About 65 people — including nine teams of experienced and prospective entrepreneurs — took part in the sixth annual Startup Weekend Bloomington event recently held at IU’s Cyberinfrastructure Building.
Sponsored in part by Innovate Indiana and the Innovate Indiana Fund, Startup Weekend provides time, space, knowledge and resources to help potential entrepreneurs launch their own businesses.
The winning team, Doughnation (pictured), developed the concept of an app that links caterers and restaurants to local charities to ease the process of food donation. Prizes for the first-place team include:
- A spot in the 2016 B-Start pre-accelerator program;
- A three-month partial membership to Cowork Btown;
- Free consulting with the IU Intellectual Property Clinic;
- A free pack of Uel Zing Coffee;
First, second and third place teams also will receive free consultation time with The Gayle & Bill Cook Center for Entrepreneurship and the south central Small Business Development Center.
The second-place team, called ByU (Li Xianzhi, Liu Yifan, Tony Liu), conceived an app that allows people residing close to a restaurant to make food deliveries — sort of like an Uber for third-party food delivery.
The third-place team, Night List (Adam Wu, David Nelyubin), pitched an app that lets users curate invitation lists through Facebook to local college parties, as well as simplify payment and check-in at the party.