support through sponsorships already include Globe who has sponsored last year's Startup Weekend in Manila, UP Cebu  and CebuinIT who also graciously offered their resources for the venue for the 54 hour event, Microsoft Bizspark, Startupr, and Third Team Media Contributing sponsor include TechTalks.ph, Devcon, Nextcue and the companies of volunteers. 

 

 

Last March 9, 2012, the organizers invited the community to an introduction event where they get to meet the organizers. It was graced by the members of Techtalks and hosted by the Startup Weekend head organizer Mark Abella. 

 

A great insight on the possibilities of joining was pointed out by Ppip Cimafranca, one of the mentors of the incoming event. In his recent blog post he said, "Build great teams. You have no working product but you have the idea in your head. If you could just find the right people to launch your Facebook... for jeepney drivers. SMS-based. 50 cents per post. Geo-tagging! You will definitely find your coders in #swcebu."

 

Those who are interested to join the event can visit cebu.startupweekend.org. — TJD, GMA News