3D food printing, want to see it in action? Then get your tickets fast for Ireland’s very first #FoodTech Startup Weekend! Tickets are €45 with students and unwaged getting 50 per cent off!
Galway has such a thriving food culture that we decided to hold the first ever Irish Startup Weekend #FoodTech Edition in the city, hopefully making Galway the Irish hub of #FoodTech and the people of Galway have gotten behind us! Join us for a weekend of freebies, great food, amazing food talks, blogging and UX design chats and some great social media competitions! Also look us up on Facebook or @galstartweekend on Twitter for a chance to win two tickets!
The Startup Weekend is a place where you get to test your aptitude for business or validate an idea you have been working on, it’s cheap — you will get well fed - you will make great friends, you will work on a team and learn team dynamics - you will learn incredibly valuable information via the lineup of talks and mentors over the weekend. It’s for everyone! This really is going to be a fantastic weekend, one that keeps on giving for years to come with the networking opportunities and connections you are sure to make! The top 10 ideas pitched on Friday will form teams with everyone else and work until Sunday at 5pm when they will pitch in front of our five judges and the assembled audience. You should come, everyone is welcome to final pitches and you can see the 3d Candy Printers in action with Founder Melissa Snover giving a demo! Just book your spectator tickets online and don’t miss it!
And it just keeps getting better at #SWGalway #FoodTech - participants not only receive an organic fairtrade tshirt, locally sourced, designed in house by @keith_Farrell and locally printed, of course! Our participants are also going to receive a GOODIE Bag packed with some amazing stuff! Produce from wicked blends, solaris tea and caveman grub to only mention a few! Did someone say voucher booklet?! We supported local producers and wanted to highlight some of the amazing eateries also! The voucher booklet is supported by Ard Bia, 56 Central, Coffeewerk + Press and Urban Grind to name a few!
Deputy Hildegarde Naughton is opening the event on Friday at 7PM in Superpixel Labs, Fairgreen Rd. Then Limerick entrepreneur and Social Media expert Shane McCarthy will facilitate a fireside chat with Cait7 Noone, discussing European Region of Gastronomy 2018, Aoibheann O’Brien, FoodCloud and Dr. Lisa Ryan, GMIT, in a discussion aimed at educating and inspiring us all in the future of food. Saturday sees talks including ‘Knowing the hand that feeds you’, your online presence with Valerie O’Connor, Saibh Egan and Mark McGann, this talk is a must for foodies and those looking to start blogging!!! We can’t wait!
Fancy your chance of winning a chili competition sponsored by Athenry’s Bia Lover Food festival? Well how about trying to be the fastest or have the most retweets when you devour a pot of ‘Cool Beans’ using only a toothpick? Either way your social media skills will have improved no end! We are delighted with our menu throughout the weekend also with the local Enterprise Office, under Breda Fox, supporting some of their finest clients to feed us all, Curry & Spice, Feed the Pulse, Bowl of Granola, juicy lucy… again there is more as we have been offered incredible support by local food producers and we are able to offer delicious meals and tastings for participants to enjoy throughout the weekend! We even have been given biodegradable bowls to eat your granola from, in fact you can actually eat the bowl if you want as it’s made from 100% wheat husks!
So who should come to startup Weekend #FoodTech? Anyone that has an idea or an interest in Food, from seed to mouth to waste! We really hope to see some agricultural ideas and solutions as agriculture is so strong in the west, We’re still waiting to be approached by someone in this sector to please see this as a call to the farmers with entrepreneurial spirit to come onboard! Food waste is another big issues in the food industry! Scaling and distribution - great difficulties there for small scale food producers, social media barrier for foodies… the list goes on! Have an idea? Don’t be scared! Come have a look and you might see your company built in 54hours! It’s unbelievable!
Startup Weekend final pitches is not a million miles away from Dragons Den and definitely worth a look! Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to follow the weekend and get links to all the speakers! We plan to put up video links, thanks to Emma from BabyJane productions for giving up her weekend to help us out!
It goes without saying that we could not have done it without the incredible support from Bank of Ireland who are our main sponsor and a huge sponsor of the Irish Startup Weekend community and startups in general! In fact it was Gene Murphy from Workbench Dublin that first suggested holding a #FoodTech Edition when he saw my passion with connecting foodies with the local startup up ecosystem in Galway. Thanks to the Galway BOI team Tracy Keogh in BOI StartLab and Annie Claffey at the Galway Workbench. Shout out to Barry and Mike Duffy who are letting us take over their offices and Atlantic School of English who are lending us their foyer to showcase as much local food as we can!
We are excited to see what happens when we put techies, foodies, designers and business development gurus into a room together for 54hours! So get your ticket to the first ever food & tech startup weekend in Ireland here: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/startup-weekend-galway-powered-by-bank-of-ireland-tickets-20905651366
Any questions, contact us on Twitter @GalStartWeekend or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/galstartweekend/and we will be happy to help : ) @Olavelle and the team !
