Startup Weekend Sunshine Coast is an intense 54-hour event where a community of entrepreneurs, startup enthusiasts, developers, designers, marketing gurus and anyone interested in building a business will come together in May to share ideas, form teams, and launch a startup.
Innovation Centre Sunshine Coast CEO Mr Mark Paddenburg said the future of the region depended on our ability to nurture, create and support the next generation of entrepreneurs and this event would act as a catalyst in that process.
“Startup Weekends put people with great business ideas together with teams of people who can bring them to life,” he said.
“We’ve decided to bring the Startup Weekend model to the Sunshine Coast after seeing the success the model has had in creating new, sustainable businesses for other local regions.”
On the Friday night attendees will pitch their ideas to the group and select members to form their teams. The rest of the weekend will be spent developing the ideas into businesses – business model creation, coding, designing and market validation – with the help of mentors and seasoned startup entrepreneurs.
The weekend culminates with presentations in front of local entrepreneurial leaders with another opportunity for critical feedback and the chance for the grand prize.
The event is sponsored locally by Sunshine Coast Council and RDA Sunshine Coast and globally by Google for Entrepreneurs, Coca-Cola, .CO and Amazon Web Services.
Startup Weekend is a global network of passionate leaders and entrepreneurs on a mission to inspire, educate, and empower individuals, teams and communities. More than 325 events have been held around the globe, inspiring nearly 30,000 entrepreneurs to take an idea from concept to launch.
Startup Weekend Sunshine Coast 
Date: 2-4 May 2014
Time: From 5.30pm on Friday to 9pm Sunday
Venue: University of the Sunshine Coast campus