For yet another year, The Next Web conference brought together professionals working in technology, from all over the world, for three days of networking, fun and inspiration. Our busy agenda for 2011, included a hardcore hackathon, a tough startup rally and a number of keynotes by speakers on topics that varied from mobile trends in Africa and real life lessons on entrepreneurship to a debate on privacy and hacking the future! Of course our busy days were accompanied by equally busy nights of partying and topped off with the ultimate 24 hour party: Queensday!
Lets take a look back, for those who missed it and those who already miss it:
Hackathon:Right before kicking off The Next Web Conference 2011, TNW hosted ahackathon, bringing the worlds leading platforms (API’s and SDK’s) together with an international group of Web and Mobile developers challenging them to build the most creative apps they can come up with in less than 48 hours. Developers and API partners wereinterviewed by Jon Jacob from BBC Radio 5 Live. You can watch more backstage material from TNW2011 Hackathonhere.
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The first place award, which came with over $3,500 of Amazon Web Services credits, went toEmailtoXcreated byEmanuel Lainasfrom Romania andThomas Schaaffrom Germany, who describe it asGravatar2.0. You can watchtheir presentation on TNW YouTube channel.
StartUp Rally:The StartUp Rally was a tough competition. The presentations took place during day two (blockoneandtwo) & three (blockthreeand four) of the conference, the 16 startups presenting were:
Among themthe ones that stood outby the end were: TNW Startup Rally overall winner: Silk, best B2C startup: Kuvva, best Mobile startup: Onavo, best B2B startup: Cleeng, most remarkable pitch: Foodzy, most promising business model: Marvia,overall public’s choice winner: Onavo.
TNW2011 Day 1:
We kicked off TNW conference with music and I’m not referring just to the22tracks TNW Playlist, but also to the first two keynote speakers that took the stage,Alexander Ljung the CEO of SoundCloud and Jonathan Forster, General Manager for Spotify Europe. Next on stage, Onno Bakker, co-founder of eBuddy gave us a guided tour tothe history and future of messaging, to pass on the mic toOlivier Fécherolle, Chief Development and Communication Officer ofViadeo.
Next up talking about a word every marketeer seems to love these days, gaming, wasStephanie Kaizerfrom the leading European social games developerWooga. The flow of our agenda then took us to a very different and promising land, where the use of new technology in improving drastically the quality of life, the land of Africa.Rudy de Waeleco-founder of Dotopen presentedMobile Trends for Africa 2020.
Back to a more familiar topic,Mario Sundar,LinkedIn‘s social media guy, reminded us about why “Social media is like peanut butter, makes everything taste better” and talked abouthow a social media company like LinkedIn does social. Closing the first day of TNW2011,Alex Hoye, CEO of Latitude Digital and Co-founder of GoIndustry on new venture economics, where “winners are underdog entrepreneurs and early stage investors”. Perfect way to celebrate the reunion with old friends and meet new: drinks atHotel V!
TNW2011Day 2:
Waking up TNW style: combining a cup of coffee with some numbers and stats, presented by trendprofessionalMarja Ruigrokfrom the TNW research onDutch people’s online behavior. Prominent Public Relations exec and bloggerSteve Rubeltalked about“The laws of attention”, then handed his place on stage to someone that definitely knows how to get attention,TapulousCo-founder and software engineerMike Lee, who talked about“The Future Of Technology”, dressed as a pirate!
After a brief presentation ofVodafone Mobile Clickscompetition, for which we’ve listed5 reasons you should enterif you are a mobile app developer,Ebomantook the main stage to impress us with his realtime video sampling system. Next on stageDave Winer introducing us to Blorking, while on In depth stage Amazon CTOWerner Vogelsshared the lessons he gotfrom building Amazon.com. Maybe the most touching moment of TNW2011 wasMark Randall‘s keynote, as he shared with us his personal story abouthow losing 650 million taught him the secret to happiness and success. In the same spirit was alsoTammy Camp‘s keynote that followed, prompting us to work on our dreams and not our fantasies:Fantasies are selfish, dreams have purpose!After wrapping up day 2,TNW geeks flooded Wolvenstraatfor food and of course beer!
TNW2011 Day 3:
Kicking off TNW2011 with a hot panel on a hot topic: Alexander Bard, Andrew Keen and Rick Falkvinge discussed privacy“Privacy is for losers – open is the new closed”and so much more, like whyAlexander Bard hates Facebookand whyevil can be good.
Robert Scoble then talked about some of his favorite apps that represent The Next Web, which for him is the sum of “Human” plus “Reality” plus “Virtual”, you can also watch a backstage interview with himhere. While over on the In-depth stage, presentations and discussion were focused on more practical issues like SEO, Monitoring and Social CRM and tips on building high-performance websites. On the main stage we had a surprise guest, Nicklas Zenstrøm, founder of Skype. You can watch his interview with Boris over Skype of course,here– particularly fascinating as Skype has now beenacquiredby Microsoft.
Next we had the incomperableHoward Lindzon, founder ofStocktwits, hedge fund manager, investor andTechStarsmentor. Lindzon leapt intosharing his life lessons as an entrepreneurand gave advice like“Punch a banker, hug a developer”. Parallel to theLeancampsession on the In depth stage, on the main stage hackerPablos Holman, invited us tothink like hackersin order to innovate and discover new ways to apply technology to every facet of life. While voting for TNW StartUp Rally big winner, the iPad DJ,Rana Sobhanytalked about how she startedworking with iPad as a DJ and played some music for us, althoughPatrick singing karaoke on stagewas a tough act to follow!
A happy end for all:
DON’T MISS:Wilg’s sketchnotesfor TNW2011, the super fun photos byLize Korpershoek, some amazing 360 views of TNW2011here,hereandhereas well asPatrick shaving the head of HTC’s lucky (?) winner on stage!
If you want to share your TNW2011 memories, like our friendErik Visser, use hashtag #TNW2011. Check out ourbackchannelfor more backstage material ;)
See you in Amsterdam, April 2012!
Story byAmalia Agathou
Amalia Agathou is the Community Director for The Next Web. She’s studied Information and Communication Systems Engineering and has shared he(show all)Amalia Agathou is the Community Director for The Next Web. She’s studied Information and Communication Systems Engineering and has shared her time between the startup and fashion scene. She has worked as an editor for The Next Web, House& Garden and Glamour magazine.
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