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.
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Gil Beyda is the Founder & Managing Partner of Genacast Ventures, a seed fund formed in partnership with Comcast Ventures to invest in technology-centric, Internet start-ups. Gil has invested in Invite Media (acquired by Google), Demdex (acquired by Adobe), DoubleVerify, Packlate and Enterproid.
Chris Fralic is a Partner at First Round Capital, an early stage venture capital firm with offices in Philadelphia, San Francisco, and New York. Chris has 25 years of technology industry experience, with significant Internet business development roles since 1996. Prior to joining First Round, Chris was VP of Business Development at social bookmarking company del.icio.us.
Wayne D. Kimmel is a Founder and Managing Partner of Artists & Instigators with Marc Ecko and Tony Bifano. In 1999, Wayne founded his venture capital firm that has invested in startup and early-stage consumer facing technology companies. Some of them included SeamlessWeb (acquired by ARAMARK), Take Care Health Systems(acquired by Walgreens), and NutriSystem (NTRI). Currently, Artists & Instigators is an investor in Fisker Automotive, Ryzing, ReverbNation, Startup Health, Dwolla and LA Startup Weekend winner, Zaarly.
During his 34 years in private practice, he was the principal designer on numerous architectural, urban design and planning projects. Among his notable projects are the Salvation Army Kroc Corps Community Center in Philadelphia, the West Chester University School of Music and Performing Arts Center, the renovation of Lehigh University's historic Linderman Library, new campus plan and pavilions at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts and the Master Plan for the Centennial District in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park.
Philadelphia tech CEO / entrepreneur with 30 years of experience ranging from startups to Fortune 50 companies. CEO at Boomi (acquired by Dell). President of Philly Startup Leaders. Board of directors at Philadelphia Alliance of Capital and Technology. Mentor at DreamIt Ventures. Advisory boards at Mid-Atlantic Diamond Ventures (Temple University’s Fox School of Business) and Ben Franklin Technology Partners.
Robert J. Moore is the founder and CEO of RJMetrics, one of Philadelphia’s best-known technology startups. RJMetrics creates software that helps online businesses unlock the valuable insights hidden within their own data.
Marc is a graduate of the Rochester Institute of Technology with a degree in Software Engineering. He comes to CloudMine as its CTO and founder after a year at Oracle doing enterprise-level iOS application development and brief stint at RJMetrics.
Chuck Sacco - President of Mobile Monday Mid-Atlantic, Vice President of Client Strategy at Movitas and Adjunct Faculty at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business.
Ellen Edelman Weber is the Executive Director of Robin Hood Ventures. She is also Managing Director of Antiphony, a strategic consulting firm that helps companies create sustainable value, responsible for the Leadership Development practice. Prior to that, Ellen spent twelve years at Shared Medical Systems where she was responsible for initiatives encompassing organizational development, customer support and corporate communications. She also has served as a senior consultant for Andersen Consulting. Ellen graduated from The Wharton School with a B.S. in economics.
Chris DiFonzo is Founder & CEO of OpenDesks, a mobile-social networking providing instant access to places to meet and work in 1000+ venues in over 100 countries. Chris blends a strong technical foundation with close to 20 years of diverse business and technology experience.
Yasmine Mustafa just joined NetLine Corportation after they acquired her blog advertising company, 123LinkIt. She's been involved in DreamIT Ventures and PhilaDev. She is currently active within Philly Startup Leaders, runs a local Chapter of GirlDevelopIt which empowers women to learn how to code, and she sits on the board of TechGirlz.org.
Karl is the Director of the Program in Business and Entrepreneurship Law and a Professor of Law at Drexel University’s Earle Mack School of Law. He is also the Founder & CEO of ApprenNet LLC, an education company that builds online learning communities, including LawMeets™.
Ilya Braude is Co-Founder, Developer, and VP of Engineering at CloudMine - a platform that provides full backend support for applications via an API, allowing developers to build fast, scalable apps quickly. Ilya graduated from Drexel University with BS and MS degrees in Computer Science.
Brad Denenberg is the Chief Executive Officer and founder of Seed Philly, overseeing the all-volunteer team. Brad is responsible for organizing the community and driving new Seed Philly initiatives. In addition, Brad provides business strategy consulting to a number of startups from within the Seed Philly community, taking an active role in planning and business development.
Guy Fighel is the Director of Research & Development at Vonage Mobile. Leading multiple technology teams for mobile telecommunication products & system development. Oversee the creation for software delivery and provide technical and architectural direction for design, Agile development and implementation of Voice Over IP network technology. Guy specializes in System & Software Architecture, Telecommunication, Security and networking. Focusing on Server-side software development.
Leonid Kravets, esq. is an associate patent attorney at Panitch, Schwarze, Belisario and Nadel, LLP in Philadelphia, PA. Mr. Kravets focuses his practice on patent prosecution and intellectual property transactional law, including the preparation and prosecution of patent applications, preparing patentability and infringement opinions, conducting intellectual property due diligence investigations and providing litigation support for patent cases.
Prior to coming to Panitch Schwarze, Mr. Kravets was a senior patent analyst at a leading patent consultancy, where he evaluated patent portfolios of various sizes from individual inventors to Fortune 500 companies.
Mr. Kravets is a member of the bars of the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He received his JD cum laude from the Temple University Beasley School of Law. He holds dual bachelors degrees in Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.
Mr. Kravets is active in the Philadelphia tech and start-up communities and has been a founder and an advisor to numerous technology startups and entrepreneurs. He is also an inventor on numerous patents and pending patent applications.
We at Philadelphia Startup Weekend recently had our most successful event ever, and I attribute a good portion of that to an increased participation from designers. As a designer myself, I was a participant at the previous event in October 2011 and instantly became hooked, evangelically telling every designer I could get near about what [...]
Thank you to everyone who came out to Startup Weekend! It was an incredible event because everyone brought their A game. Whether you were a sponsor, a coach, or an attendee, the week couldn’t have been as awesome as it was without you. The weekend’s over, but your startup is still thriving. Here is a [...]
Here’s what you can expect this weekend: Friday: 5:00 PM Registration Starts – Light food will served 6:30 Kickoff & Speakers – Here’s how we tell you what’s going to happen over the weekend 7:30 Pitches Begin – The moment you’ve been waiting for! 60 seconds to knock ‘em dead 9:00 Attendees vote for the [...]
Winning at Startup Weekend means lots of things. It means learning more than you ever thought you could learn in a weekend. It means meeting more interesting people than you ever thought you’d meet in your lifetime. It means starting something and changing your life. It also means ranking as the best team as voted [...]
The most formal parts of Startup Weekend happen at the beginning, with the pitch, and at the end, with the presentations before the judges. If you’re going to pitch an idea, here is a guide that will help you think through your idea and structure your pitch. If you plan on joining a team, here [...]
Startup Weekends are all about learning through the act of creating. In other words, build, but also learn. Test out new business models and take advantage of incredible face time with the movers and shakers in Philly’s tech and startup community. It’s the most valuable experiential learning event and networking opportunity you’ll participate in all [...]
Startup Weekend is about building, and it’s also about learning from the people sitting next to you and walking around UArts. There is no other event quite like Startup Weekend for meeting people who will help you turn your ideas into something real well beyond the weekend. These people are called coaches. Mentors can give anyone [...]
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