A talk given at TechCrunch Disrupt 2012
TechCrunch Disrupt, one of the world’s largest technology start-up conferences, is calling on European start-ups to get their applications in for the May event in New York.
The event is highly regarded by fledgling tech businesses and brings some of the world’s biggest groups and personalities to host a series of talks and networking events.
Hosted in the Manhattan Center from 5-7 May, the event will start with the popular Hackathon, where teams from across the globe will compete to hack a particular product within a 24-hour time frame in what is usually a pretty frantic atmosphere.
Their attempt is then showcased and judged and the winning team will get to present its hack on the main stage.
This event is then followed up by Startup Battlefield, the focus of the weekend’s event. Here, an average of 30 companies open stalls and present their products or services on the Disrupt stage before the audience, both in the centre and online, and subsequently judged by an expert panel.
When they are whittled down to six remaining companies, another round of judging will take place before the overall winner receives a not-too-shabby cheque for US$50,000 and, of course, the Disrupt Cup.
Continuing Irish presence
Ireland has had a significant presence at the event over the last number of years and last year’s event was no different.
Some of the Irish entries last year included Trustev, Tapastreet, VoxPro and Viddyad, and from TechCrunch’s perspective, the event organisers appear to see continuing promise in this small nation’s ability to consistently produce innovative start-ups.
There’s only little more than a week before the application process for the event is finalised. Entries will no longer be accepted after the deadline of Thursday, 20 February.
