Startup Weekend is a global grassroots movement of active and empowered entrepreneurs who are learning the basics of founding startups and launching successful ventures. It is the largest community of passionate entrepreneurs with over 400 past events in 100 countries around the world in 2011.

The non-profit organization is headquartered in Seattle, Washington but Startup Weekend organizers and facilitators can be found in over 200 cities around the world. From Mongolia to South Africa to London to Brazil, people around the globe are coming together for weekend long workshops to pitch ideas, form teams, and start companies.

All Startup Weekend events follow the same basic model: anyone is welcome to pitch their startup idea and receive feedback from their peers. Teams organically form around the top ideas (as determined by popular vote) and then it’s a 54 hour frenzy of business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation. The weekends culminate with presentations in front of local entrepreneurial leaders with another opportunity for critical feedback.

Whether entrepreneurs found companies, find a cofounder, meet someone new, or learn a skill far outside their usual 9-to-5, everyone is guaranteed to leave the event better prepared to navigate the chaotic but fun world of startups. If you want to put yourself in the shoes of an entrepreneur, register now for the best weekend of your life!

Startup Weekend and Silicon Valley comes to the UK are teaming up to bring the craziness of the 54-hour long events simultaneously in London, Manchester, Sheffield, Southampton and Cambridge this coming November. Those events will bring developers, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts to come together to share ideas, form teams, build products, and launch startups!

What is specific about the Startup Weekend-SVC2UK events?

Teams will be free to work on any startup they want but they will have access to UK government data sets from data.gov.uk to build startups. Participants will use this data to produce high impact applications/websites to unlock the power of public data to help “rewrite the rules of the new economy”

After the weekend, the top startups will be invited to attend an exclusive awards ceremony in central London in November and will also get the chance to fight in the Global Startup Battle taking place between the 130 Startup Weekend events during GEW.