The Smart Techie (the technology magazine) is organizing an event called Startup City- this is a potpourri of a conference, unconference (birds of a feather gatherings) and industrial exhibition style startup showcase booths. The event is slated for the 24th of May in Bangalore. The formalized conference is a day long event and features prominent industry members, VCs etc (the agenda is here). Startups wanting to exhibit their product or conduct live demo sessions would have to pay 30K for a 3X2 metre booth. Quite a few startups have signed up already - Sloka, Netcore, Pramati, mChek etc). Attending the event is complimentary for technical professionals- they have to register using this form and once approved, the invitation will be emailed back. Alongside the conference & the startup exhibition, there will be a closed door CEO conclave, to be attended by CEOs and Managing Directors of over 150 startups. This is to facilitate an informal discussion amongst the senior management about best practices.
The event is sponsored by Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Nokia & Amazon.
To facilitate networking during the event, the event organisers have created an online tool called Smart Connect. Attendees can log into the tool and find out who else is attending, send them messages and even connect with the speakers before the event itself. Sounds quite an idea.. lets hope this actually works out well.
I am a trifle intrigued by the idea of startup showcase booths. While I am not attending the event itself, I’d be interested in knowing how this actually works out. We have all become used to the idea of startup presentations, live demos etc in a conference or unconference style setting. Can startup demo booths prove more effective in catching attention and creating awareness? Do any of the readers of this blog have any prior experience of this? How does this actually work out? Do share your feedback in the comments section.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi
I was there at the Smart Techie Startup City and was as intrigued to behold a exhibition style format. After my presentation , I spent some time moving across the booths , One thing that struck me the moment I entered the Exhibition hall was the number of people who had turned out for the event.The turnout was mammoth.
There was a lot of activity around booths , but its difficult to ascertain if any business resulted , most of the participants were also using the booths to communicate Career opportunities at their respective companies.
My feel is that from a business persepective , the Startups whose services / products are targeted at Startups / people ( Social networks / communities ) would have benefited ( Injoos stall had lots of people )..the startups that have their offerings targeted towards Enterprise may not have gained much from business leads standpoint but visibility wise I think these booths were well worth the amount of money spent. I had a word with NetMagic ( Our partners on web hosting ) who had a booth there, and they were pleased with the response they got.
Bakshish,
Thanks for the pespective; your analysis makes sense…
With the spate of unconference evenstdoing the rounds, it might makes sense for event organisers to try out this format more. Even at Barcamps, the sessions tend to be less in focus… people tend to be spending the major time networking, chaiiting etc.
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