Edmonton’s First Startup Weekend Education

SWEDU Edmonton Banner — Startup Weekend Education Edmonton

What is Startup Weekend?

Startup Weekend is a global network of passionate leaders and entrepreneurs on a mission to inspire, educate, and empower individuals, teams and communities. StartupWeekend.org has hosted 1500 events in 726 locations around the world. Last weekend we held Edmonton’s first ever Startup Weekend Education (SWEDU) and the first Startup Weekend in four years. I had never participated in a Startup Weekend before but I knew it could be a powerful learning experience and I was excited to help bring it to Edmonton.

I believe that we are in a time when we can transform education. I don’t think that entrepreneurial thinking should be reserved for those who plan to start a business. Knowing how work with a team to take an idea, refine it, validate it, and pitch it are useful skills for everyone to have. SWEDU provided educators, students and others with coaching from experienced designers, business mentors, and industry professionals as they learned to design and build prototypes. At the end of the weekend teams pitched their ideas to a panel of judges for a chance to win prizes to help take their idea to the next level.

We didn’t attract as many educators and students to SWEDU as we had hoped, partially because it was a new event, and partially because of the length. Educators spend a lot of time working outside of the classroom. I would probably not have been able to spend a whole weekend doing something like Startup Weekend when I was teaching in Innisfail, I always had correcting and planning to do. I think SWEDU will lead to other Startup Weekend events here in Edmonton which will help spread the world about the Startup Model. I’m sure it will be easier to sell tickets to the next event.

Stephanie and Angie getting ready for the start of Startup Weekend Education Edmonton

I was recruited to the SWEDU team by Angie Terasoff. Angie, Stephanie Chan and Sherry Langland had hosted the first ever Startup Weekend Education in Western Canada in Calgary in October and they were eager to bring the event to Edmonton. Yvonne Guertin and I were the only ones on the organizing team who had never been to a Startup Weekend before. Based on feedback from teachers and students who told us that a whole weekend was too long for them, we shortened the event by one day, making the timeframe to prepare a pitch even shorter.

Day 1, Friday March 6th

As things kicked off at NAIT, I was probably as nervous as the participants. Angie kicked things off with a warm welcome to all and an explanation of what to expect. I provided what could have been my worst ever introduction to our first speaker, Chris Gusen of Make Something Edmonton. Sorry Chris, I promise I’ll do a better job next time to get a chance to introduce you. After Chris talked about Edmonton’s great maker attitude, 14 year old entrepreneur Tom Stoesz gave participants advice about making the most of the weekend based on his experience at SWEDU in Calgary, where his team won for their pitch.

Speakers Chris and Tom have dinner with Carrie and Anne-Marie

Then, the real work began with the group randomly divided into teams and given a few minutes to prepare half baked pitches. It was a great icebreaker and gave people an opportunity to start to work together as the prepared a pitch for the random idea they had been assigned. One person from each team had one minute to make their pitch.

Ryan delivering the fist half baked pitch — Ryan delivering the fist Half Baked Pitch

After the half baked pitches people had a few minutes to prepare pitches for their own ideas. You can view the half baked pitches and the initial pitches here.

After the pitches dotmocracy was used to vote for best ideas.

The best ideas were selected using dotmocracy

Those who had the best ideas picked their dream teams and got to work refining their ideas. Coaches were on hand to help.

Ryan's team gets to work — Ryan’s team gets to work

Here is the archive of what Day 1 looked like on Twitter:

Day 2 Saturday March 7th, 2015

On Saturday morning we had a great breakfast provided by the students at WP Wagner High School and served by NAIT hospitality students.

Angie welcomed everyone back and laid out the agenda for the day. Pitches needed to be ready by 6pm.

David Lloyd introduced us to the Lean Canvas model which is a better tool for startups to use because it is easier create and update than a traditional multi-page business plan that take weeks to create.

David Lloyd introducing the Lean Canvas model

Teams worked all day to refine and validate their ideas.

Compu-Thinking Validating with Stephanie and Sherry — Compu-Thinking validating with Stephanie and Sherry

Compu-Thinking Planning — Compu-Thinking planning

Preparing for the pitch

As the afternoon wore on the focused shifted to preparing for the pitch.

Team Super Great Wonder Club getting ready to pitch

You can view reflections about their Startup Weekend experiences from each of the team leads here.

The Pitches

At 6:30 it was time to present the pitches to the judges and audience.

If you’d like to watch the pitches, follow this link.

Compu-Thinking was the Runner Up

The Winners of Startup Weekend Education Edmonton – Crystal Politics

I had a great time, I learned a lot and I shot more than 6 gigs of photos and video! I’m looking forward to the next Startup Weekend event in Edmonton. Bryanna Kumpula and I have already talked about a food related event.

Here is the archive of the Twitter feed on day 2: