Bloomington Startup Feb. 8-10, 2008 [a startup weekend event]

The interest in Bloomington Startup Weekend has been wonderful. When we reached 70, we met every recruiting goal and moved in the “plus” territory. There is a hard ceiling of 100, due to physical constraints of the facility and a natural upper ceiling on group dynamics.

We are still looking for one more major sponsor ($500) and as many minor sponsors ($100) as would like to contribute. Thanks to the response from participants, though, I get to comfortably move into making sure the material, musical and food needs are met.

Thank you, Indiana! (Especially John Hill, our Technology Director, who kept the widget useful and up-to-date throughout our two week drive past 70.)

UPDATE: As a result of this article, we expanded the number of available tickets. We’re shooting for 80 now.

W00t!

Herald-Times reporter Sarah Morin persisted through a busy couple weeks of local news to get our story in the traditional press. Although I won’t be holding the print version in my hands for several more hours, Morin’s article on Bloomington Startup Weekend—”Group to start new company in one weekend“—appears on the front page of the January 31, 2008 edition of the paper:

The chance to discover and market the next big business is about brainstorming, negotiating and developing a concept with the other participants.

That’s right. In the era of speed dating and power networking, there’s now the swift startup.

People can create and invest in a new enterprise in the space between happy hour Friday evening to when the alarm clock rings Monday morning and ushers in another day, another week of jobs and classes.

Source: Herald-Times

In addition to me praising the community-building and promotional aspect of the weekend, City councilman Brad Wisler is quoted from a council meeting, saying “We really want to show that Bloomington is the kind of place that supports innovation.”

There is a nice sidebar to the piece, as well, containing details on what Startup Weekend is all about.

Unfortunately, the local paper is only available online to subscribers.

Last night, I attended a meeting of Women Inspire, a three-year-old group promoting personal and professional connections between local women. It was an interesting evening that included a speech by 9th District Congressional candidate Gretchen Clearwater. My purpose for attending was to spread the word about Bloomington Startup Weekend, making a special appeal to local women to help us achieve gender equity.

Gender equity is a known problem. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 26.7% of employees in computer and mathematical fields in 2006 were female, earning 84.7% of what men do. Those numbers are in decline even as the jobs in the IT field are more plentiful. This is reflected in academia, where the number of female students is noticeably low. At Indiana University, approximately 11% of students in CS and Informatics are women. One of the groups locally working to reverse this trend is Women In Computing (WIC), who are currently finishing a two-day retreat at McCormicks Creek State Park in nearby Spencer, Indiana.

While we won’t fix the problem simply by getting a large number of local women to show up at City Hall in February, visible involvement by women can have impact. Seeing women collaborating in our photos and streaming video from our event might inspire others to follow their paths. Perhaps more importantly, the flavor and direction of the new company will be different with many women involved than without them.

At the moment, Bloomington Startup Weekend has 11 women on board with 28 spots remaining. Let’s see at least a dozen more women register before we run out of opportunities.

Resources on gender equity:

Association for Women in Computing (AWC)

The Anita Borg Institute

ACM’s Committee on Women and Computing

Carnegie Mellon Project on Gender and Computer Science

The Ada Project

Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research

Center for Women in Information Technology

Women-Related Science-Technology Email Lists

Andrew Hyde of Startup Weekend announced Bloomington as an official venue. The registration is now open, with more formal notification trickling out in the next 48 hours.

Please reserve your spot today. I look forward to meeting you all in person in a few weeks.