It was official on Friday morning – our third Momentum Connect event since we started (our first of 2009) was completely sold out! We’ll have a packed house of 175 aspiring technology entrepreneurs, local technology leaders, professionals, mentors and investors at SoCial at Le Magasin this Wednesday. Selling out an event close to a week before your event is a big weight off your shoulders, and it lets you focus on a lot of the other things involved in pulling off what we expect to be another fun night of networking and inspiration.
Start-up veteran Rizwan Kheraj of NRC-IRAP will be our speaker on Wednesday evening. I asked if he could give us a preview of some of his talking points, such as dispelling some common misconceptions of securing grant funding. He shared some great examples from his talk on Wednesday … (more after the jump)
- Myth 1: It’s hard to get government funding. It’s bureaucratic and there’s a lot of paperwork. Rizwan will be talking about how you can approach the process of securing government funding the SMART way.
- Myth 2: The government is not going to give someone as inexperienced as me this type of money. Rizwan believes if you have awesome technology and a great market opportunity, there’s no reason you shouldn’t try to secure government funding.
- Myth 3: Applying for government programs distracts me from running my business. Rizwan will be talking about how government funding can accelerate your R&D and get to market sooner so you can engage with your customers sooner and secure a competitive advantage in your industry.
There will be a lot of actionable take aways for aspiring entrepreneurs attending the event on Wednesday – whether its from Rizwan’s presentation or chatting with him after the event. Either way we’re really excited to have him anchor what will be a great night to connect and network with new and interesting people.
We look forward to seeing you this Wednesday at SoCial (332 Water Street in Gastown) at 6PM sharp! You won’t need to bring a confirmation ticket to the event and there’s no dress code in effect. If you’ve paid for the event online we will try to move you in as quickly as possible. We will have a separate table for those who selected the “pay at the door” option to keep things efficient. We hope you come up to myself, Kerry, Tyson, Khaleel or Arnold with some of your feedback from the event before you leave. We should be closing up shop after 9PM but feel free to stay longer if you’re having fun.
See you on Wednesday!
