Well, it started with a conversation. I’d never run a TechCrunch Meetup or ‘CrunchUp’ in Italy, so I asked my contacts there, where and when should we do one? Little did I realise the tsunami I’d unleash. It seems the tech scene in Italy has been growing fast recently. I don’t know all the reasons why just yet (we’ll leave the economists to speculate perhaps), but a simple CrunchUp planned for Rome this week has since become TechCrunch Italy. So, ok, we’ll just go with that. My friends at Populis and Mind The Bridge Foundation have put together a great event this Thursday. We have some great speakers, a great agenda, a startup showcase, an amazing venue (modelled on Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre) and some great sponsors. We will be showcasing the best of the best Italian startups during the event and there’ll even be a hackathon organised by Hackitaly with 100 hackers.
Here’s just some of our speakers:
Jon Bradford, Ignite100
Mitchell Baker, Mozilla Foundation
Shakil Khan, Path
Alec Ross, Office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Kathryn Fink, Meetup
Riccardo Zacconi, King.com
Mauro Del Rio, Buongiorno!
Paulo Ainio, Virgilio & Banzai
Luca Ascani, Populis
Roberto Bonanmzinga, Balderton
Marco Marinucci, Mind the Bridge
Zaryn Dentzel, Tuenti
Giovanni Alemanno, Mayor of Rome
Thanks again to our sponsors:
Populis, Mind the bridge, Vodafone, Dnsee, Miscrosoft BizSpark, Alliance H-Farm, Capital Partners, Provincia Roma, United States American Embassy, Bansai, Bizup, sister, Papounti, illy, Moleskine, TopIX, Portolano Cavallo, MusicMatch, Applix