Priyanka Sharma

consultpriyanka1@gmail.com

ON Friday evening when most people were rushing out of their offices to meet friends for dinner, get to some party, or perhaps just laze around on the couch with takeout and their favorite movie, the female entrepreneurs of Shenzhen were hurrying to get to their own exclusive event — the first women-only Startup Weekend APAC.

The 54-hour workshop for women organized by women aimed to empower these highly ambitious souls with enough knowledge, skills and tools so they can take the leap and turn their genius ideas into startups. This is the second Startup Weekend APAC event held in Shenzhen and the first for women only.

The organizers of the event were six women from different walks of life, namely Alla Diasamidze from Georgia, Emma Huang who works with HAX Accelerator, the world’s largest hardware startup, Livia Lian with a British financial solution company, Markey Tan who organized a WeChat marketing workshop in Thailand, Freya Yuan, a freelance graphic designer, and Crystal Lei, a winner at the previous Startup Weekend Shenzhen held in April.

Beginning Friday night with pitches at the new WeWork location in Shekou and continuing through brainstorms, business plan development, and basic prototype creation, Startup Weekend culminated Sunday night with demos and presentations.

One of the participants, Salome Kobalia, said she thought the event would be a series of lectures and presentations but was pleasantly surprised that it was less talk and all about learning by doing.

Two out of the seven great pitches — a customized dating outfit design for women and a bilingual website for renting and leasing apartments — received validation.

Tutorai won the team event. The winners will go on to compete with winners from other cities in China and, if favored by Lady Luck, will travel to Bali to present the project on a global level.

Once all was said and done, the participants got the opportunity to network, mingle and have one-on-one conversations with the organizers, mentors and judges.

Rosy, one of the members of the winning team, said that even though it was her first Startup Weekend and she came without any expectations, she was delighted to experience the positive environment and managed to learn from her fellow participants and mentors.

Felix, the person responsible for Startup Weekend events in China, said that Shenzhen is one of the few cities where they always get an overwhelming response and that’s why they keep coming back.

Founded in 2007 by Andrew Hyde in the United States, Startup Weekend is a 54-hour weekend event, during which groups of developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, and graphic artists pitch ideas for new startup firms, form teams around those ideas, and work to develop a working prototype, demo, or presentation. Startup Weekend has grown into an organization with a global presence. As of December 2016, Startup Weekend had reached 135 countries, involving 210,000 entrepreneurs.