“Build Community. Start Companies. No Talk. All Action. Together, we are our own community of passionate entrepreneurs on a mission to help other entrepreneurs and facilitate innovation” is the Startup Weekend motto. The entrepreneurial challenge will take place in Riyadh between October 12-14, in Dubai between October 20-22 at Madinat Jumeirah and in Bahrain between November 17-19.
Startup Weekend is a 54-hour intense event that focuses on creating a web or a mobile application which could then create the basis of a business over the weekend. It brings together people with different skills such as software developers, graphic designers and people related to business; most attendants have technical backgrounds while others have business backgrounds but they all come together to build applications, create a business, and connect on a commercial basis.
At Startup Weekend, entrepreneurs and enthusiasts get a chance to see if their start up ideas are feasible, share ideas, build products and eventually launch a start-up enterprise at the end in a "risk-free environment". The Startup Weekend environment is designed to provide feedback on an idea and teach new skills; there is no competitiveness or risk there. Attendants of a Startup Weekend event can benefit from building relationships and solving problems or even walking away with a job or an investor.
The panel of judges in Startup Weekend Dubai include Abdulbasit Al Janahi, CEO of SME Development, Ziad Matar, head of the Middle East and Central Asia at Qualcomm. Noura Al Kaabi, the head of twofour54 tawasol and human development and finally Prashant K. Gulati (PK) CEO of Optimistix Ventures.
It's a win-win situation if you ask us, we wish we were in one of these places so that we can attend! The perfect candidate for Startup weekend would be anyone willing to start a project in two days only. Also, entrepreneurs in Riyadh and Bahrain will also have a chance to join the challenge between October 12-14 and November 17-19 respectively. Visit these sites for more information on Startup Weekend Riyadh www.swsaudi.com, Startup Weekend Dubai www.swdubai.org and Startup Weekend Bahrain bahrain.startupweekend.org. Also follow them on Twitter for the latest updates @Sw_saudi, @startupdxb and @StartupWkndBH.
– Fajer Al-Farsi
