What Is Startup Weekend?

Past event…

Event Ended

Mastercraft Building


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This September come join other innovative, ambitious, and talented people from all over the region to take on the challenge of turning an idea into a business in a weekend.

Come with your own idea ready to pitch or work on someone else’s idea.

 

What it’s like:

Schedule

Friday

Sep 21
  • Doors Open
  • Dinner and Networking
  • Welcome
  • Pitches Start
  • Attendees vote for the top ideas
  • Most popular ideas announced and teams start forming

Saturday

Sep 22
  • Mastercraft gates open
  • Breakfast
  • Lunch, team status reports/call for help, and brief mentor presentation
  • Dinner
  • Mastercraft gates close (you may leave, but not re-enter)

Sunday

Sep 23
  • Mastercraft gates open
  • Breakfast
  • Lunch and team status reports/call for help
  • Presentation rehearsal deadline.
  • Dinner
  • FINAL PRESENTATIONS
  • Judging and prizes
  • End!
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Silver Sponsors
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Judges

Bart Dillashaw

President, Nebraska Angels   |  

Bart Dillashaw is an attorney at the Scudder Law Firm in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he practices corporate and securities law and represents companies and investors in business formation, financing transactions, and mergers and acquisitions. Bart is also the President of the Nebraska Angels, Nebraska’s largest network of accredited investors focused on making investments in private companies with high-growth potential.

Christian Renaud

Principal, StartupCity Des Moines   |  

Christian Renaud is the CEO of Present.io, Principal at StartupCity Des Moines, and is one of the architects behind StartupIowa. Christian was previously CEO of Palisade Systems, CEO of the Technology Intelligence Group, Vice President of Business Development for Windmill Networks, and Chief Architect of Networked Virtual Environments for Cisco Systems. In addition, Christian holds advisory and board positions with a number of technology startups, European Commission projects, the Iowa Governor’s STEM Council, and the Technology Association of Iowa.

Brian Branigan

President, LoCoCoLo

Brian Branigan is the President of LoCoCoLo which stands for Low Cost Co-Location for data centers. He is also President and founder of Power Protection Products Inc. This Company specializes in the sales, distribution and marketing of a variety of power quality and energy enhancing related to data center infrastructure.

In addition to the product sales, the company also is a leader in customer education through Power Quality University. This Company. has several offices which serves a seven state area including Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas directly. Mr. Branigan has been in the critical power and data center industry for over 15 years.

Mark Crawford

CEO, Invest Nebraska

Mark is the Chief Executive Officer and Investment Manager at Invest Nebraska. He previously worked at SFI Financial, a $45 million venture fund providing growth capital to companies in the defense, security, and IT industries. Prior to SFI Financial, Mark was employed at Development Capital Ventures, a private equity firm focusing on mid to late stage growth capital financings, leveraged buyouts, and recapitalizations in the manufacturing and distribution sectors. Since completing his degree at Tufts University, Mark has spent over 15 years in venture capital, private equity and M&A. He has deployed over $120 million in capital and closed over 40 transactions. He is a graduate of the Venture Capital Institute.

Ginny Wood Martin

Vice-President, Nebraska Global

Ginny Wood Martin is a leader at Nebraska Global, focusing on leveraging Nebraska’s homegrown software development talent by building out NG’s business infrastructure. Prior to joining Nebraska Global, Martin was Group President at National Research Corporation, a publicly traded health care research company headquartered in Lincoln. Before joining NRC, Martin led sales, marketing, start-ups, acquisitions and strategy for a KKR-backed consumer publication company based in Atlanta. She has also held management positions in program marketing, sales and finance for the Business Services division of MCI Telecommunications and served as a Systems Consultant for Andersen Consulting, Martin, a Nebraska native, moved back to the are five years ago to be closer to family, enjoy the wonderful quality of life and get involved in both the community and growing businesses in Nebraska. She enjoys spending time with her family, including husband David and their 3 teenagers.

Mentors

Brian Ardinger

Brian Ardinger is co-founder of The Big Plate (http://www.thebigplate.com), a collaborative community for entrepreneurs and startups, former Chief Marketing Officer at Nanonation (http://www.nanonation.net), and the new Entrepreneur in Residence at NUtech Ventures.

Chris Augeri

Dr. Chris Augeri leads ThoughtPuzzle LLC. His company partners with clients on challenges at the intersection of business strategy, data analytics, and technology development. A key client outcome involves empowering them to innovate more independently. Chris has had several stints in government, academia, and industry, such as guiding a data analytics division for an Austin company

Chris is particularly focused on enabling folks to solve problems by leveraging their imagination, such as mentoring the winning team during Startup Weekend Omaha 2011 and leading the MightyMoRiver project to aggregate information during last year’s Missouri River floods. He’ll be speaking at TEDxLincoln 2012 on the increasing extent to which we can exploit data as a commodity.

Dusty Reynolds

Dusty is the director of entrepreneurship and innovation for the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce. In this role he coordinates the events, Cornstalks and Common Ground. He also provides connections and resources for local startups through collaborating with local universities, funders and others in the entrepreneurial stack. In addition to his responsibilities at the Chamber, Reynolds is the founder of Sababu Conscious Clothing, a socially conscious company based in Mali, West Africa.

Amanda Morrow

Amanda Morrow is the Interactive Designer at BitMethod, a mobile app development company in Des Moines, Iowa. She has designed mobile apps for SmartyPig, Kum & Go, and the 80/35 Music Festival. She is also the lead visual and UX designer of Change, BitMethod's latest product, a point of sale system for the iPad aimed at replacing those big, clunky cash registers found in coffee shops, bars, and other small restaurants.

Organizers
Corey Spitzer
Joe Evans
Shane Reiser
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