Dublin Beta is taking place this Monday, a networking event for the Irish technology community which lets technology start-ups informally demo their offerings.
The event allows members of the Irish technology community, such as founders of start-ups, technology professionals, bloggers, investors or PR professionals, to network in an informal setting.
Twelve start-ups will also demo their products at the event in order to raise awareness of what they’re doing.
The companies include b-sm@rck, Buz, CurrencyFair, DiaryMonitor, Fixational, Heystaks, Huggity, Messaging365, MyTipOff, Plendi, Rentview and WINI Technologies.
“It’s an informal platform to get to all interested parties – whether it’s a light interest, investor interest or a developer interest,” said John O’Rourke from Dublin Beta.
“That’s where the value comes for start-ups, to not just be doing very rigid pitching but to have an informal chat.
“They’re going to be talking to higher-level guys who will be wondering about revenue models and expansion but then they’ll be dealing with the consumer end of things, which could bring up ideas that they wouldn’t have thought of before,” he said.
The event is an extension of SF Beta, San Francisco’s longest running start-up mixer, which was established in 2006 and has since extended further.
“Christian Perry founded Beta Limited which runs events in San Francisco, Colorado, Boston and Seattle,” said O’Rourke.
“He came over during the summer and myself and a friend of mine who I was working with, Russell Banks, met up with him. We thought it was a good idea and we said we’d run with it,” he said.
O’Rourke hopes the event will help people connect with others to find out what opportunities they can avail of.
“My angle on it was that I didn’t really know enough of these events and hadn’t enough connections to meet these kind of people. That’d be the same with younger guys who might have ideas and might not be able to connect with developers or wouldn’t have too much experience of how to go about funding or how to take the first steps,” he said.
“We want to try and get that buzz going and to get that awareness that there’s a community they can tap into in Dublin. We want to try and open it up to a wider audience, as well,” he said.
Dublin Beta takes place from 6-9pm on 14 November at Lost Society in Dublin. Tickets for the event are on sale now.
