The University of Southampton

Silicon Valley comes to Southampton

Published: 8 November 2012

Silicon Valley comes to Southampton this weekend when budding entrepreneurs are invited to take part in a national competition to learn how to build a successful start-up business.

From Friday 9 to Sunday 11 November, the University of Southampton will be hosting a Silicon Valley comes to UK 2012 StartUp Weekend. It is a 56-hour, non-stop national competition where teams with individuals holding different skill sets compete to build a successful start-up business. Over the course of the weekend, participants of all ages and backgrounds will work together to share ideas, form teams, build products and launch start-ups.

The teams will be free to work on any start-up they want but they have to use Open Data and will have access to UK government data sets from data.gov.uk. Participants will use this data to produce high-impact websites and applications, for platforms such as Facebook and Android, to unlock the power of public data.

Beginning with open mic pitches on Friday, attendees are encouraged to bring their best ideas and inspire others to join their team. Over Saturday and Sunday teams design and develop business plans, while constantly refining their start-up ideas. On Sunday evening teams demo their prototypes, listen to judges’ feedback and win prizes. The judges will also choose a winner to attend an exclusive awards ceremony in London and the chance to compete in the Global Startup Battle.

The winner of last year’s national event was Alejandro Saucedo, an Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) student from the University of Southampton, and he is organising this year’s event with his fellow students Maraim Masoud from ECS and Petar Trifonov from Management. Alejandro says: “It was truly a life-changing experience, that amazing opportunity taught me not to fear failure and to take risks. We want another student to have this amazing experience.”

It costs £40 to register (£15 for students) and interested participants can register at www.southampton.startupweekend.org

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