Events

Startup Weekend Makers Edition

Startup Weekend is a 54-hour event where people of all backgrounds come together to pitch ideas, form teams around those ideas, focus on customer development, validating their ideas, and building a minimal viable product.

By Kevin Browne
Published November 14, 2014

Have you ever had a great idea for a product or a business but didn't know how to get your idea off the ground without some help? Startup Weekend Hamilton Makers Edition is the place for you.

Startup Weekend is a 54-hour event where people of all backgrounds come together to pitch ideas, form teams around those ideas, focus on customer development, validating their ideas, and building a minimal viable product.

Imagine how much time, effort and money it would take to get this much done. Startup Weekend supercharges the creative process into a single weekend.

For the first time we are adding the "maker" element to the event by gathering up materials, mentors and tech support to help you execute your idea and create a physical prototype. There will be 3D printers and some electronics (e.g. Arduino) provided.

If you're a beginner, don't let that intimidate you. You can make your prototype out of anything and there will be someone to help you, whether it be a mentor, or tech support or even one of your team members.

You don't need a team or an idea to join. Participants with ideas will pitch them on Friday night, after which you can decide which team to join.

All skill sets are welcome, as in addition to building the physical product, the weekend also involves creating business models and marketing/sales plans and other non-technical skills required for a new startup.

Winners will be picked on Sunday by our panel of judges, who will judge a product on business model validation, product execution and user experience design.

The excitement doesn't end there! Because the event takes place during Global Entrepreneurship Week, participants have the opportunity to take part in the Global Startup Battle for over $500,000 in prizes.

This virtual battle has participants from 200 cities around the world. It has more than one track or category and has the potential to give a new startup business valuable help and exposure.

McMaster students (Groupnotes) won the battle two years ago and last year a team from Toronto (Pawly) were the winners.

Since this is the first event of this kind in Hamilton, the tickets are limited so that participants will have more support from our team. Sales will end soon so don't miss this opportunity to meet your new co-founders and get started on turning ideas into reality.

Startup Weekend Maker Edition takes place Nov 21-23 at Mohawk College and more details about the event and Global Startup Battle can be found at: http://www.up.co/communities/canada/hamilton/startup-weekend/4947.

Kevin Browne organizes events to connect and help grow Hamilton's technology community such as DemoCampHamilton and StartupDrinks. He is currently a PhD Candidate in computer science at McMaster University researching user interface design for educational tablet software.

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By Selway (registered) | Posted November 15, 2014 at 09:34:38

I am confused. Neither this post nor the immediately preceding seem to be articles;rather, they are publicity notices. Should they not be put into the Events Calendar? The site is going to become less usable if Events and Articles are lumped together. I had to click on both of these to see that they had no content other than publicity.

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