he Ayala-lead Globe Telecom, pioneering incubator Kickstart Ventures, Inc., web engineering firms Proudcloud and Dynamic Objx, and innovative educator MINT College, once again bring the much-anticipated Startup Weekend to the Philippines in 2012. Its objective is to generate breakthrough ideas from tech groups in key cities in the country.
Startup Weekend Manila, which is in its second year, will be held on April 27-29 at MINT College in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig. Cebu is the second venue and is scheduled on May 11-13, with other cities/events planned later in the year.
Startup Weekend is a 54-hour competition where developers, designers, marketers, technopreneurs, and venture capitalists come together to share ideas, form teams, build products, and launch startup businesses.
In a rather intimate press briefing in Makati, Globe KickStart Venture presented to us the team who won in the last year StartUp Weekend. Composed of a few young tech entrepreneurs that made HobbyMash, a Facebook and mobile app that allows you to talk about even the most obscure topics with like-minded people.
The objective of this event is to eventually create a young group to evolve, and follow the success of Facebook, Apple and DrawSomething. They all started in their garage or as a mere school project. The StartUp weekend does not only pour out cash money to the winning group but also other resources and programs in order for them to succeed.
The PH winner HobbyMash ““ the pre-formed team of Liezl Buenaventura, Josh Liao, Rafael Oca and Mark Co ““ came away with a SGD15,000 startup fund and enrolment in a 100-Day Startup Bootcamp in Singapore, led by SingTel Innov8 (the corporate venture arm of leading telecoms provider SingTel) and Joyful Frog Digital Incubator (JFDI). They presented in Demo Asia 2012, and are working towards the 2012 Demo Day this May.
Aside from the Philippines, Startup Weekends this year will also be held in France, Singapore, Argentina, Canada, USA, Norway, UK, Denmark, Mexico, Italy, Palestine, Senegal, Taiwan, Hungary, Australia, Lithuania, Algeria, Ireland, Switzerland, Martinique, Tunisia, and Spain, China, India, Brazil, Chile, Czech Republic, Belarus, Poland, Turkey, Uganda, Kosovo, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Germany, Peru, Moldova, Croatia, Cambodia, Egypt, Bolivia, and the Netherlands.
So are you guys interested in the StartUp weekend? If you are from Manila, you can register via [Startup Weekend] until April 25, or while slots are available. To know more about Startup Weekend Manila, visit www.manila.startupweekend.org.