Weekend Apps

March 4th, 2008 by Alexander

Idea Contest 2.0 has teamed up with a couple of friends to bring you Weekend Apps!

Weekend Apps is a full weekend event to get developers and entrepreneurs together to build and release Facebook applications in one weekend. We want to help you build hugely successful Facebook applications that grow virally and reach millions of users. Our goal is to assist entrepreneurs to reach their potential, launch their startups, and achieve massive success. We will do that by:

- Bringing in entrepreneurs and developers who have built hugely successful applications to share their secrets.
- We will have a team of awesome designers, marketers, usability experts, and lawyers available to you to help you and answer your questions.
- We’re partnering with the great folks at The Enterprise Network to lend their guidance and support to you for free during the weekend.
- We’re planning an ad-exchange network to get applications to promote each other and overcome the initial challenge of reaching the first 10,000 users.
- We’ll have all teams share their experiences so we can learn from each others successes and mistakes.

Think of it as a weekend incubator on steroids. We’ll bring the energy and drive of talented people together to create an unstoppable force. But this is only the start. We except that the partnerships and friendships that form during this weekend will result in a lot of future ventures and successes that we’ll continue to hear about for a long time to come.

Check our web site for more details: http://weekendapps.com/ . And specifically, read these two posts:

Who should attend:
http://blog.weekendapps.com/2008/02/10/who-should-attend/

Ticket Price:
http://blog.weekendapps.com/2008/02/11/the-tickets-are-free-sort-of/

And buy tickets here:
http://weekendapps.eventbrite.com/

Ask a Question, get an answer. Give an answer, get a reward.

March 4th, 2008 by Alexander

The second Idea Contest 2.0 is coming up on Thursday, 7.00 p.m., October 18th at the Swedish American Hall, located at 2174 Market Street, in San Francisco.

In this event we will provide a platform for entrepreneurs to exchange ideas in a format designed to provide a win/win situation:

Any entrepreneur can ask a question, set a reward for the answer, and let the audience try to win the reward by answering the question. The rewards are up to the entrepreneur, but they don’t have to be material. They could be expertise or even networking resources. So someone could ask a question about getting VC funding and reward the person who answers it with his expertise on marketing or his connections with developers. It’s a simple and efficient way to barter skill sets, benefiting both parties in the equation.

The event will last a couple of hours (till about 10 p.m.) so given the finite time at our disposal if you want to make sure you’ll ask your question at the event you may send it beforehand at: ask@theideacontest.com and be put on the list. That does not guarantee you’ll get a spot at the live event, given the amount of questions submitted, but in case you don’t get a chance to voice your question at the live event, I will post your question at the event’s blog and meetup site, and that way you might get it answered by the community online. If you send a video, I will gladly embed it appropriately given the right code.

Who is this event is for:

For Businesses & Entrepreneurs:

Your tech business has a problem or needs an idea. You want an innovative solution, a fresh perspective from people outside your company. You are tired of consultantese. You want something new.
Enter Idea Contest 2.0. Pitch your problem at our new event to the brainstormers participating and enjoy access to the creative minds of the Bay Area even if they work in companies other than your own! Give an incentive for the potential winner (cash prize, a job or stock) sit back and get ready for some surprisingly interesting feedback or the solution you were looking for. Interested in participating? Sign up!
A good environment for all sorts of uses in addition to the one mentioned above: You’re looking for a creative employee? Pitch a problem that only an employee that deserves to work in your company would solve, and see who can step up to the challenge. You’re a recruiter? Select people by seeing them in action. Your startup is missing a developer? Ask a question only the developer you’d like on your team would be able to solve and see if he’s in the audience.

For Creative Thinkers:

Ideas are running amok in your head. You want an outlet, a problem, a challenge, and perhaps a job. Enter Idea Contest 2.0. In our next event you’ll hear companies pitching problems or needing ideas and this is your opportunity to seize the moment and show them what you got. Perhaps at the end of it you’ll find yourself with a new job, some stock or cash plus something to brag about to your enemies and rejoice with your friends. Are you up to the task? Sign up!

Ideas Fighting for the Common Good

March 4th, 2008 by Alexander

San Francisco, May 3rd 2007: Ideas Fighting for the Common Good

One of the things I noticed with people in the tech community is an underlying idealism that is absent in other business industries. Techies are young, creative and future oriented. They are not apathetic about social problems because they have the knowledge and means to do something about them. They create free social software and networks that give people the tools to organize and act together while overcoming geographic gaps using the internet.

Inspired by the possibilities and general atmosphere I encountered living amidst them, I decided to create an event where people in the tech community and beyond can come together, brainstorm and use each other’s expertise to push forward ideas worth actualizing. The topic I chose to start the event concentrated on a humanitarian aspect that would tap into that underlying idealism I mentioned:

Because I believe the future of ideas in business is bound to change (as I had mentioned in more detail in a blog entry):

Before the brainstorming started I felt the need to remind the participants of the value of thinking small but with big impact:

The members were then divided into brainstorming groups and were asked to come up with an idea that would address certain key humanitarian issues of our times. They were only given 15 minutes + 5 extra minutes (after a unanimous decision) for final refinements. To be honest, given the amount of time, the results surprised me with their ingenuity and sophistication.

Team 1: World Health Works

Team 2: Work Swap

Team 3: Carpoolr

Team 4: Water Traveler

Then there was a Q&A session:

(There were no questions for the first team, so we go straight to Team 2):

Team 3

Team 4

For more videos of the event check our YouTube Channel.

Welcome to Idea Contest 2.0

March 4th, 2008 by Alexander

Hello there,

Welcome to Idea Contest 2.0, a contest of ideas between brainstorming groups or individuals composed out of the participating members. Look at the latest posts to get more information about the latest event, or check it out directly on our meetup page where you can also sign up and RSVP for the upcoming events as well as get all the updates regarding the event via email. If you wish to register on the event’s blog you can do it by clicking here. You can also check our channel in YouTube where you can view videos of the previous events.