Beijing has no shortage of start-up community events. This weekend, iWeekend is back to spur entrepreneurial activity and make ideas happen.
So if you haven’t heard of iWeekend, it is an international non-profit organization across more than 21 cities dedicated to promoting the culture of entrepreneurship in new technologies.
I participated in the last iWeekend back in April and had a great time pitching my idea, building a team, moulding my product and developing a prototype. I think for everyone, there was a great sense of achievement in such a short amount of time.
This time, iWeekend will be different. Instead of a whole weekend from Friday night to Sunday night, the event has been compressed into just Friday night and Saturday.
The format has also changed. iWeekend is inviting a more diverse range of participants and are accepting applications from idea stage to early stage start-ups with existing products or services. To help teams fill necessary gaps in resources, iWeekend is encouraging people from finance, media, marketing, consulting and engineers to participate and potentially find a project to join more seriously. To make the day more productive, teams will be asked to select a particular challenge to work on. For example, entrepreneurs could pick refining a revenue model, enhancing a brand or developing a marketing plan. I think this focused structure is great for entrepreneurs looking to really accelerate their business with the combined effort of a mixture of talented people.
Throughout the day, entrepreneurs have the opportunity to ask questions and get advice from mentors. Confirmed mentors for this weekend include David Kay – Founder of YuenFenFlow, Gonz Ferrero – Angel investor and Associate Partner of DFR Asia and Bill Zhou, Founder of Ifindu.cn.
I really encourage you to participate. It’s a great way to make friends and even start your journey to building a great company!
Here are the details
When: Starts Friday 18 November 6:30pm, Ends Saturday 19 November 9pm (see full schedule here)
Where: Oracle Building, Tower C, 21st Floor, 5 Jinghuanan Street, Beijing (Jintaixizhao line 10)
How much: Pre-registration 60RMB, At door 100 RMB – includes food and t-shirt! Register here.