How to move a global startup event online

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09.04.2020
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Each spring Seedstars gathers selected start-ups from all over the world, investors, corporates and supporters in Lausanne for a whole week which culminates in the Seedstars Summit on Friday. This year the whole event took place online. 5,419 participants took part in the first Online Summit on 3 April.

The event began on Monday 30 March, with three virtual Bootcamp Days that brought together the selected start-ups of the global Seedstars competition - the world's largest startup competition in emerging markets - and mentors in over 270 mentoring sessions. The start-ups also had an opportunity to be introduced to investors in the Seedstars network, which resulted in 154 meetings over the course of the first part of the week.

April 3rd, the Summit Day, brought content to a much wider audience, reaching over 2 million people, totalling 19,562 pre-event registrations and 5,419 unique viewers. The Summit offered a full live program divided in three parts: The Mag, The Documentary and The Competition.

The Mag explored topics such as Accessibility, Education, Environment and Migration in short video formats that aimed to raise awareness and showcase solutions worked on by the startups in the field. The Documentary explored the journey of entrepreneurs from their local realities all the way to Lausanne, Switzerland, where the Seedstars Summit usually happens physically. The Competition presented a new format for the finals of the Seedstars World Competition, as it included a Q&A and deliberation from the jury, composed of five investors specialised in emerging markets. More information about the winners can be found in the document that can be downloaded below.

The broadcasted Online Seedstars Summit took place on the new media platform Seedstars Life, open for everyone to watch or rewatch the event. The platform also hosts other topics and formats connected to this year’s theme: “Beyond”, such as podcasts where winning startups tell their success stories and in-depth articles exploring innovative solutions developed in emerging markets. The platform also presents inspirational stories of entrepreneurs going against all odds to fulfil their ambitions.

In parallel, a new project named Seedstars Insights has been released to give a better understanding of the entrepreneurial landscape in over 80 countries through a network of over 150,000 people. The full report is yet to be published, but it is already possible to explore the map out of each country based on the number of high-growth companies present in the market.

As a remote team providing online programs since it was created in 2013, Seedstars has been transcending borders ever since and continues to bring change through innovation, technology and entrepreneurship. With its Online Summit, Seedstars lives up to its core philosophy, by repurposing its activities using technological tools. In the upcoming weeks Seedstars will continue supporting entrepreneurs online, such as hosting free webinars on how to work remotely, providing startup survival guides and organising local hackathons to find new solutions to the COVID-19 imposed challenges. Startups can refer to the webpage cares.seedstars.com and follow the #SeedstarsCares hashtag for more information.

Alisée de Tonnac, co-founder and CEO of Seedstars gives more background information in our interview.

(Press release / SK)

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