Although there are increasingly more and more great conferences for entrepreneurs around Europe, one big question all these conferences are trying to address as they grow is how to keep participants engaged and continue the ‘conversation’ after the conference wraps-up. The creators of the Pioneers Festival are hoping to offer a good answer to this challenge, with their new pionners.io platform. Pioneers, which until now has focused primarily on their big conference/festival and their blog, seeks to shake up the status quo and to be at the forefront of the debate on innovation and the next big thing. While they want their Pioneers Festival to be the genesis for this debate, they expect that the platform will help them to keep the conversation going, educate people and give them the tools to work together; and, even, expand their community around the globe. As Pioneers Co-founder and CEO Andreas Tschas adds:
“This is why we establish a worldwide community of pioneers – people that support each other, work together and breathe the pioneering spirit. It’s people with intense passion who are the game changers, and we are their platform for acquiring the necessary know-how, inspiration and valuable contacts to succeed.”
Their platform is rich with great videos, information packed blog posts which readers can, of course, comment on and, not surprisingly, lots of information on their big Pioneers Festival and their Unplugged, local events. Beyond social media sharing and the ability to comment, it doesn’t appear to yet offer the ability for readers to engage real-time (via chat, social media etc) which would be a key part of encouraging engagement, but hopefully that will come in the future. As for the next Pioneers Festival coming up on October 30/31st in Vienna. Big names like Siri founder and Scanadu’s founder Walter de Brouwer (think Star Trek’s Tricorder!) are on board for this year’s edition as well as many more top tech innovators.
Another key part of the conference will be a whole range of great activities for startups. First up is their annual Pioneers Challenge for tech startups, under 3 years old and having raised less than €1 million. Contrary to some other competitions, the organizers will actually be selecting a larger group that will get 2 free entry passes, pitch training on-site just prior to the event, and the opportunity to pitch to international investors in the first round ‘Investor day’. From there, 8 will be selected to pitch on the main stage in-front of the 2500 attendees.
Next, if you want to make sure you get visibility at the event you can also either apply to pitch on the main stage via their Pioneers “90 Pitch session and/or present your startup at the Pioneers Showroom. The organizers have also teamed up with Seedcamp, Startupbootcamp, and IBM to offer other pitch and mentor sessions targeted at startups. Finally, they’re also promoting Startup Buses to give you a more affordable option for getting out to Vienna. If any of these sound interesting, make sure to sign-up here.
They’re currently running a 2-for-1 ticket promo with only 50 promo tickets remaining, so act fast if you want to get one. As a partner for this year’s event, we also have two free tickets to give away, so if you want one, like this article on our Facebook page!