When Lincoln Vital Signs was first released in 2014, Lincoln was doing many things very well. Emphasizing the positive, Entrepreneurship was chosen as one of Prosper Lincoln’s three focus areas.
Startup Week is a five-day celebration on Lincoln’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. October 22 through 25, this new type of conference builds momentum and opportunity around entrepreneurship, led by entrepreneurs and hosted in the entrepreneurial spaces throughout Lincoln. Partnering with Techstars, sponsored by Assurity and with dedicated coordination from Christina Oldfather of Lincoln Partnership for Economic Development (LPED), Lincoln Startup Week delivered inspiring programming, including some special entrepreneurial insights from noted national thought leader Paul Singh.
“Techstars Lincoln Startup Week 2018 was a great success,” said Christina Oldfather, Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at LPED. “Paul Singh with Results Junkies joined us for several events, including a quick pitch competition, 1 Million Cups Lincoln, office hours, and a variety of events with University students.”
“It was a great week for education and inspiration for our community, including many new faces that recently found out about the startup community in Lincoln due to Startup Week,” she said. “That’s exactly what we wanted to accomplish-a mix of inspirational and tactical events that create collisions with a wide variety of people to tackle new problems and create new ideas and new innovations.”
The week offered up numerous opportunities to collaborate and make our ecosystem better. Dedicated events across the city covered a variety of interests including a pitch competition, marketing/design challenges, intellectual property, inspirational speakers, youth entrepreneurship, health/wellness, resourcing and many, many others. In fact, a total of nearly 50 opportunities to learn and grow were available to anyone interested in entrepreneurship.
“Now that Startup Week is complete, the real work begins.,” said Rich Claussen, Prosper Lincoln Ambassador for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. “It should be fun. We need to continue to embrace a ‘no fear of failure’ mentality. To support one another. To continue to reinforce all the good things that are defining Lincoln as the white-hot epicenter of the Silicon Prairie. Let’s get after it!”