Spring is really busy with interesting tech events and many new ones are also popping up almost everywhere in a continuous way (is there a tech event bubble?). As an entrepreneur, you could spend almost 100% of your time in tech conferences… but that would be wrong of course. As well as you sometimes (often, depending on the quality of the conference) make great business contacts that will maybe convert in the coming months, you’d better select carefully the events you go to to maximize the Return On Investment! So here are 5 interesting tech conferences that you should consider attending (depending on your current focus and your industry): Pioneers Festival, Vienna – 28-29th of May 2015: Pioneers Festival is one big Europe conference, and probably one of the must attend conference for every entrepreneur of the DACH region (Deutschland, …
Meet 8 promising Swiss startups on May 11th
For the 5th time, the SICTIC Investor Day is taking place in Lausanne (15 of such events already happened in Zürich). The jury, comprised of Pierre Bordry (Capital Proximité), Alexandre Peyraud (aleCent), Pierre-Jean Wipff (Innovaud) and Sal Matteis (entrepreneur and investor), had a hard time selecting the best 8 startups that will have the opportunity to pitch. 22 high qualitative startups from Western Switzerland (and Zürich) applied for the event taking place on May 11th in Lausanne. Here are the 8 selected startups: PodioBox, Lausanne Interactive conference system revolutionizing the way to deploy presentations STHar, Lausanne Predicting human behavior for smart geomarketing myDNA, Geneva Making personalized healthcare a reality with genetic diagnostics solutions Xsensio, Lausanne Next-generation wearable devices that track biochemical information non-invasively Obviz, Lausanne Increase user retention and engagement for media producers using artificial …
5 Startup Events To Attend In Switzerland
Seven weeks ago, I’ve launched the new version of my blog (which was a must-must-must-DO). I’ve added a new section to the blog called My Events Selection, where I suggest some events that I find interesting and that you should consider attending if you’re in the startup/digital world. Switzerland is that tiny that I don’t focus on a specific location (you can reach almost every place in 2 hours, you know it), so you’ll find events taking place in Zürich, Lausanne or Basel. But I also select international events happening in the major European startup hotspots. Moreover, I do my best to get discounts for you, my beloved, addicted readers ;-). So if you weren’t aware of this page, come visit it regularly! Here are 5 events taking place in the next 2 months, that you should consider attending: Überall …
Apply to ICC: The International Create Challenge
For the 4th year, The International Create Challenge is back. This (free) 3 weeks intensive and immersive technology accelerator program will take place from 25th of August to 15th of September in Martigny. Started by the Idiap Research Institute and the Association for Interactive Multimodal Information Management, now also supported by Polytech Ventures, the challenge is like an extended Startup Weekend (so you have to be fit and ready to last this marathon!): you work within a team of 3-4 people (people and projects have to apply until May 4th) on your project, get access to high technologies developed by the Idiap and are extensively coached to build a Mininum Viable Product and a credible and promising business case.The 3 winners will be get a CHF 10’000.- award each and get a potential investment, as well as additional subsidies and …
5 Startup Competitions to Apply for in April
Time to apply for startup competitions is back! OK, not all use the same application form (check my post on the topic: “Startup competitions, don’t waste entrepreneurs’ time“), unfortunately… but anyway. These competitions are worth the time. Here are 2 startup acceleration program and 3 pitching competitons you should consider applying for: Pioneers Challenge, Vienna (deadline: April 3rd): Pioneers Festival will take place on May 28-29th this year (therefore no more colliding with WebSummit!). Be one of the top50 startups selected and compete to win EUR 100k in pre-seed investment. APPLY HERE! SICTIC Investor Day Lausanne (deadline: April 12th): the 20th SICTIC Investor Day will take place in Lausanne on May 11th, at Debiopharm. 8 selected startups will pitch the audience (90 seconds, 1 slide) and then the audience will vote for the 4 startups that can make a longer …
The 7 startups of Startup Weekend Biel/Bienne
As you may know, I was kind of the driving force behind the first edition of Startup Weekend Biel/Bienne. Many people were doubting that we can even do such an event in a small city like Biel/Bienne, moreover without beeing on a student campus. But it was a success! We had 30 highly motivated and dynamic people. And a great mix between the young 20 something designer and the 60 years old engineer with patented projects. Unfortunately, we just had 6 women among participants (but 2 women among the 5 coaches), as too often in the tech, startup world. But next year we will do better on this point… I already have a plan ;-)! 15 projects were pitched on Friday night (but 8-10 other projects were not pitched), which is an great ratio compared to other Startup Weekend editions. …
The Waking Up of FinTech in Switzerland
Switzerland is known internationally for its beautiful landscape, its quality of life and its multiculturalism (or it should be better known for this last point). On an economical side, Switzerland is known for its watches, machines, chocolate, pharmaceutical companies and its banking industry. This very last sector has been attacked by many countries (in order of virulence by USA, France and Germany) in the past years. Banks had a “banking secrecy” law in Switzerland, which was unique and for which Swiss banks were attacked, as rich people had a way to evade from taxes in their own country. Of course, Swiss banks were not responsible for this… except the fact that many banks were encouraging this behavior, even advising how to best avoid taxes. The financial crisis of 2008 and some massive lawsuits (seeing the biggest Swiss banks pay huge …
Learnings from emerging markets
Seedstars, a Geneva-based organization co-founded by Pierre-Alain Masson, Michael Weber and Adrien de Loës, aims to build and to grow companies. Seedstars World is one of their project, powered by Alisée de Tonnac, one of the few « women in tech » in Switzerland. Alizée and her team are travelling around the emerging world to discover the best startup of each country/city. They hold a local competition in 20 cities in 2013, 36 in 2014 and 2015 will see Seedstars World coming in 50+ cities. Winner of each competition is then invited to the final event (with a bootcamp), which was hold in Geneva early February (I’ve written about the 36 startup finalists here). The winner scores $500k in funding and all entrepreneurs get global exposure, as well as an international network of entrepreneurs (that’s one of the fringe benefit of the …