All you need to know about Startup Weekend Sustainable Revolution Aba 2019
Start-up Weekend is a 54 hour Weekend event where developers, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products, and launch startups!
Its early history was in July 2007 when Andrew Hyde in Colarado, United States of America gathered 70 Entrepreneurs to try to create a startup in just 54 hours. Since then, the concept has spread like wild fire and is currently one of Techstars’ family of startup programs.
You may be wondering, What’s the point to this?
Most of us have bright ideas that can be worked on to create solutions to prevalent problems but don’t know how to go about working on the idea to begin solving problem. These ideas die. The world does not become a better place.
However, with Startup Weekend; ideas can be worked on and they can go on to become successful startups, creating jobs, helping the Nation’s economy, helping us all achieve some Sustainable Development Goals and making the world a better place.
And for ideas that don’t work? No problem. We believe in the Fail Fast ideology, it’s a lot better to discover fast that an idea won’t work than dream on it all year long plus all that experience working on the failed idea can be transferred to the next idea that will work!
This June, there is a themed Start-up Weekend tagged; “Sustainable Revolution” which is aimed at putting sustainable development at the forefront of the world stage. This theme was postulated due to the ever increasing threat faced by humans on the gradual degradation of the ecosystem as well as the conscious effort to protect what’s left of the planet. It will be happening in over 50 cities around the world and Aba is not left behind.
Some of the challenges facing entrepreneurs in sustainability are How to;
- Build Eco-conceived products and reverse planned obsolescence
- Change from consumer business model to user business model
- Extend products’ lifetime
- Up cycling
- Substitute the disposal by the sustainable
- Reduce food waste
- Foster local production and local distribution
- Build a sustainable agriculture and a sustainable food industry
- Build highly energy efficient products and systems
- Produce sustainable energy
- Re-build sustainable buildings
- Design resilient, smart and inclusive cities
- Design Fin-tech for inclusive sustainable finance and markets
- Build the future of sustainable transportation
- Foster education on sustainability
Find out more about each challenge here.
In Aba, the Global Start-up Weekend Sustainable Revolution is slated to hold from Friday, June 14th to Sunday, June 16th 2019. After that, a final round online will be held where chosen local winners will pitch its idea in a one minute video. The 5 best projects elected by the public will get special prizes to help them launch their startups in real life!
So how does the weekend go?
Let’s break it into Days so you can follow;
Day 1
Participants can pitch their ideas for the weekend and everyone gets to vote on the ideas that should be worked on during the weekend. This is also followed by choosing what team to work on, Networking and Dinner.
Day 2
The teams reassemble and begin work on validating the idea and building the Minimum Viable Product of the idea. Local Mentors will be coming in throughout the event to coach the participants through the hard problems. Expect short breakups to explain Business Model Canvas and some other Business concepts that will help every team’s success.
Day 3
The Adrenaline Rush Day! Teams realize they all must work together for their success. They tie the loose ends of their idea enough to create an MVP and quickly work on a pitch deck which they use to present to a panel of Judges.
At the end, every body celebrates all the efforts put in and lessons learned.
As a participant,there are loads of benefits for you which include but are not limited to:
- Getting introduced to the world of start-ups and entrepreneurship (Trust us, this will do you a lot of good)
- Learn the process of going from conception to creation (which you can apply wherever you go)
- Meet experienced, talented, and passionate entrepreneurs in your city (Building your network, basically!)
- Have the opportunity to network with the mentors (Whose experience can save you lots of mistakes)
- Join or build an all-star team (Totally an essential for a startup)
- Learn and practice new skills to take back to your job (i.e if you don’t quit by Monday because you just built the newest great thing!)
For us at Innovation Growth Hub, we are passionate about the vision of Abia being on the road map championing the development of the tech ecosystem in the South east and beyond. This dream became a reality in the year 2015 when the first Start-up Weekend was held in Aba. This saw the emergence of mypaymart.com as champions of the maiden event. The team of 4 amazing and talented individuals went on to win the Regional Start up weekend battle. The fruits of this event spurred the emerging of a growing ecosystem and led to the hosting of subsequent Start up events. We have had startups like Salesbay.ng , E-Mergency and Discover Tutors clinch the most coveted first position at subsequent events. Even the Startups that do not make it to the first place such as CamSupports learn from the weekend experience and go on to build.
And the beautiful part, every participant leaves the weekend pumped with valuable connections and fresh knowledge on how to contribute to Development anywhere in the world.
We are calling on all tech enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, investors and sponsors who are ready to bring about a sustainable change to all the sectors including the environment, health, education and energy sectors in Abia state, South East and beyond, to join this train.
Want to join in this June’s Startup Weekend Sustainable Revolution in Aba?
Then, register to attend here. It’s free!
If you would also love to support this event in any way, do reach out by sending a mail to info@ighub.com.ng
The hashtags for the weekend are #GSWSR2019 and #SWABASR2019
