Hacks/Hackers Connect: A weekend event for news entrepreneurs

We're organising a weekend of keynotes, mentoring and workshops around news entrepreneurship (5-7 February, London).

You don't need to have a specific business idea to apply, you just need to be keen to shape the future of the news industry in the UK.

Deadline to apply: Monday (18 January) - it should only take you 5-10 mins

Cost: Nothing! (It's funded by Google)

The list of speakers and mentors includes some of the most impressive entrepreneurs in journalism. People who have created, run and sold their own news and media start-ups, like Mark Little, founder of Storyful, and Jeremy Walker, founder of Newsfixed. They’ll be on hand to give one-to-one advice, as well as leading group sessions and targeted workshops.

Keynotes include:

• Mark Little (@marklittlenews), founder of Storyful (https://storyful.com/)

• Rebekah Monson (@rsm), co-founder of The New Tropic

• Matt McAlister (@mattmcalister), co-founder of Publish.org (http://publish.org/)

• David Murray-Hundley (@ThegrumpyE), aka 'The Grumpy Entrepreneur'

• Turi Munthe (@turi), partner at North Base Media (https://angel.co/north-base-media) and founder, exited of Demotix

• Jeremy Walker (@Jwalkerpress), founder of Newsfixed (https://paydesk.co/newsfixed)

Mentors include:

• Charlotte Pearce, (@Ent_charlotte), founder at Inkpact (http://inkpact.com/)

• Frederik Fischer, (@FrederikFischer) founder at piqd (https://www.piqd.de/)

• Neil Thackray (@neilthackray), founder of Briefing Media (http://www.briefingmedia.com/)

• William Stolerman (@thenewshubber), co-founder of The News Hub (https://www.the-newshub.com/)

• John D McHugh (@johndphoto), co-founder of Verifeye Media (https://twitter.com/verifeyemedia)

• Torsten Müller (@mundustorsten), co-founder and CMO of Tame (https://tame.it/)

• Philipp Moehring (@pmoe), Startup Investor – Europe at AngelList (https://angel.co/pmoe)

• Daianna Karaian (@daiannatweets), founder of Thoughtful (http://www.thisisthoughtful.com/)

• Sarah Drinkwater (@sarahdrinkwater), head of Google’s Campus London (https://www.campus.co/london/en)

• Paul Romer-Ormiston (@paulormiston), Co-founder of http://tillr.io and a Lean Product Mentor

• Demetrio Gil (@Demetrio_Gil), Director, Business at siberia

• Ben Fogarty (@buckarty), Senior Product Consultant, and digital product entrepreneur

• David Seddon, Software developer

• Alessandra Sollberger (@a_sollberger),Co-founder and CEO at Evermore

• Itxaso del Palacio (@ItxasoLondon), Investment Director at Lepe Partners (http://www.lepepartners.com/)

• John Spindler, CEO, Capital Enterprise

(http://capitalenterprise.org/)

• Cathy White ( @cathywhite10 (https://twitter.com/cathywhite10)), Communications and Marketing Manager at Seedcamp

• Dave Haynes (@haynes_dave (https://twitter.com/haynes_dave)), Business Development at Seedcamp

• Jamahl McMurran (@JHM_UK (https://twitter.com/JHM_UK)), Head of Talent at Seedcamp

• Emma Zangs (@emmaz), Co-founder of Metaspeech (http://www.metaspeech.com/)

• Mariana Marquez (@marianalucia), Co-founder of Metaspeech (http://www.metaspeech.com/)

• Jon Cornwell (@cornwelljb), Co-founder CEO at Newsflare

• Nishul Saperia (@nishul1), Founder at BeachFix and Co-founder of NASDAQ listed Markit (http://www.markit.com/)

Seedcamp is a Founder’s First Round Fund. We invest smart capital into pre-seed and seed stage startups, providing up to €200k and a lifelong platform of Learning, Network and Capital to support the most ambitious Founders.
Seedcamp was founded in 2007 by Reshma Sohoni with Saul Klein and a number of European investors, to help European startups bridge the gap between knowledge and capital. Today we invest in startups from all over the world and have invested in over 200 companies across a wide range of sectors.
The Seedcamp Partners are Reshma Sohoni (http://seedcamp.com/team/reshmasohoni/) and Carlos Espinal (http://seedcamp.com/team/carloseduardoespinal/). View the team page (http://seedcamp.com/team/) for full bios.

If you want to learn from the people who took personal risk and built their own news businesses,

apply to attend here (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1XHuHrT8xd-SaOGD9vtVXZoYf-Ki_6Ra9ykM72Tw5D2k/viewform)

More details

here (http://connect.hackshackers.com/event/london/)

.

What does the weekend involve?

Hacks/Hackers Connect London is a weekend of practical workshops and mentoring for those interested in building and developing news-related technology or content businesses.

When is it?

5-7 February 2016

Event format

Friday, 7pm-9.30pm: Registration and reception

Saturday, 10am-5.30pm: Keynotes, classes, mentoring

Sunday, 10am-5.30pm: Keynotes, classes, mentoring

What’s the aim?

The ambition is to use this to stimulate a stronger and more profitable entrepreneurial community within the UK news industry.

There’s no shortage of ideas in London. The city is brimming with a vibrant news media community. But think: of your favourite news start-ups, were any of them actually founded here? According to Crunchbase, there have been just 65 London startups (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AhVV7iG28dg6dVSm8hSCNRRfWf6CMW-e-eTBH_mUDPg/edit#gid=0) created in the news space since 2010. Only 25 of these have secured any level of investment and fewer still – just 7 – achieved investment over $1 million.

Hacks/Hackers London is trying to figure out where the gap between a great idea and a great success story lies.

A global community

Connect events are being run by Hacks/Hackers groups in different cities (http://connect.hackshackers.com/). Events have taken place or are planned for London, Berlin, San Francisco and New York.

What’s Hacks/Hackers?

Hacks/Hackers is a global movement of journalists and technologists who get together with the aim of “rethinking the future of news and information”. The London group has more than 4,000 members.

What’s the cost?

Nothing! Google News Lab is partnering on the event and covering all costs.

How many people will be there?

Around 100 selected delegates, keynote speakers and mentors.

Where’s Connect being held?

The Rainmaking Loft near Tower Bridge. Address: International House, 1 St Katharine’s Way, London E1W 1UN.

One rule

If you apply to attend the event and get selected, you must be free and attend the whole weekend. It’s not a drop-in event, you need to commit to the full weekend.

What’s the deadline?

We had more than 100 strong applications, but have decided to reopen applications for another short window.
New deadline: Thursday, 21 January, at 5pm.

We will contact you by Monday, 25 January to tell you whether or not your application was successful.

Application form

Here's the form (https://docs.google.com/a/wsj.com/forms/d/1XHuHrT8xd-SaOGD9vtVXZoYf-Ki_6Ra9ykM72Tw5D2k/viewform)

Still got questions?

Contact Federica@hhldn.co.uk (federica@hhldn.co.uk)