The fastest growing tech conference in the world, Collision Conference, is coming to New Orleans this May, nestled right in between both weekends of Jazz Fest, April 26-28. Collision is hosted by the team behind Web Summit.
When Web Summit started as a small 400 person startup conference in Dublin in 2010, nobody imagined that by 2014 it would grow to 22,100 attendees from 110 countries around the world. Collision is Web Summit’s sister conference in the United States and is already growing faster than Web Summit did.
Launch Pad has announced it will be hosting the Hometown Heroes PITCH Competition to let emerging cities show off their brightest entrepreneurs on stage at Collision. The winner will be named Best Startup at the conference.
Partner organizations and cities include:
- Buffalo and the Buffalo Niagara Enterprise
- Charleston and The Harbor Entrepreneur Center
- Nashville and The Nashville Entrepreneur Center
- New Orleans and Idea Village
- Pittsburgh and Thrill Mill
- Raleigh-Durham and The Startup Factory
- San Antonio and Geekdom
Each city will have it’s own unique selection criteria to ensure their ecosystem is represented to the fullest extent, and four companies from the 24 will advance to the semi-finals of the Collision PITCH competition with a chance to present in front of over 10,000 attendees, including hundreds of investors.
Billy Schrero, managing director at Launch Pad said they explored what would help the New Orleans ecosystem take advantage of the global stage Collision provides. “Much like Launch Fest in past years, we wanted to showcase our most promising entrepreneurs. But given the magnitude of Collision, we thought it would be cool to open up the stage to other cities that share similarities with New Orleans and showcase what’s happening when entrepreneurs live where they want to, as opposed to where they’re ‘supposed to.’”
The local organizers were able to connect with ecosystem leaders in other cities because of Steve Case’s Rise of the Rest tour and his team at Revolution. Schrero said they also got introductions from the Venture for America network as well as local supporters, like Robbie Vitrano, who connected them with San Antonio.
We’ll find out the 24 startups selected for the pitch during New Orleans Entrepreneur Week (NOEW) in March.