Starting Up Another Startup Weekend

Some of you may recall that back in January of this year, we put together a trial run of a Startup Weekend, hosted at Suite 133.

If you don't remember, here is a reminder.

Now, Jerry Suhrstedt, CEO of Heavy Guerrilla and a dynamo of a guy is organizing a Startup Weekend on a larger scale down in Olympia. Working with the folks who run Startup Weekends, who happen to be headquartered in Seattle, this is much more aligned to the official events.

I had lunch with Jerry today and he provided me with posters, flyers and information about the upcoming event.

Logistically, here it is:

Oct 15, 16 and 17 2010
Harned Hall on the Saint Martin's University campus
5300 Pacific Ave,
Lacey, WA

The doors will open at 5:00pm on the Friday of the weekend.

registration is available at olympia.startupweekend.org

The cost is $75 dollars or $40 dollars for students.

When we conducted our trial run earlier this year, we made it free and I brought in some drinks and munchies.

With this Weekend, the $75 dollars pays for meals during the course of the weekend. It also pays entry and of course the networking is priceless.

The call to action is "Bring Your Ideas" and the steps as outlined in the material are pretty simple and to the point.

1. Register for the Event
2. Pitch a Green, Tech or Any Idea Friday Night
3. Work with a Team to Develop Your Idea
4. Present your Startup Sunday Night
5. Potentially Win Startup Funding

I will post more when we get closer, and am hopeful I can attend the event.

The intent is to set up another Startup Weekend event in Tacoma for the end of Winter again. If we could regularly hold two events like this in the South Sound per year, alternating between Thurston and Pierce County, I think it would be a great additional to the calendar of technology events for our region.

This will likely be one of the topics at this years South Sound Technology Conference complete with its own breakout session.

Now if someone wants to throw another Barcamp....

South Sound Technology Conference 2010: Save the Date

Save the date of Friday November 19th to come and attend the 11th annual South Sound Technology Conference on the University of Washington, Tacoma campus. Last year’s event was a great success with over 165 registrations and over 200 attendees filling the William W. Philip Hall during the course of the all day event.

Like the 2009 event, there will be keynote speakers in the morning and during lunch, technology panels and exhibits in the Kopp gallery. Also, once again there will be dual track breakout sessions, though this year we have reserved larger rooms to accommodate the sessions.

One of the tracks has been identified as Energy, Sustainability and Technology which is a very timely topic. Other parts of the program will be developed as we get closer and will be posted on the South Sound Technology Conference website at www.sstconference.org. Thanks go out to Seamus Holman and Gridworks Design for once again sponsoring the site.

The annual South Sound Technology Conference is the technology showcase for Tacoma and the South Puget Sound. For years it has brought together leaders from industry, education, and government from around the state to discuss and demonstrate technological innovations and their ongoing applications.

Panel and keynote presentations — including networking opportunities — provide a venue to discuss, explore, understand and deploy technology as a solution, an opportunity and an advantage. SST is perhaps this region’s best annual event to learn how technology is transforming our business and community life.