What Is Startup Weekend?

What is Startup Weekend?

Startup Weekend is a global network of passionate leaders and entrepreneurs on a mission to inspire, educate, and empower individuals, teams and communities. Come share ideas, form teams, and launch startups.

Startup Weekend Global Site

Past event…

Event Ended

Amutat Tapuach Center, Beer-Sheva


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Ever wondered what it takes to be an entrepreneur?

The professional and personal challenges, the high and lows, the failures and the success?

Startup Weekend is a global grassroots movement of active and empowered entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures. It is the largest community of passionate entrepreneurs with over 400 past events in 100 countries around the world in 2011.

The non-profit organization is headquartered in Seattle, Washington but Startup Weekend organizers and facilitators can be found in over 200 cities around the world. From Mongolia to South Africa to London to Brazil, people around the globe are coming together for weekend long workshops to pitch ideas, form teams, and start companies.

All Startup Weekend events follow the same basic model: anyone is welcome to pitch their startup idea and receive feedback from their peers. Teams organically form around the top ideas (as determined by popular vote) and then it’s a 54 hour frenzy of business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation. The weekends culminate with presentations in front of local entrepreneurial leaders with another opportunity for critical feedback.

Whether entrepreneurs found companies, find a cofounder, meet someone new, or learn a skill far outside their usual 9-to-5, everyone is guaranteed to leave the event better prepared to navigate the chaotic but fun world of startups. If you want to put yourself in the shoes of an entrepreneur, register now for the best weekend of your life!

After the forced break we had to take in the middle of the Beer-Sheva Startup weekend event, we are happy to announce that we are back to finish the great event!

When? Where?

On December 6-7 (Thursday-Friday) at 8:30 we will join forces again in “Tapuach” Center which is located in the corner of Juda HaLevi and Shaul Hamelech Streets, in Beer-Sheva.

What is the plan?

we stopped the event after the 10 ideas were chosen, so we will pick it up on the same stage. Please make sure that all the groups are meeting again and starting to work according to the list :

  1. ונטיל חכם
  2. My phone
  3. Find me
  4. השלט שלי לדלת
  5. Location trigger
  6. Caloric meter
  7. J starter
  8. I’m fine
  9. IaraYelp
  10. תפריט מסעדות

Start weekend – what is it? A quick reminder

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Startup Weekend, it is a 54-hour Hackathon that is being held in over hundreds of different cities throughout the world. In Israel, we usually start it on Wednesday and finish on Friday. In the beginning of each event, every entrepreneur gets to pitch his idea in front of all the other entrepreneurs, and after a short voting process, the audience picks the best ideas of the bunch and all the entrepreneurs divide themselves into teams and start a 50-hours Hackathon in order to make their project into something real.

Beyond great good, drinks and an awesome T-Shirt, The experience includes mentoring from dozens of experienced entrepreneurs who share with us their road to success, failure and life stories. At the end of each event, each one of teams should present their project in front of an expert judge’s panel and the first place winner would get a services package worth thousands of dollars, just to help them make their project into a real-life kicking-ass startup.

 

We have great support from the local scene!

 We are planning to continue with over 100 entrepreneurs, developers, designers and mentors who signed up for the event and the awesome support from local municipal authorities such as the city of Beer-Sheva, the municipal business development company “7×7″ (7 is Sheva in Hebrew) and the ministry for the Negev development alongside with huge support from the industry by companies : EMC (That has its own innovation center in Beer-Sheva), Sandisk, Incubit, APM Law Firm, NegevCo., Gav-Yam (A company that is in charge of building Beer-Sheva’s Hi-Tech Park), Ness Technologies, Paris Region, WMG and Negev Jobs.

Following them, the local universities and colleges will again join us in and together we will do our best to have a winning products.

If you have more friends who want to join the teams on the second and third days, just send them to the registration page, where they can find a discounted ticket.

 

Looking forward to seeing you in Beer- Sheva.

Schedule

Thursday

Dec 6
  • Done

Friday

Dec 7
  • Arrive, simple breakfast & coffee
  • Teams formed and setting up workspace for the weekend
  • Lunch
  • Call for needs & skills
  • Coaches help teams one-on-one. They are here to help!
  • Entrepreneur War Story - Emma Butin
  • Dinner
  • Mid weekend check-in, status reports, call for help
  • Finished for the day. You may stay and work as late as the venue will allow

Saturday

Dec 8
  • Arrive, simple breakfast & coffee
  • Call for help (this is self motivated, so don’t be shy)
  • Lunch &Coaches arrive… ASK QUESTIONS
  • Gut check. Start prepping for presentations
  • FINAL PRESENTATIONS
  • Judging & awards
  • Wrapup & Go home!
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Speakers

Emma Butin

Serial Entreprenuer   |  LinkedIn

Emma Butin is a serial entrepreneur, a mentor and lecturer on innovation. In 2008 Emma founded Kryon Systems that develops a patents-pending product called Leo. The company won numerous awards, including Finalists for best company, best product and best entrepreneur in EMEA by the Stevie Awards. Today Emma serves as a mentor to startups, writes a blog and lectures on innovation worldwide.

Judges

Irit Israeli-Kahana

Angel Investor, Afterdox

For over 3 decades Irit Israeli-Kahana held a variety of executive positions in the high tech industry both in Israel and the United States. In her last position as VP Delivery at FTS, Ms. Israeli-Kahana was responsible for all the company’s projects, QA and Customer care. Prior to FTS Ms. Israeli-Kahana spent over 10 years with Amdocs where she held various executive positions. In her last position at Amdocs Irit was VP delivery in charge of large scale projects, had P&L responsibility of large accounts, and took part in the development and implementation of Amdocs product development methodology. Prior to Amdocs, Ms. Israeli-Kahana spent 8 years with IBS, where she worked her way up to the role of Manager of Information Systems.Today Ms. Israeli-Kahana is an independent consultant and is committed to promote projects with a social agenda.

Daniel Bessis

Chief Representative in Israel at Paris Region

Daniel is currently the Head of Digital Innovation at Paris Region regional Council. As such he is one of the key support to added-value digital content and usage Parisian ecosystems (Video games, Knowledge engineering, Education, Open Source, Robotics…). He is one of the founders of Cap Digital, the Paris Ile-de-France Multimedia & Digital Life cluster and a member of its board (~€120M yearly projects). During his career at Paris Region he has been an active partner of Silicon Sentier and participated in the creation and the life of ‘’La Cantine’’, ‘’le Camping’’ and more. He also designed Paris Ile-de-France Region Telecom, Internet & multimedia policy and initiated a number of projects in the field of open telecommunication fibre optics networks.

Before his activity in a local government Daniel had an extensive international telecom career in the industry spanning over 15 years and ranging from a leading supplier to investor and operator, to European and international financial institutions as well as.

Following a 10 years career with Alcatel where he dealt with international business development, Daniel Bessis moved in 1998 to Vivendi Telecom International, the Vivendi Universal vehicle for telecommunications international investments. In this company, he worked on acquisition deals across Europe, Africa and Middle East.

Neta Cohen

CEO of BGN Technologies

Oren David

SanDisk

Was born in Beer-Sheva, He received the B.Sc and M. Sc. Honor Degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering Science from Ben-Gurion of the Negev in 1998 and 2001 respectively. He was project leader and project manager in Motorola Semiconductors, Freescale and Sandisk. Entrepreneur and establisher of “MFA” startup company (2006). Member of Beer Sheva council, chairman of the Board of Governors in “Mey-Sheva” corporation and member of “ISEF” foundation.

Roy Zwebner

Marketing Director, Gav-Yam Negev

For the last three years Roy has been the Marketing Director of the Gav-Yam Negev Science Park for Advanced Technologies, being developed adjacent to the Ben-Gurion University campus and to the future IDF IT & Technology campus in Be'er-Sheva.

Between 2005 and 2009, Roy founded and served as CEO of the start-up company "TVU", a media and information data-mining company specializing in the local news industry.

In 2007 Royi graduated from the IDC's Law and Business program. During his legal internship at Bergerson & Co, a leading Israeli law firm, he specialized in the fields of commercial and civil law, receiverships and real estate. He is a certified attorney, licensed to practice by the Israel Bar Association.

Yoav Etzyon

Associate , Amit-Pollack-Matalon & Co.

Yoav Etzyon is an associate in our firm's Corporate Department. Mr. Etzyon represents private and publicly traded companies, in a wide variety of transactions, including equity and debt offerings in Israel and the U.S. In addition, Mr. Etzyon has extensive experience in representing lenders in complex, cross-border finance transactions. Mr. Etzyon is also engaged in merger and acquisition transactions, representing companies and investors from Israel and abroad.
Mr. Etzyon has represented, amongst others:
• Technology companies in investment rounds in Israel and the U.S.
• Israeli institutional investors in purchasing half a billion loan from a European bank.
• The Meitav group in its acquisition of the indexed linked business of Clal Finance and its merger with the Dash-Apex Group.
• Mezzanine funds in complex loan transactions in the Israeli market.
Prior to joining the firm, Mr. Etzyon worked in New York as an associate in the capital market department of the international law firm Sidley Austin, where he represented U.S. banks such as Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan and Citibank in complex finance transactions including via sophisticated financial instruments and credit derivatives.

Benny Glaser

CEO, NegevCo

Over 20 years in managerial roles across the globe and in different market segments
NegevCo activities are based on the concept of developing and strengthening southern Israel through initiative and capital investment of the business sector together with governmental subsidies and grants.
Based on the accrued experience in other peripheries in the world, this combination will ensure the establishment and operation over time of sustainable business activities and the creation of diverse employment opportunities as well as a dynamic and vibrant community life.

Ran Bar-Sela

CEO, Incubit Technology Ventures Ltd

Coaches

Shai Har-Tsvi

Sandisk

Shai was born in Beer Sheva, learned at Mekif Dalet high school and graduated his BSc. in Industrial & Management Engineering at Ben-Gurion University.
He is in the business of project management for over 10 years in which he took part in many projects from deferent industries.
In the past 5 years he works as a program manager at SanDisk Omer R&D center, driving ASIC projects and cross org. top notch PM methodologies and tools.
Before SanDisk Shai worked at Baran as PMO on large projects in the Chemical industry, infrastructure, food industry and more.

Prof. Bracha Shapira

Head of Department, Department of Information Systems Engineering, Ben-Gurion University

Prof. Shlomi Dolev

Dean of the faculty, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Dr. Yonah Alexandre Bronstein

President & CTO ASTAV, inc.

Prof. Gabi Sarusi

Member of the Ilse Katz Institute for Nanoscale Science & Technology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Former Vice President, R&D Programs and CTO, El-Op

Shlomo Landress

Partner, Amit-Pollack-Matalon & Co.

Shlomo Landress, partner in the firm's High Tech and Venture Capital department, specializes in business and transactional law. Mr. Landress's practice covers a broad range of corporate, commercial, and financial transactions, including public offerings, private placements, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital investments, venture lending, joint ventures, and technology licensing. Mr. Landress draws on his extensive experience to provide clients with ongoing legal advice on formation and structuring, corporate governance, various commercial agreements, employment, securities and compliance matters. Mr. Landress periodically lectures at business forums and publishes articles on corporate, technology and regulatory issues. Mr. Landress' clients range from entrepreneurs and startups, to investment funds, industrial companies and multi-national corporations, domestic and foreign. He also advises management and in-house counsel of public companies listed abroad (including dual-listed, on Nasdaq and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange). Prior to joining the firm, from 1998 to 2001, Mr. Landress was an associate with the corporate, securities and high-tech practice group of Arnold & Porter (New York). From 1995 to 1998, Mr. Landress served as the Legal Advisor to the Government of Israel Economic Mission to North America.

Andres Kukawaka

CEO & CTO, Tequel

David Amsalem

CEO, TvTAK

Salomon Elhadad, MD

Salomon Elhadad is one of the founders of Dalet (www.dalet.com), a worldwide public company specializing in the development and deployment of software for broadcasters and media professionals.
In 1995, Salomon established the R&D center of the company in Beer Sheva “Gefen Dekel Technologies LTD” and he is the CEO since then.
Today, the Israeli branch employs over 100 software professionals who are responsible for the technical development and operations of the company.
Salomon has training as a Medical Doctor with specialization in Artificial Intelligence. He has been involved in the development of several technological startup companies in the past 20 years.

Idan Katz

VP Business Development, Incubit Technology Ventures Ltd.

VP Business Development of Incubit Technology Ventures. Business executive with broad experience in defining a business strategy and implementing it via portfolio management. Initiating analytical and multi-disciplinary business cases for new products and capital raising. Proven abilities in identifying new market trends and translating customer needs into technological requirements leveraging on vast product management experience. During his professional experience Idan worked for both big companies: Texas Instruments, Motorola, Intel, GE Medical and small companies: Bootcamp Ventures, Net2Wireless.

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Moran Bar
Yaniv Feldman
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