Kickstarting innovation and entrepreneurship

Concordia hosts 54 hours of activity with Startup Weekend Montreal

Montreal, July 10, 2013 – For many, creating a new business is a lifelong dream. For some, that dream could come true during Startup Weekend Montreal. Concordia University is both host and sponsor of the pitch-and-business-creation event July 12-14.

About 130 participants will be expected to create a startup business within just 54 hours. Over 20 experienced business leaders, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs will be on site to provide mentorship and advice as well as to lead presentations on related subjects.

“Concordia is a meeting place of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. We want to encourage that spirit and help our students take their great ideas to the next level,” says Concordia President Alan Shepard. “Bringing Startup Weekend Montreal to Concordia reinforces that commitment."

About Startup Weekend

Startup Weekend Montreal builds upon the success of similar events around the world. In 2012 alone, there were 400 startup events in over 100 countries. Startup Weekend is a core initiative of UP Global, an organization that aims to foster worldwide entrepreneurial communities and provide action-based programs for entrepreneurs.

The event at Concordia is made possible thanks to Charles Morand and Sergio A. Escobar, the lead organizers of this year’s edition, who are, respectively, a venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur.

“In Montreal, if we want to build a long-term and sustainable entrepreneurial community, we need effective leaders engaging with the community,” says Escobar. “I believe Startup Weekend is a great way to generate new leaders from the community.”

“It’s all sourcing the knowledge of entrepreneurs and helping the next generation of leaders find their feet in the world of startups,” says Morand.

Speakers include Dave McClure, founder of the company 500 Startups, an internet startup seed fund and incubator program in Mountain View, CA, and Katherine Hague, co-founder and CEO of ShopLocket, an e-commerce software company. The event will be facilitated by Adam Stelle, vice-president of growth at UP Global. Leslie Jump, board director at UP Global, will be a jury member during the presentations of participants’ final projects.

About Concordia’s District 3

Concordia is already putting many entrepreneurial values behind Startup Weekend into action with District 3, a multidisciplinary incubator of innovation and entrepreneurship. Xavier-Henri Hervé, co-founder of the Montreal-based flight simulator company Mechtronix, has helped lead District 3’s evolution. The engineering alumnus and 2011 Concordia honorary doctorate recipient defines innovation as “meeting an unmet need.” Rather than being “magic,” he adds, “innovation results from bringing certain perspectives together and then taking a series of steps to arrive at a marketable product or service”.

District 3 has evolved as the result of alumni, students and academic leaders coming together to create a workspace that helps unleash bold new ideas.The ideastarted in the Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science but now includes students from the John Molson School of Business and the Faculty of Fine Arts, reflecting the reality that innovation often means bringing together people with different backgrounds and perspectives to explore the different dimensions of a problem.

Examples of projects currently in District 3:

• One group of students is building models of a chair to be made of polymer materials that would sense and respond to an individual’s posture.
• Another team is developing a software application called “Augmented Reality” that would allow consumers to point their smartphone’s camera at various aisles in a store and receive additional information to enhance their shopping experience.
• The “ElecLab” team has a vision for a brand new service: a rapid prototyping centre housed in the heart of Montreal that would help accelerate the development of new products at a low cost.

What: Startup Weekend Montreal
When: Friday, July 12, to Sunday, July 14 (more details on the Startup Weekend website)
Where: Abe and Harriet Gold Atrium of the Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex (1515 Ste-Catherine St. W.), Sir George Williams Campus

Related links:

• Montreal Startup Weekend
• District 3 Innovation Center 

For more information about Startup Weekend:

Sergio A. Escobar
Co-lead organizer
Startup Weekend Montreal
Tel: 514-638-8756
Email: montreal@startupweekend.org

For more information about Concordia’s District 3:

Laurence Miall
Communications Advisor
Concordia University Communication Services
Tel: 514 848-2424, ext 4063
Email: laurence.miall@concordia.ca