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28 Jun 2021
4 Min Read
Yusmani Yunus, Bizpod Incubator Executive
On 18th February 2006, David Cohen bounced an email off to David Brown with an original idea. At that point of time, it was the peak of start-ups mushrooming all over the tech world. He thought it’d be a good idea to provide a platform to fund and fuel young creative minds and their ideas. Nine months later, Techstars becomes a reality with founders David Cohen, David Brown, Brad Feld and Jared Polis. We believe entrepreneurs can change the world. From start-up founders, to corporate employees, to visionary dreamers; entrepreneurs hold the keys to the greatest challenges because they see opportunities and they take risks. Techstars help grow the ideas of these entrepreneurs into world-changing businesses.
In the summer of 2007, Andrew Hyde co-founds Startup Weekend and hosts its first event in Boulder, Colorado. Techstars Startup Weekend is a creative and collaborative three-day educational event where anyone can develop and pitch new startup ideas. It's about pitching, business model creation, prototyping, designing, and market validation, in a friendly and supportive team environment. All in just 54 hours – over one single weekend. Many dreams and ideas are realised over many of these single weekends throughout the years.
This is where BizPod of Taylor’s University Malaysia comes in.
Taylor's University Student Council (TUSC) and BizPod are co-organising with Techstars for the Techstars Startup Weekend UNI Online. This special program aims to serve as a platform for local aspiring entrepreneurs to pitch their product ideas to real-life investors, for a chance to win grant and prizes worth up to RM100,000.
During the event, all teams get to build their innovative ideas from paper to a viable business and build their prototype. On the final day of the event, teams will pitch to investors and stand a chance to scale their businesses. Through this event, BizPod aims to build, strengthen, and empower communities through superior experiential education for technical and non-technical entrepreneurs. Besides that, this will also create an innovative and excellent entrepreneurial community within Taylor's University.
From 30th July 2021 to 1st August 2021, the participants will be hosted virtually as they work together to brainstorm, and build inventions relating to innovation and vision. They will also hear from industry experts, network with like-minded people, learn how to validate new business ideas, and pitch their final business plan to a panel of successful investors and industry experts. The 3-day event begins with Friday night networking, brainstorming, business plan development, and basic prototype creation, and finally culminating to a Sunday filled with demos and presentations to judges and potential investors with their unique, scalable and realised business ideas.
Each team consists of three to six students of any faculty, course, or major – as long as one of the participants in the team is an undergraduate / bachelor degree student of Taylor’s University. Basically, it means that every team that will be participating in the program will come with various experiences, skills and backgrounds. There are no limits to what these teams can conjure up within those three days!
But, wait! What happens if a student is very interested and passionate in joining but just can’t find a team of their own? Wouldn’t it be a waste?
In the spirit of promoting entrepreneurialism, the team organised a Fire Pitching Session to specifically gather these group of passionate students and group them together. During this session, the students were given an opportunity to perform a quick pitch about themselves or their business idea. The aim of this event is to gain perspective & feedback from peers on the idea that was pitched, gather insights and inspiration from each other and most importantly, they were able to form or join or find teammates for the main Techstars Startup Weekend event!
Now, let’s talk about the prizes and what the participants will get from this.
Without a doubt, the ultimate prize that one could get from all of these will of course be the experience! Nowhere else will one be able to experience the thrill of trudging through a fulfilling three days’ worth of learning, exposure and opportunity to get your creative juices flowing.
On the more materialistic note, the winners of the Techstars Startup Weekend UNI Online will get up to RM80,000 worth of grant to kickstart the winning business idea – and that is just the beginning! It does not end there! The grant is just an initial fund and if the investors are confident of the idea, it might be the next unicorn in the startup world (imagine Amazon, Uber, AirBnB!). Besides all that, every participant will not be leaving the event empty handed too. Each participant will be given a whole list of benefits and online subscriptions from various sponsors.
So, if you have an idea that has been itching at the back of your mind, and you know deep inside that it will be the next big thing – don’t wait anymore. Make it come to life. Give it an opportunity to shine. This is your chance to shine.