Next month, Microsoft’s offices in Sandton will play host to the third Johannesburg Startup Weekend. The event is aimed at entrepreneurs looking for feedback on an idea, those searching for a potential co-founder for their startup, or simply at people looking for support and mentoring.
The event takes place on 16 and 17 August and gives entrepreneurs the opportunity to meet like-minded people, pitch their ideas to the panel of judges and gain insights into start-up culture and practices.
In addition to the start-up weekend, this year’s event includes a Tech Bootcamp weekend that will take place this weekend, 2 and 3 August. It hopes to provide participants — particularly developers — with the skills they need to build effective products.
Johannesburg’s Startup Weekend is modelled on the global Startup Weekend, a grassroots movement where entrepreneurs teach newcomers the basics of founding start-ups and being successful.
Though the nonprofit organisation has its headquarters in Seattle in the US, events have been held in over 200 cities around the world.
Local sponsors have included Qualcomm, Amazon Web Services, SnapBill, JoziHub and StartupCherry.
BlackBerry and Microsoft will host technical education sessions at the bootcamp weekend intended for both the business-orientated entrepreneur and those with a more technical focus.
The judges for the event include new media and Web strategist Darren Smith, entrepreneur Tendai Joe, sales expert Marcel Claasen and digital legal specialist Paul Jacobson. A range of speakers from various disciplines will also be in attendance.
The Johannesburg Startup Weekend costs R500/person, which includes access to the bootcamp. The bootcamp weekend on its own costs R200. — (c) 2013 NewsCentral Media
