Kyle
Startup Weekend was founded in Boulder Colorado in 2007, by Andrew Hyde. What we now know as the 54 hour hackathon style, team startup weekend event started out with a different model. When Hyde created Startup Weekend the goal was to bring a group together to work on one idea or concept all weekend.
That model evolved into what we know today as Startup Weekend and the thousands of clones out there. In 2009 Marc Nager and Clint Nelsen acquired Startup Weekend and made it an official 501c3 non-profit organization.
The following year they received major backing from the Kauffman Foundation.
Today Startup weekend has hosted events across 100 countries and 400 cities. Startup Weekend events are serious business for their hacker, entrepreneur and founder participants. In fact missile attacks couldn’t even thwart this Israeli Startup Weekend (at first).
Startup Weekend has also hosted global contests pitting participants in several cities and countries against each other. The Global Startup Battle is in its second year and took place last month as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. Mega Startup Weekend is also another event that highlights the collective efforts of entrepreneurs at Startup Weekend events.
Startup Weekend will celebrate the creation of 100,000 entrepreneurs in their 3 years of existence in the current format. To mark the occasion Nager and Nelsen will ring the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday morning.
According to GeekWire Startup Weekend has raised $75 million dollars for entrepreneurship and created thousands of jobs.
Linkage
Startup Weekend can be found here
Here’s nibletz coverage of Startup Weekend
Check out this giant startup event
