StartupBus
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StartupBus

StartupBus is an annual technological startup competition and entrepreneurship boot camp, described as a Hackathon, created by Elias Bizannes in February 2010.

The competition is held across a 3-day bus ride where contestants or "buspreneurs" compete to conceive the best technology startup. The competition seeks to attract young top talents to compete, to search for the most innovative startup conceived by the groups, where the winners are determined by a panel of judges. Starting from February 2011, it has gone through many iterations in various continents from 2011 to the present day, with the first in Austin, Texas and subsequently in North America, Europe and Africa.

StartupBus receives an extensive online media coverage through platforms such as BBC News, CNN and technology blogs and news sites such as The Next Web, VentureBeat, WIRED and TechCrunch. Live coverage of the competition was also broadcast through StartupBus.TV via Livestream.

StartupBus started off as a joke by Elias Bizannes and Bart Jellema on 1 July 2009 to start a hackathon on bus trip from San Francisco to Austin for the SXSW Conference. Eventually, the first bus launched on 1 February 2010, which consisted of 25 strangers on the way to Austin for the SXSW Conference, during which a total of 6 startups were conceived from the time in the bus.

Starting from February 2011, StartupBus was officially an annual technological startup competition and has run each year since then.

StartupBus' start off location is determined through voting via Facebook and Twitter since 2012, after its evident success. Buspreneurs are selected based on an invite-only basis after indicating their interest through submission of an application and proposal with an interview there after, if shortlisted. Application are only open to those who specializes in the field of coding, designing and business. Pre-events are organised before the competition to bond buspreneurs with the objective to create a network of like-minded people.

The competition starts off with a 72-hour bus ride from the determined start-off location to its destination, voted through Facebook and Twitter. Each bus consists of 24 buspreneurs, which comes equipped with Wi-Fi, charging points and tables among the seats with no other luxuries.

Through the 72-hour bus ride, buspreneurs are to form teams of 3-4 members of their choosing and work on their final product which comes in the form of viable web applications to be presented to a panel of judges for submission on the end of the competition day. Winners will get funding to kick-start their idea with prior winners of StartupBus being able to expand their creations and creating new ones.

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