You guys need to sleep with eachother. Actually, let’s clarify that. You can “sleep rough” for one night to raise money for homeless kids. Plus it’s an awesome way to make contacts. Did we say that? Yes.
Let’s be cynical for a moment. Byte Night is a UK-wide charity event from the technology industry – more the corporate “I.T.” world than startups – which has been going for 10 years. Every year mostly corporate technology CEOs and executives bed down in sleeping bags to support and raise awareness for the charity Action for Children, raising over £550,000. This year there will be 700 sleepers across all Byte Night locations, including London, Reading, Cambridge, Manchester and Edinburgh, all on 8th October.
But frankly let’s cut to the chase here.
Participants in 2009 included professionals from BT, Dell, Oracle, Citrix, VeriSign and HP. The “sleepers” range from systems developers to CIOs and business managers to marketers.
That’s cool and great of course, but it could also mean you get to make tech connections you might otherwise not. Hey, it’s a networking event with an upside for charity.
So I’d like startups to get involved. There’s often a bit of disconnect between corporates tech companies and startups. Sleeping rough with eachother – literally – is a way to break down those walls. No, really. Hey, stop laughing in the back there…
The serious bit: Action for Children supports over 156,000 children, young people and their families at around 420 projects nationwide. The £2.5m raised so far by Byte Night has helped some of the most vulnerable children and young people. Also check out bytenightbedtimestory.org.uk where they are creating the “longest ever user-generated bedtime story in UK history.”