I am starting the planning for Startup Iceland 2016. The dates will be finalized this week. As is always the case we plan to have Startup Iceland 2016 in the last week of May. The program, speakers and all announcements related to the event will be done through this blog and shared through our social media channels. My trip to Edmonton last week participating in Startup Week was incredible. What an amazing community that Startup Edmonton team has been building. I feel Edmonton has a lot going for it and as I mentioned in my previous posts watch out for announcements related to what Startup Iceland and Startup Edmonton are partnering to do.
The mission to build an Antifragile Startup Community has consumed my thinking the last 6 years. I am extremely happy about what has been achieved in Iceland in such a short period of time. We have a long way to go in our community. However, what makes each and every startup community stronger is the network links that gets built from one community to the other. I am extremely happy to see that this theory of mine is working. Since Startup Iceland was launched in 2012, we have had great success due to the relationships and connections that gets established by people meeting, talking and making decisions to work together. There are too many examples for me to go through it in this blog post. I think the collective thinking of Startup Founders, Investors and the entire community in Iceland has changed for the positive as it relates to Technology, Building Companies and Starting up. This is by no means a simple turn around, it is something that draws a line in history. I am really excited to have witnessed it and played albeit a small role in the catalytic change that has transformed Iceland.
This transformation is not just happening in Iceland but every city and country is going through this as well. It brings me back to thinking, so what is the next stage of Startup Communities? I had a great time talking to Ken Bautista, as I mentioned we are kindred spirits. There are so many exciting things that we want to do together that it makes me giddy. The first step in this is getting the Startup Community in Edmonton to Startup Iceland 2016. We will start work on that right away, my job is to talk to Icelandair our wonderful Platinum Sponsor to put together a wonderful package for anyone coming to Startup Iceland. In addition, I have invited Ken to be a speaker in the event. This is going to be a lot of fun.
