Startup Weekend Bangkok: Entrepreneurs to battle at sleepover tech competition

Bangkok tech entrepreneurs will have the opportunity this weekend to win hundreds of thousands of baht in prizes at Startup Weekend – a 54-hour entrepreneurial lock-in – kicking off at HUBBA co-working space this Friday with registration at 6pm.

The non-profit Kaufman Foundation, headquartered in Seattle, Washington is a “global grassroots movement” of entrepreneurs seeking to learn the basics of founding startups and launching ventures – the largest community of “passionate entrepreneurs” with over 400 events in 100 countries in 2011, the Startup Weekend website claims.

Event organizers and facilitators can be found in over 200 cities around the world, hosting events that follow the same basic model: Anyone can pitch an idea, with the best determined by popular vote. Teams are then formed around the top ideas followed by a 54-hour session of business model creation, coding, designing and market validation. The whole thing culminates in presentations to local entrepreneurial leaders (see list below) who provide critical feedback and select winners.

Amarit “Aim” Charoenphan, managing director of HUBBA and organizer of the Bangkok event, said that this is an “exciting event of many ‘firsts’ in Thailand.”

It is the first community-organized Startup Weekend, where everyone has a chance to come together, with entrepreneurs “putting aside their differences to come together to really give back to the next generation of startup entrepreneurs,” he said, adding that it is the first event with a participant-to-mentor ration of 3:1 – normally the ratio is 10:1, he said.

It’s also the first, according to the Seattle headquarters, to require all startups to stay at the venue for 54 hours and bring their own sleeping bag.

“This event won’t be for everyone, since it will be one sweaty startup party. People in sleeping bags, tents and entertainment all night. However, with an all-star cast of Thai startups, venture capitalists and international judges – as well as 18 mentors – and a massive prize up for grabs worth over 500,000 baht, we are certain that it will be a weekend well-spent,” Aim said.

Since its launch earlier this year, HUBBA has seen interest in co-working skyrocket with entrepreneurs of all walks contributing to what looks to be an exciting time for Bangkok’s startup scene.

Recently, Vachara Aemavat of Computerology – working out of HUBBA – took home the overall prize from the Facebook World Hack 2012 Jakarta for their DoSomething social networking application.

Vachara will be one of the many coaches – hailing from all parts of the globe – at the event. The judges are Gabriel Yang, senior manager of media and events at e27 Singapore; Paul Srivorakul, co-founder and chairman at Ardent Capital; Krating Poonpol, former global lead marketing manager of Google Earth/Moon/Mars at Google headquarters in Silicon Valley; Sashank Dixit of Sequoia Capital India Portfolio Company; and Tiwa York, managing director of Sanook E-Commerce at Sanook Online Limited.

The event can be followed on the Twitter livefeed @SWBKK, or on the Bangkok Startup Weekend Facebook page.

We’ll also be covering the event as a media partner and Coconuts Bangkok founder Byron Perry will be speaking at the kick-off this Friday night.

See you there!



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