22 Jun Civic Tech Startup Weekend Kicks Off Tonight!
It’s finally here! Geekdom is hosting a Techstars Startup Weekend focused on helping San Antonio launch the next big Civic Technology (Civic Tech) startup kicking off tonight at 6:30pm in the Geekdom Event Center. There’s still time to sign up and participate, so register here: https://bit.ly/2y3lPcs
Civic Tech
Civic Tech is a broad category of innovation and technology products/services used to improve existing City services and constituents access to them. As part of the CivTechSA Program, we’re reaching out to entrepreneurs, educators, students, makers, etc. to participate. Come out to Geekdom tonight, share your ideas on how you can not only solve problems in your community but learn how to turn those solutions into a business.
This could be anything from trying to solve food scarcity issues to creating blockchain applications that improve voter involvement. Or it could be crafting public safety applications that make our streets safer, innovating public housing initiatives, or even pursuing environmental impact-focused ideas, etc.
We want to hear what you are passionate about and help Civic Tech companies thrive in San Antonio!
Not only that, but CivTechSA is partnering with Youth Code Jam to put 12 teachers through the weekend as entrepreneurs and will help put together curriculum for the fall based on what they learned in the weekend. Civic Engagement + Education + Entrepreneurship = Innovation!
What to Expect
Techstars– a startup accelerator and event facilitator– is dedicated to helping startups get off to a good start. Their Startup Weekends are 54-hour long events that help entrepreneurs with anything from ideation, customer and market research and validation, lean business modeling, marketing, branding, investment, etc. all the way to final presentations.
Though Geekdom welcomes all participants to work as diligently as they can through this weekend, it isn’t required to work the full 54-hours in a sprint and it is not OK to sleep at Geekdom at any point in time. Participants have the ability and flexibility to work according to their team schedules/needs and come and go out of Geekdom. There are a few check-ins and of course, every team needs to be present for the Final Presentations.
Tonight we get this whole thing started at 6:30pm in the Geekdom Event Center. Initial idea pitching starts around 7:30pm and teams will be formed after that. Then teams will come up with their game plans for the next 2 days.
Saturday’s agenda starts at 9am on the 8th floor of Geekdom (get there early for tacos and be ready to get to work!): there will be presentations from our community speakers, mentors will start making rounds, and teams will have to hit certain milestones before Final Presentations on Sunday evening.
Sunday is the last chance for teams to collaborate with mentors and each other to put the finishing touches on their presentations. Final Presentations start are from 5-7pm.
We have a dynamic panel of civic leaders judging the presentations, so it’s going to be fierce competition!
Judges
Each of our judges is hyper-involved in Civic Tech initiatives across communities in San Antonio. They are the perfect panel for judging our first-ever themed Startup Weekend and will be looking for innovative, impactful, well-thought-out presentations.
- Craig Hopkins, Chief Information Officer for City of San Antonio
- Marina Gavito, Innovation Business Development Director for USAA
- Alberto Pina, CEO Braustin Mobile Homes
- Jason Pittman, President & Co-founder, Go Smart Solar
Sponsorships & Prizes
None of this would be possible without dedicated community members that are passionate about entrepreneurism and civic engagement. Each of our sponsors are heavily plugged-in to what’s happening in San Antonio’s startup ecosystem and go out of their way to assist budding entrepreneurs at every turn:
1st Place
- 3 months free membership at Geekdom
- Pre-incorporation founders agreement, formation of Texas LLC, and 3 hours of consulting with Innocenti Jones, PLLC
- Patent strategy roadmap document, outline of draft of provisional patent application, and 2 hours of consulting with Shah, IP
- $1,000 in development hours from Innov8 Place
- 1 year free WordPress hosting with Pressable
2nd Place
- 2 months free membership at Geekdom
- Pre-incorporation founders agreement and 2 hours of consulting with Innocenti Jones, PLLC
- Patent strategy discussion and 1 hour of consulting with Shah, IP
- $500 in development hours from Innov8 Place
- 6 months free WordPress hosting with Pressable
3rd Place
- 1 month free membership at Geekdom
- Pre-incorporation founders agreement and 1 hour of consulting with Innocenti Jones, PLLC
- Patent strategy discussion and 1 hour of consulting with Shah, IP
- $250 in development hours from Innov8 Place
- 3 months free WordPress hosting with Pressable
Honorable Mention
- 1 hour of consulting with Innocenti Jones, PLLC
- 30 minutes of consulting with Shah, IP
- $250 in development hours from Innov8 Place
Speakers & Mentors
Of course this event would be nowhere without the our speakers’ and mentors’ awesome support. There’s no way to put a value on the level of expertise, knowledge, feedback given to participants during these weekends; we’re just grateful to have such dynamos in our immediate community that are so willing to get involved.
Speakers
- Entrepreneurism & Innovation, Dax Moreno, COO for Readitfor.me
- Design & Branding, Josh Seltzer, Experience Director for Heavy Heavy
Mentors
- Zack Menegakis, Akou Consulting
- Sumita Jonak, USAA
- Stefanie Young, Innov8 Place
- David Jones, Innocenti Jones, PLLC
- Dave Geada, DBS Marketing
- Samar Shah, Shah, IP
- Crystal Darby, SBDC at UTSA
- Corky Roth, Jump Fiber
- Jenni White, Realco Accelerator
- Chad Smykay, Shmac Solutions
- Christian Torres, Parscale
- Yair Alan Griver
Image Source: sanantonio.culturemaps.com