#EFUnHacked 2014: An Overview
01 Oct 2014Don’t be a follower. Be a Founder.
Saturday couldn’t come fast enough. A long awaited event among many technology-orientated students.
We come together from over 20 Countries and 50 Universities to meet each other and see amazing people that want to share their knowledge. We heard talks on a wide range of topics, from inspirational speakers.
The event was kicked of by Matt Clifford, co-founder of Entrepreneur First (EF), in his speech he gave an overview about the participants, describing them as “the future of technology in Europe” and revealed EF’s mascot, a honey badger named Stoffle. Why a honey badger? Because a founder cannot be imprisoned and has to be determined, like honey badgers. A member of the EF 2015 Cohort came up on stage to present his app [Click] [http://clickapp.co/] and invite us to test it out during the event.
The opening speaker was Ben Medlock, co-founder of SwiftKey. He talked about the evolution of SwiftKey. How it started, what he studied and where his startup is now and how it works (>150 staff and offices on 3 continents). A Short Q&A session followed.
Avid Larizadeh was the next entrepreneur to take the stage. She argued that “Europe is a great place to build a tech startup”. Her arguments were well based considering she founded her own startup, Boticca, in London and now works for Google Ventures. Avid shared with us the challenges and opportunities in Europe, especially in London. A Short Q&A session followed.
Lunch followed and an opportunity to talk to other participants more freely. Ben Goldsmith, Head of Content at Level 39, took the mic to tell us about our host (L39, an accelerator for smart cities, retail and fintech). After him followed Dan Quine with his talk “A trip into Sci-fi future”. He told us about his background in both academia and the working world, where he worked and how he missed the focus and passion of startups. From his experience of startups, six total, imparts on us what he learnt, what he believes entrepreneurs are, why London is great for startups and why VC’s are great. A Short Q&A session followed.
The first panel of the day came after Dan Crow. Titled “Why here? Why now?: Starting up in London” the panelists were: Alesis Novik and Maria Stylianou (from the 2014-15 EF Cohort), Hugh Collins and Rashid Mansoor (EF Alumni). Kicked off by answering what there startup is about, how it came about and why they joined EF. Followed by what’s life like as a startup founder. A Short Q&A session followed.
The return from a short afternoon break signaled the beginning of the end. “Tech Bytes” was a series of Ted-style talks from three students that wanted to share. First up was Alex Gamble from UCL talking about Bitcoin from first principles. He was followed by Ainsley from Imperial Collage London whose talk was titled “Hacking without getting hacked”. Ainsley gave tips and suggestions on how to create products with better security. The last talk was by Alex Waller of St. Andrews University about “Risk Sensitive Surveillance with Optimal Sensor Quality for Distributed Robotic Systems” (Simpler: Drones fly were risk is greatest - explanation).
The second and last panel of the day followed the talks. “Hacking in Europe: A Student Perspective” was about students who’ve organized a tech-related meet or society in their community. They told us what kind of events they have organized (hackathons, meetups etc.), how it evolved to what it is today. They encouraged us to take part in all hackathons and told us their own events that are coming up.
The closing talk was by Alice Bentinck, co-founder of EF, titled “Be a Founder, not a follower”. I won’t spoil this amazing talk, one of many that day, since you can watch it online on Youtube.
“Networking Drinks” was the closing act of the day.
With inspired and motivated individuals leaving EFUnhacked I deem this event successful.
Thanks to to:
Gianfranco Cecconi - for his open notes on EFUnhacked.
Everybody who tweeted with #EFUnhacked - for documenting this event