Let’s welcome Intruders.tv as our media partner.Intruders.tv will be covering all the major events here at Blitzweekend. They will also help by making capsules during the event..Intruders.tv is a global network of video blogs covering the web 2.0 and technology ecosystem. Their main objective is to take you to the major conferences an events around the world, interview entrepreneurs and investor, visit exciting startups and give you a first look at the hottest technology.Intruders.tv will be doing interviews with the teams and staff. They will also write a post event article on Blitzweekend.
Blitzweekend est prévu dans 3 jours au campus de Longueuil de l’Université de Sherbrooke. Le lieu a été choisi pour plusieurs raisons:
- d’abord, on avait besoin de locaux accessibles pendant 3 jours de suite. Pour comparaison, ce genre d’évenement est quasiment impossible à organiser dans des lieux comme la SAT
- Il faut aussi des locaux susceptibles d’accueillir une audience de 75 personnes et plus, possiblement jusqu’à 150 personnes,
- Il fallait aussi des partenaires qui comprennent notre vision, et qui aiment mettre en place des évenements aussi innovateurs que Blitzweekend.
- aussi, il était nécessaire d’avoir sur place l’Internet Sans-Fil et avoir à proximité des services de restauration.
En contactant différent organisations potentiels, l’Université de Sherbrooke était le seul à remplir les 4 conditions, en nous mettant à disposition leurs locaux à Longueuil. Ils se sont montrés diligents, dynamiques et coopératifs.
Le campus de Longueuil offre 90+ programmes, et se focuse notamment sur des cours intensifs, et des cours à temps partiel pour des professionnels.
Les locaux se trouvent au 1111 rue st-charles, à 2 minutes de marche du métro de Longueuil (ligne jaune). Il faut prendre la sortie Place Charles Le Moyne, et se diriger vers les batiments en verre sur la droite. On occupera le rez-de-chaussé des bâtiments des 5 heures, le vendredi 29 février.
Outre les autres partenaires de Blitzweekend, nous sommes aussi fiers d’avoir Embrase comme partenaire et sponsor pour l’évenement. Philippe Telio, partenaire à Embrase, résume ainsi la société:
Embrase est une société de services-conseils en positionnement, développement corporatif et mise en marché pour entreprises émergentes et à croissance rapide du domaine des hautes technologie faisant face à des défis d’accès au marché, cycle d’adoption client plus longs que prévu et exigences d’investisseurs.
En clair, Embrase aide les futurs startups dans leur période d’incubation, notamment au niveau marketing et du plan d’affaires. Embrase est notamment connu à Montréal pour avoir organisé le premier StartupCampMontréal, qui a regroupé pas moins de 170 entrepreneurs, investisseurs, médias et guru. Pour Blitzweekend, Embrase offrira à l’équipe selectionné par le panel un jour entier de consultation pour raffiner leur plan d’affaires, et leur permettre d’atteindre plus facilement le prochain niveau.
Yesterday, we organized a 5 to 7 informal cocktail, gathering organizers and anyone interested into in Blitzweekend. 38 people came up, mostly web entrepreneurs, but also developers and designers. There were also a handful of business consultants, investors, and experts in entrepreneurship. We also had the friendly team of intruders who interviewed a few people at the event, with their high-tech cameras.
Here we have the ever-cherry Fred Ngo, co-founder of Standoutjobs.
Standoutjobs is a new startup in town offering innovative HR solutions to companies wanting to get top talent. If you haven’t visited their website yet, give it a try, they’ve done an awesome work.
It’s surprising the amount of attention we get for blitzweekend. Above is Richard Menneveux, a web entrepreneur in France, who runs french job startup moovement.fr. He loves Montreal and also love Blitzweekend. We also had messages from entrepreneurs overseas who are looking into joining the event — which is awesome.
Now, our next job is to match-make people. If you are looking for developers, designers, entrepreneurs, please leave a message, or email us at hello@blitzweekend.com and we will find other potential members. Don’t also forget to go at the list of projects and attendees.
We received last week a lot of attention about blitzweekend, mostly from Montreal but also in Canadian and in international blogs, which adds up to the regular mentions in MontrealTechWatch and QuebecValley
Mentions in Montreal:
DIY blog, wants to participate
Gagnerericwebware is very interested, and has setup a widget to search for blitzweekend mentions on twitter.
woot.org is a developer and likes the event.
Stephane Daury announces he will be participating in the event.
jponrails is a ruby on rails developer and announces blitzweekend 3 times. Looks like he has a whole network of websites.
Mentions in Quebec:
Present Profit, a blog by a consulting firm helping entrepreneurs finding funds for their ventures. They outline what the event would bring in terms of innovation and entrepreneurship in Quebec.
Mentions in Canada:
StartupOttawa invites its reader to get a team together and come to Montreal
StartupNorth describes the event as an “ad-hoc launchpad” for startups
Ottawa web weekend wants to do the same event in Ottawa for April, and wants to setup a team for Montreal.
Mentions worldwide:
web1979 is in London and says there is now a lot of activity in Montreal
Web Addict (South Africa)
ReadWriteWeb (originally New Zealand, but readership is mostly US)
zerosumdirt, a Ruby On Rails developer who discusess the merits of constraints-driven development
Techcrunch France invite canadian entrepreneurs to participate in the event.
The most interesting blog posts were the one coming from startupnorth, which pretty nailed what we ultimately want to offer for entrepreneurs. Also, ReadWriteWeb, as usual, have done a great job in getting some perspective and what this could actually mean for developers. Time constraints is most of the time an underlooked issue, although everyone is aware how having milestones, deadlines, tight schedules can actually have huge impacts in terms of results. I have discovered it myself when doing blitzmaker, and it is a true eye-opener on what you can actually do. It was was a stressful, although ultimately, good surprise and experience for me.
Last week, I also met 30+ developers at the first MontrealPython meetup (slides below), and invited attendees directly to come up for blitzweekend and for the upcoming 5 à 7, in the case they are looking for extra team members.
We are inviting you to have a drink with us Tuesday, Feb 12th, at Blizzart Bar.
Blizzart is at 3956a bvd St-Laurent, (at Duluth interesection). This will be be a perfect opportunity if you are looking for a team, for an idea, or for extra team members.
Standoutjobs will be our sponsor; they have just launched their startup and will have a kiosk onsite.
Come and meet developers, designers, and Montreal entrepreneurs!
Outre BDO et iNovia Capital, nous avons aussi comme partenaires pour blitzweekend Globalex, cabinet de courtage.
Ils assurent des entreprises en technologie de l’information et aussi les investisseurs en capital risque; Globalex est notamment un partenaire obligé pour finaliser un accord entre un entrepreneur en technologie et un investisseur.
Nous leur remercions de leur confiance. Globalex s’associe à un évenement qui supporte et favorise l’entrepreneuriat et l’innovation, et qui on l’espère, formera la nouvelle vague d’entreprises en haute technologie.
Outre notre sponsor principal iNovia Capital, nous sommes aussi fiers d’annoncer BDO comme sponsor de Blitzweekend.
BDO Dunwoody est une firme de comptable agréés et conseillers. Ils ont en particulier une équipe spécialisée en technologie et prêt à travailler avec des entrepreneurs. De plus ils seront présents lors de l’évenements et donneront des présentations aux participants.
Nous sommes sûrs que leur expertise donneront une valeur ajoutée inestimable à l’évenement et aux équipes présentes.
Blitzweekend is scheduled this spring in Montreal, Canada March 1st and March 2nd. We expect it to be one exciting and innovative event, where we would invite developers, designers and entrepreneurs to team up and build a technology in just 48 hours, in the spirit of startupweekends and rails rumble. Why should you be there?
1. For innovation
We will have gurus and entrepreneurs eager to work on latest technologies and try to come up with new software, algorithm, and designs of their own.
2. for the challenge
Do you have what it takes to design, build and deploy in 48 hours? Can you go past technical problems? What about team dynamics? This is most certainly not an easy feat, and you will need to deliver your best and bring your best tricks.
3. for the experts
Each team will have “joker cards”, allowing them to call an expert in technology, design, marketing, business plan, finance, interface design etc. Feel that the challenge and pressures are overwhelming? Just raise the joker card, and you’ll get expert advice, allowing you to go forward in no time.
4. it’s an unconference
We won’t select attendees. We won’t ask for you resumés, your past experience or diplomas.Instead, we view each attendee as a co-organizer, bringing his or her own experience and skillset on making blitzweekend a better event. Best of all, the event is free!
5. to learn
Blitzweekend will be an ideal opportunity to try out technologies and frameworks you never had time to try out previously. We will also be planning keynotes during the event, given by select experts and profesionnals.
6. to connect
Needless to say you will work, meet, and mingle with the most talented people in design, programming and in business. This, in itself, is worth the trip. If you are looking for work, if you are looking for co-founders for a projects, if you are hiring gurus for your startup, this is most certainly the event to be at!
7. a launchpad for you startup
The most promising projects built during the weekend can have access to venture capitalists, angel investors or business consultants of their choice, if they want to take their project to the next level and get a startup running.
8. because that’s the future
Do you think it’s not serious to ask people to build something in 48 hours? We don’t think so. In the past years, we have seen new rapid development frameworks like Ruby On Rails, Django, Merb emerge, allowing web developers to launch a web application in a minimal amount of time. Leaders like Facebook, Netvibes, Apple or Google have released APIs that allow third-party developers to launch an application on their platform very easily and quickly. Our bet is that it’s just the beginning, and we will see in the near future ubiquitous rapid and agile tools allowing more developers to launch applications in just a few days, if not hours.
9. for the freedom
We will provide the facilities, room, wifi and food for the event. There are no rules on the projects themselves, apart that they should be in technology and they should be innovative. You can choose to just experiment or make stuff. You can also choose to write a business plan and try to setup a startup. It’s your choice!
10. for the fun
Yes, fun is they keyword here. If you go through the official website, you will see that it’s designed like a game, where teams compete to make something in a pre-determined amount of time. Attendees will get to vote on the most promising project at the end. We will even have a fun prize for the winning team at the end.
If you can make it to Montreal, Canada March 1st and 2nd, you are unforgivable if you don’t go to blitzweekend. For those who are interested, you can go to the registration page (it’s a wiki, so you can just go edit and add your name at the end)
Nous avons déjà annoncé Guru comme étant un sponsor, et nous sommes très fiers d’annoncer aujourd’hui iNovia Capital et MSBi Valorisation comme sponsors pour blitzweekend.
iNovia Capital gère des fonds de capital risque de démarrage et aide les entrepreneurs et innovateurs en TI, sciences de la vie et technologies propres. iNovia Capital a notamment investi dans Collective Media, un réseau de publicités sur Internet avec une solution élaborée pour cibler les audiences, LegiTime Technologies, une solution anti-spam pour email, et autres protocoles de communication sur Internet et standoutjobs, une “startup” montréalaise ayant pour but de révolutionner le marché de l’emploi.
MSBi Valorisation, de son côté, a pour but de commercialiser les innovation provenant de l’Université McGill, de l’Université de Sherbrooke et de l’Université Bishop’s, ainsi que de leurs hôpitaux et centres de recheches affiliés.
Chris Arsenault et Etienne Lagacé nous ont apporté une aide inestimable, notamment en ayant recours à leur partenariat de longue date avec les universités McGill et aussi l’université de Sherbrooke.
C’est une commandite clé pour blitzweekend — il nous a permis d’offrir les installations de l’Université de Sherbrooke — et nous sommes ravis de les avoir comme sponsors.
Pour vous, futur participant à Blitzweekend, cela signifie que blitzweekend est sponsorisé par un fonds de capital risque majeur à Montréal, et donc avoir accès éventuellement à iNovia Capital, si vous pensez commercialiser vos résultats obtenus à blitzweekend.