A brief interlude to mention a good event coming up in Europe later this year that we think will add something to the community here. The Pioneers Festival is in Vienna on 29-31st of October, at the Hofburg Imperial palace. It’s aimed at 2,500 visitors and will host a main conference and startup competition. The winning startups get €25,000 prize money and applications for the competition are open till September 7th. With a Halloween closing party, product displays and art installations it should be quite different. The location of Vienna is also pretty convenient for a lot of Central European startups.
They also plan a “Clash of the Founders” where a team from Europe and team from the U.S. will battle it out to create a startup in 24 hours. Team Europe will be Felix Petersen (Amen) and Edial Dekker (Gidsy) vs. Team U.S.: Justin Kan (Socialcam) and Kyle Bragger (Forrst). The judges will be the imperious gentleman Ben “The Beast” Parr (it says here) and… yours truly.
Tomorrow we will publish a comprehensive guide to the major tech startup events in Europe.