By Shannon Paul
Last week Craig Sutton, someone I know from Twitter, posted an interview with me on his blog about some of my various endeavors. One of the questions in particular related specifically to Startup Weekend Detroit:
Q: You are organizing the upcoming Startup Weekend Detroit (Mar. 27-29). Can you explain what that is, and why other cities would benefit from doing the same?
A: The Startup Weekend organization was founded by Andrew Hyde in Boulder, Colorado. There have been several Startup Weekends in cities across the country and even in Europe. Basically the event gathers together creatives and people with technical skills to launch new companies within a single weekend. Each event is different since the direction is largely determined by the people who show up. I live in Detroit and I was raised here. There are hard times across the country right now, but Detroit is under even more intense strain than most in the U.S. I really believe that the future of this city lies in the ability to bring people together to get great ideas off the ground. Nobody becomes successful in a vacuum. We need each other. Events like Startup Weekend help bring people together with a variety of skills to roll up their sleeves, work side by side and get things done. I attended Startup Weekend in Ann Arbor, Michigan last year. What struck me most about the event was the fact that so much was accomplished in a single weekend. This experience leaves people who attend with the feeling that anything really is possible if you work together. What city couldn’t benefit from a little of that?
What are your hope for Startup Weekend Detroit? If you participated in a Startup Weekend anywhere else in the world, what was your takeaway? Would you do it again?
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2 responses so far ↓
1 I Have A Dream… re: Detroit Startup Weekend | the urbane life // Feb 24, 2009 at 11:47 am
[...] is Startup Weekend you ask? Well, I think it can be best explained in a blog post by Shannon Paul - the VeryOfficialBlog.com writer and New Media person for the Detroit Red Wings. It is taking [...]
2 Hubert Sawyers III // Feb 24, 2009 at 7:59 pm
My hope is that a renewed sense of hope from this event can temporarily overshadow this rough spell we are going through. I know we have a lot of work to do, but we need optimism with new ideas. We have people that have hope and then we have people with ideas, now is the time to blend the two.
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