BTS students at the StartupBootcamp
Understanding how the digital business works is a key aspect to stand up in the current digital Ecosystem. Barcelona Technology School basis is that their Master students can embrace this idea since having digital skills among a business-oriented vision is the perfect combination to boost a successful digital career nowadays.
On this sense, as part of the entrepreneurial approach of the Master in Digital Solutions Development, last Friday the students visited Startupbootcamp, one of the largest startups accelerator organizations around the world, a well-known reference of how to run an entrepreneurial project from scratch.
Startupbootcamp supports the world’s best entrepreneurs giving them the support and tools to achieve their projects goals. Their work process consists in traveling all over the world each year searching for interesting projects to impulse into the tech ecosystem; beyond the most important tech hubs cities such as London or Singapore, the programs they support are spread in different countries in all the continents.
The accelerator process consists in inviting 20 of these startups to what they call the “Selection Days”, where after meeting more than 50 mentors just the best 8/10 startups are invited to join the program in a metropolitan city, such as Barcelona. In a 3-month’s intensive accelerating program, startups have direct access to the most important connections in the industry, they are in touch with investors, mentors, funding organizations and as a final approach, they participate in the biggest tech event in the world and the most important showcase for startups: The Mobile World Congress and its 4YFN (4 Years from Now).
The 4YFN is the fast-growing world’s reference event for startups and entrepreneurs in the world. It’s a special occasion in which the tech startup community comes together in Barcelona to share their latest innovative ideas, a space in which startups create connections and productive business relationships. In its fourth year, the event will host more than 100 talks, with over 270 speakers worldwide in which the main themes will be: Disrupted by Mobile, The Internet of Things and Digital Media.
The 4YFN “Demo-day” will be the opportunity for these startups to present their pitches to the most important digital leaders and investors, not an easy task, and as part of the continuous practice that the Founders of these startups must have, they set and ad-hoc presentation to the BTS students.
In this way, beyond knowing the company offices and heard from Richard Lagrand, Startupbootcamp Program Director, how’s to be an entrepreneur and how acceleration works, the students had the chance to evaluate the 5 minutes’ pitches of 8 projects and in return these startups received a fresh feedback from students that are immersed in the digital field, as they’re acquiring a transversal vision of the most demanded technologies and how these work within a business context in the Master in Digital Solutions Development.
BTS students had the possibility to witness and judge part of the brilliant ideas that pass through the Startupbootcamp acceleration program. From virtual reality to IoT smart solutions, the projects represented interesting ideas to solve nowadays problems in different fields; the Barcelona Technology School students heard, evaluated and gave their opinion about these startups in terms of importance, viability, results and quality of the presentations.
To be an entrepreneur is more than have a good project in mind, hard work and the support of mentors in the way are key to succeed, students could saw this in the visit to Startupbootcamp, which we could define a program that encourages digital ideas, ideas that can materialize in real projects in a short-term period. This time BTS students played the judges roll, some of them in the nearly future could be the judged ones with their own entrepreneurial ideas.
