Thursday, March 01, 2012YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The Youngstown Business Incubator will host one of 10 so-called "StartUp" buses March 6 as it makes its way to the South By Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas.
StartupBus describes itself as an "invitation-only community of hackers, hustlers and hipster passionate about startups. We are best known for our annual competition where we bring new people into our community, by doing a hackathon on a bus that’s traveling 60 miles an hour towards Austin in time for SxSW."
Each year, 10 "StartUp" buses are awarded to various cities in the United States and Mexico through a competitive bidding process. This year, Cincinnati was awarded a bus, and 30 Ohioans were selected to board the StartUp Bus as “Buspreneurs.” The team of 30 strangers will spend three days brainstorming business ideas, building prototypes and pitching their concepts at surprise stops on their way to their final destination Austin. The best ideas selected from the bus will compete against the other nine buses making the same journey to the SXSW festival.
YBI is one of the stops at which teams will present their ideas to a panel of YBI experts who will help them refine their pitch through interactive coaching sessions. The bus will arrive at the Youngstown Business Incubator at 9:30 a.m.
“As few as five years ago, I doubt YBI would have been considered for a stop by a program so highly competitive and regarded as the StartUp Bus," said Barb Ewing, chief operating officer. "The fact that we are one of only two Ohio stops, and one that is in the opposite direction from the national competition, speaks volumes about the very high regard that YBI is held in nationally."
For more information about the YBI or the StartUp Bus, call Rose Shaffer at 330 599 4583.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.