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

13 Bailey Drive, Alumni building, UNB Campus, Fredericton

This location is on the UNB campus at the Alumni Building. It is also the Pond Deshpande Centre.

 

Are you looking for a ride to Fredericton for Startup Weekend ? We are proud to announce that Maritime Bus is offering participants of Startup Weekend NB a 50% discount for one way/round trip tickets to and from Fredericton. Travel dates for discount include March 20 to 25. Regular student discounts cannot be combined. (Tickets must be purchased via credit card)To reserve your ticket, please contact andrewp@coachatlanticgroup.com Please specify your date of departure and location, and he will be in touch!If you have any questions, feel free to contact the organizing team via this email newbrunswickca@startupweekend.org

Food and snacks are included with your ticket. All you need to do is show up and get your business, product and pitch ready!

Participants must be 19+

 

 

 

Schedule

Friday

Mar 22
  • Registration Starts
  • Dinner & Networking
  • Welcome & Speakers
  • Pitches Start
  • Attendees vote for the top ideas
  • Teams start forming and discussing ideas
  • Start to formalize teams and take an inventory of skills. Be honest, and direct about what resources and skills are needed for the weekend. You may stay and work as late as the venue will allow

Saturday

Mar 23
  • 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!
  • Dinner
  • Speaker: Desh Deshpande (Mandatory)
  • Basic Pitching 101 (Mandatory)
  • Mid weekend check-in, status reports (Mandatory)
  • Finished for the day. You may stay and work as late as the venue will allow

Sunday

Mar 24
  • 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. Tech Check!
  • FINAL PRESENTATIONS
  • Judging & Awards
  • Wrapup & go home
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Speakers

Chris Crowell

Chris Crowell is a technology sector veteran and a serial social entrepreneur. As the Director of Global Third Party Technology at Open Text, the leader in enterprise information management, Chris is currently responsible for managing worldwide partnerships with Fortune 100 and early stage companies alike. Prior to joining Open Text, Chris worked in technology development and consumer marketing at Bell Canada, and drove a double bottom line investment mandate with Social Capital Partners.. In 2007, Chris founded East Coast Connected and he has also served as an adviser or director for numerous early stage companies and not-for-profit organizations.

Gururaj Desh Deshpande

President and Chairman of Sparta Group LLC, and Chairman of A123 Systems (AONE), Sycamore Networks (SCMR), Tejas Networks and HiveFire

Desh Deshpande is the President and Chairman of Sparta Group LLC, and Chairman of A123 Systems (AONE), Sycamore Networks (SCMR), Tejas Networks and HiveFire. Prior to co-founding Sycamore Networks, Dr. Deshpande was founder and chairman of Cascade Communications Corp.
Gururaj Deshpande

Dr. Deshpande holds a B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology – Madras, an M.E. from the University of New Brunswick in Canada, and Ph.D from Queens University in Canada.

Dr. Deshpande serves as a life-member of the MIT Corporation, and his generous support has made possible MIT’s Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation.

Leveraging the experience gained at the MIT Center, the Deshpande Foundation has helped establish three other centers

Judges

Rivers Corbett

Visionary Entrepreneur   |  LinkedIn

Rivers Corbett, MBA is an award winning Entrepreneur, Speaker, CEO, Author of "13 Fears of Entrepreneurs", and Founder of The Entrepreneurs Summit. Recently, he started a "Startup School". You can read more about him on his website - www.riverscorbett.ca.
He is also a member of Startup Canada's National Advisory Council and is entrepreneur in residence at the University of New Brunswick.

Startup Kitchen interview with Rivers

Susan Holt

President & CEO at New Brunswick Business Council   |  LinkedIn

Susan is president and CEO at the New Brunswick Business council. Susan has worked in some globally well known firms such as Cognos, Manpower, HP and local startup Chalk Media which was acquired by BlackBerry. She works hard to support entrepreneurs in the province and in her role at the New Brunswick Business Council, she is trying to make New Brunswick a place to start businesses.

Startup Kitchen interview with Susan

Gary Stairs

Rainmaker. Future shaper. Causer of collisions.   |  LinkedIn

Gary is a visionary who continually positions the province of New Brunswick and has raised our profile in areas of e-learning, mobile technologies, crowdfunding, and social media. He is an innovator in supporting social causes, with the development of ground-breaking “apps” for the New Brunswick Nature Trust, leading a crowd-funding financial drive for homeless in the wake of the Isaac’s Way fire.

He has been successful, through many iterations, putting New Brunswick on the map in a national or international context, bringing key players here, and reaching out as a keynote speaker for conferences and meetings on 3 continents (in 2007-2008 he spoke to 21,000 people).

Gary played a significant role in building the e-learning industry in New Brunswick through his leadership of LearnNB - and this industry still plays a major economic role through companies such as Innovatia, Skillsoft, Pulse Learning, Orange Sprocket, PQA, and Bluedrop Performance, as well as his own Stellar Learning Strategies firm.

Gary recently received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his outstanding contributions to Canada's IT
community.

Calvin Milbury

President & CEO at New Brunswick Innovation Foundation   |  LinkedIn

Calvin manages the foundation’s operations, leads its investment activities, and actively manages its growing portfolio of venture capital investments. Calvin established the foundation’s venture capital fund, is the creator of the popular Breakthru Business Plan Competition, and has participated in the creation and development of over 40 new innovative companies.

 With a passion for turning research and development into enterprise, Calvin and his team last year reached a major milestone, selling its $327,000 investment in Radian6 Technologies to Salesforce.com for $9.2 million.

Startup Kitchen interview with Calvin

Keith McIntosh

CEO, PQA   |  

As the CEO at Professional Quality Assurance Ltd., Keith is a recognized business leader in New Brunswick. He is a founding board member of the New Brunswick Information Technology Council and a member of the Premier’s Advisory Council on Technology. Keith is also involved in mentoring and supporting start-ups via organizations like Launch36, 21inc, Wallace McCain Institute and Pond Deshpande Centre, and investments such as Iona Software Solutions.

Startup Kitchen interview with Keith McIntosh

Coaches

Brian Dunphy

CTO, OneLobby   |  LinkedIn

Brian was one of the founders of Radian6, a company that was acquired by Salesforce last year for about 326 million in 2011.

He has since left Radian6 to be part of a new exciting startup called OneLobby, which is an event management platform.
Brian is passionate about creating great user experiences for users.

Startup Kitchen interview with the OneLobby founding team

Brian also serves as a mentor to a number of startups through the Propel ICT Launch36 Accelerator Program.

Jeff Thompson

President & CEO at UserEvents Inc.   |  LinkedIn

Jeff was the CEO & Founder of Conseros Software, a Fredericton based company that automated customer service tasks in enterprises. Conseros was acquired by Genesys/Alcatel Lucent in 2009.

Startup Kitchen interview with Jeff

He has since founded a new company called UserEvents, a disruptor in the Big Data space.

Startup Kitchen interview with the UserEvents technical team

Jeff also serves as a mentor to a number of startups through the Propel ICT Launch36 Accelerator Program.

Peter Clark

Vice President, Investments Atlantic Canada   |  LinkedIn

Peter, having joined GrowthWorks Atlantic Ltd. in 2006 as the Regional Investment Manager for New Brunswick, now serves an expanded role within the investment team as Vice President Investments. He brings a depth of experience serving on senior management teams and executing corporate development transactions. Prior to joining GrowthWorks, Peter held increasingly senior positions with large publicly-traded corporations (Teletech, TCI Communications) and start-up companies (Covad Communications, Barrett Xplore) in the United States and Canada.

Peter is using his knowledge of leading investments, acquiring companies, and establishing joint ventures to help GrowthWorks Atlantic Venture Fund expand its investment portfolio throughout the Atlantic provinces.

Peter holds a Bachelor of Arts (Economics) from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. In addition to his portfolio company responsibilities for the Atlantic Fund, Peter serves on the Board of Directors of Lymbix, IntroHive, Enovex Technologies, MultiCorpora, and Acentify. He serves as Past-Chair of the Board of the Fredericton Community Foundation.

Scott Walton

President, Enovex   |  LinkedIn

Scott is owner and President of Enovex which is a materials science company headquartered in Saint John, NB. Enovex is developing advanced porous materials for industrial gas separation and production. Scott is a Director for the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Saint John Board of Trade (chairing the revenue committee), and has previously been a director with the World Petroleum Council Youth Board, FUSION Saint John Board, and the Propel Energy Advisory team. He served on the Going Global Initiative task force which looked at how companies in Atlantic Canada can go global and improve their international trade capacity.

Startup Kitchen interview with Scott

R. Paul Simmonds

President, Robert Simmonds Clothing   |  LinkedIn

Paul Simmonds has been in the retail clothing and footwear business for 35 years, all at the independent level.

In 1998, Paul founded his own independent clothing business and has since expanded four times in different markets affiliated with the company’s core business.

Paul has been on the past boards of Retail Council of Canada, Junior Achievement, and Women in Transition House and The Fredericton Community Foundation, which serves the greater Fredericton area. This Foundation has established a fund for emerging
youth, to which Robert Simmonds Clothing donates a portion of annual sales.

Paul is currently enrolled in the Wallace McCain Institute involved in The
Entrepreneurship Learning Program and co-chairs of the Canadian Independent retail committee My Store a new division of the Retail Council of Canada. Paul is also a current member of the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce & Vice president of the
Fredericton Fashion Council.

Robin Bate Boerop

CTO, UserEvents   |  LinkedIn

Robin Bate Boerop is CTO and co-founder of UserEvents. He masterminds all aspects of software architecture, research, and development.

Robin has a broad knowledge of software systems, experience with open source development, great interpersonal skills, and first-class analytical skills. An infovore by nature, he brings expertise beyond his sixteen years of professional experience.

He specializes in: performance programming techniques, big data architectures, memory management algorithms, compiler construction theory, Haskell, Intel and PowerPC assembly language, large scale C/C++ development, web-based technologies, just-in-time compilation.

Startup Kitchen interview with the UserEvents technical team

Paul Graham

Senior Developer at Introhive   |  LinkedIn

Mobile and web expert with a proven history of innovation at startups. Developed and delivered world leading applications in mobile point of sale, processing hundreds of millions of dollars in transaction annually, credit insurance and the gaming industry (betting, not video games). Have experience of lean startup and VC backed and have been a key resource in two exits, including one as a founder.

Russell Smith

Senior User Experience Designer at IntroHive

Believing in design methodologies where the user comes before technology, Russel designs online products and services that are designed with the user top of mind. With 12 years of experience in usability testing, visual design, interaction design, and information architecture, he has gained valuable insights on creating meaningful interactions for consumers.

Along with delivering on a daily basis, giving back is one of the most rewarding feelings he can experience in my professional life. Russel has given back to the Atlantic Region ICT community by doing talks on UX with The University of New Brunswick, Propel ICT Launch36, IIBA and DEV East Halifax.

David L. Wagner

President & CEO, Atlantic Hydrogen

David L Wagner is President and CEO of Atlantic Hydrogen Inc., a Fredericton, NB based company focused on the production of hydrogen and removal of carbon from natural gas. David has degrees in business and computer science and more than 30 years experience in sales, marketing and business management at the highest levels, including president and CEO of Unisys Canada Inc. Prior to joining AHI, he was a principal in Accelerator Inc., a consulting firm that provided specialty services to start-up companies. David has sat on the board of directors for several organizations ranging from new enterprises to not-for-profit agencies

Dr. Dhirendra Shukla

Chair, Associate Professor   |  

Dr. Dhirendra Shukla has been the Dr. J. Herbert Smith ACOA Chair since September 2009. He did his BEng and MSc in Chemical Engineering and Computing and Performance Engineering from the University of Bradford (UK). Dhirendra worked for several years in the Telecom Sector for Nortel Networks (Canada) in various roles and prior to joining Nortel Networks he worked for Croda International (UK). Dhirendra obtained his MBA from the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa (Canada) and completed his PhD in Entrepreneurial Finance from the University of London in the UK (King's College London). His current research interests are in Venture Capital, Syndication, Entrepreneurship, Corporate Finance, Performance and Governance, and Boards of Directors.

Dhirendra currently teaches Entrepreneurial Finance, Business Planning and Strategy in an Entrepreneurial Environment, Global Engineering, Managing in the Creative Economy as well as Experiential Learning in Technology Management and Entrepreneurship.

Don Spencer

President, Iona Software Solution

Don has more than 25 years experience in the design and development of commercial software products in both established software companies and start-ups including over 12 years in senior management and executive positions.

Prior to starting Iona Software Solutions Don spent five years as the Director of Technology at Autism Pro, a ‘virtual autism clinic’ aimed at increasing accessibility to autism intervention. In this role, he directed the company's technical vision and product portfolio with an eye toward innovation, simplicity and customer satisfaction and helped manage its eventual acquisition by market leader Trumpet Behavioral Health.

Before joining AutismPro Don served as a Division Manager for CARIS, a global provider of geographic information systems software. During his time at CARIS Don led the company’s initiative to internet enable the product line and led the development team tasked with creating the next generation of the company’s product architecture.

He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Brunswick.

Organizers
Karina Leblanc
Barbara Ells
Robert Foley
Jessica Kennedy
Sally Ng
Suhaim Abdussamad
Heather B Kinnie
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