USI hosts Startup Weekend Evansville 2.0

After a successful inaugural Startup Weekend Evansville in 2012, organizers plan to "turn up the innovation" for Startup Weekend Evansville 2.0, which will be held Friday through Sunday, February 22-24, in USI's Business and Engineering Center.

Startup Weekend is a 54-hour event in which developers, designers, marketers, product managers, and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products, and launch startups. Entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs can find out if their ideas are viable and work together to turn ideas into workable business concepts over the course of the weekend.

Last year's event drew more than 100 attendees and 42 unique idea pitches, according to co-organizer Bryan K. Bourdeau, USI instructor in business. "A couple of those ideas will actually be launching soon," he said. "The weekend offers easy access to priceless coaching information from intellectual property attorneys, angel investors, information technology, financial, marketing, management professionals, and active entrepreneurs."

Watch the Startup Weekend 2.0 video.

All Startup Weekend events follow the same basic model: Anyone is welcome to pitch a startup idea and receive feedback from peers, teams form organically around the top ideas (as determined by popular vote), and then it's a 54-hour frenzy of business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation. The events culminate with presentations in front of local entrepreneurial leaders and another opportunity for critical feedback.

Startup Weekend Evansville 2.0 will feature key speakers Steve Blank, Kent Parker, and Nick Tippman.

Blank, who will join the event via Skype, is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who retired after 21 years in eight high technology companies. He has taught entrepreneurship at the University of California-Berkeley, Stanford University, and Columbia University. In 2009, the San Jose Mercury News listed Blank as one of the 10 Influencers in Silicon Valley. He is the author of The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company, Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost, and Four Steps to the Epiphany.

Parker retired as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Ariba, Inc., a leading software and technology company based in California. He has been active in numerous business and economic ventures. He will discuss the impact of cloud technology on our lives and the way the world works with a focus on business.

Since attending his first Startup Weekend in November 2011, Tippman has been invited to be the social media coordinator for DEMO 2012, one of the largest Silicon Valley technology and startup conferences; organized Startup Weekend Bloomington in May 2012, and asked to join a startup at the Brandery, a nationally recognized business accelerator. More recently he joined Nibletz.com.

Startup Weekend Evansville 2.0 is supported by generous local sponsors Vectren, GAGE, USI College of Business, USI Pott College of Science, Engineering, and Education, InGen Technologies, Inc., MadStache, and Evansville Commerce Bank.

Founded in 2007, Startup Weekend is a 501(c)3 non-profit "on a mission to provide the world's premier experiential education for beginning and early stage entrepreneurs." Startup Weekend is billed as "the world's largest community of passionate entrepreneurs," with events held in cities throughout the world.

For more information and to register, go to evansville.startupweekend.org.

You can follow Startup Weekend Evansville on Twitter at @StartupEvv and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/StartupWeekendEvv.