The fifth year of Techstars Detroit Startup Week will be a little different than years' past.
"That's probably the understatement of the year," event organizer Monica Wheat said with a laugh while discussing the upcoming event.
This year's free five-day event, beginning Monday and running through the week, will be all virtual as opposed to previous years that have been centered in downtown Detroit's Capitol Park.
The virtual event will be downsized, with about about 100 events, or about half of a normal year, Wheat said. In past years Detroit's Startup Week has attracted about 10,000 people. The top 50 programs already have an average of 500 attendees each registered, according to a news release.
Wheat, executive director of Venture Catalysts, said organizers explored canceling or postponing the conference this year, but given everything that's happening, it ultimately made sense to carry on.
"The key is that it is value-add to entrepreneurs," she said.
Sessions that were already being considered prior to the outbreak of COVID-19 have now been tweaked to talk about relevant matters. For example, typical discussions around fundraising will pivot more toward how to best raise money when things have mostly come to a standstill.
"So things like that are helping businesses learn how to adapt in this space where we are all having to go more virtual," Wheat said.
Programs and activities include keynote speakers, workshops, "fireside chats," virtual happy hours and networking.
This year's presenting sponsor, as in years past, is Detroit-based mortgage lender Quicken Loans Inc. Other major corporate sponsors include Ford Motor Co., Google and the National Science Foundation.
Major keynote speakers this year include a variety of Google executives; Arlan Hamilton, the founder and managing partner of Backstage Capital; and Dug Song, the co-founder and general manager of Ann-Arbor-based Duo Security Inc., now owned by software giant Cisco Systems Inc. in a $2.35 billion deal.
This year's event also comes during a period of increased civil unrest as systemic racism, police brutality and economic inequality are all under a microscope due to recent events.
Leaders in the Southeast Michigan region's venture capital community have been outspoken that the status quo can no longer remain in place in the area's startup community.
The recent unrest and increased scrutiny on systemic racism is one reason the Startup Week organizers wanted to push forward with having an event this year, albeit virtual.
"Detroit Startup Week, for a couple years running, has been tagged as the most diverse Startup Week in the U.S.," Wheat said. "We have a broad range of entrepreneurs across age and gender and race."
While the weeklong event is sure to be different this year due to circumstances, Wheat expects the conversations will be right in the normal wheelhouse.
"We have always been open to having controversial topics," she said. "We've always had a subtext that we want to make Detroit the inclusive hub of entrepreneurship in the world. And so we focus on that a lot."
"Startup" - Google News
June 20, 2020 at 03:44AM
https://ift.tt/3djrPx1
Detroit Startup Week goes virtual as conversations shift - Crain's Detroit Business
"Startup" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2MXTQ2S
https://ift.tt/2z7gkKJ
No comments:
Post a Comment