What is Bizcamp?
A free conference for entrepreneurs which takes place twice per year in Belgium.
The next edition is planned for December 11, 2010. Subscribe to our newsletter to get the all the news and know when registrations will open up.
Seriously – what is it?
It’s a chance for us all to lift ourselves out of the gloom of the endless bad news stories. It’s based on the fact that each of us as entrepreneurs have loads to learn from our peers. And we have a lot to share with them as well. There are a lot of great things happening in the Belgian economy – especially in small and medium businesses and this day will be a celebration of those. And a great place to come for people who have lost their jobs and are actively looking at starting up.
It’s free, whats the catch?
You take the main cost of a “proper” conference away (the flown-in experts) and get sponsors to cover the venue and misc other expenses. And then 100 or so people starting and running their own businesses gather on the day and a number of them/you/us will give short talks on things which we know or have learned which will be valuable to share with the others.
Great idea, it will never actually work
This is based on the Barcamp concept which started in the US and has now being used in every continent in the world. In Ireland for example there have been 11 BizCamps held since September 2006 – each of them successful. We are now bringing this concept to Belgium.
Ok, kinda interested now. Why haven’t I heard of this before now?
Because the Belgian barcamps to date have been almost exclusively focused on the technology community and promoted within that sector. This is the first to be held which focuses on all businesses and it will be especially of interest to any and all entrepreneurs who want to build Belgian businesses which can compete internationally.
I’ll sign up to attend, but not sure about talking.
At each event about 1/3rd of the attendees also give talks and it can be daunting for the first time. Everything about this is voluntary so don’t worry about just attending – please do sign up.
Once you have signed up, give the idea of a talk one last chance – the day does not work without it!
I hate listening to Sales Pitches
So do we – every one of us. Life is too short. Talks at bizcamp can be based on things like:
skill sets which a speaker will share, experiences that are relevant for others to hear about or
lessons learned that will help the audience to avoid similar ones.
They are explicitly not about sales pitches and the Rule Of Two Feet will be open to all – if you are caught in a sales pitch then stand up and walk out. We will be making this clear to all speakers to help them get into the spirit of the day.
