RIHub managing director Annette Tonti is calling it Rhode Island's "second annual" startup weekend.
The Ocean State saw its first Startup Day in the spring of 2019, put on by the Rhode Island Coalition of Entrepreneurs (RICE). Now, RICE has wound down its operations and turned things over to the newly formed innovation campus RIHub, which has doubled the time, programming and hopefully number of entrepreneurs in attendance to put on the Rhode Island Startup Weekend.
"It's tough to push everything into one day. I, personally, envision a day when we have a startup week here in Rhode Island," Tonti said. "We want to be extremely inclusive, shine a light on entrepreneurship for all Rhode Islanders, yet also work with those entrepreneurs we know and love today, giving them a platform."
To that end, Tonti and the team at RIHub have pulled together a full weekend of free, startup-focused virtual events, kicking off Friday at 4 p.m. with a panel discussion on the future of e-sports in Rhode Island. From there, the programming diverges into a business track and a tech track to cater to different types of professionals. (If you're interested by now, you can register here.)
Some of the events Tonti is most excited about? A roundtable on venture capital, a startup showcase and a pitch competition her team has dubbed "Calamari Tank," a riff on ABC's "Shark Tank" with a nod to the Ocean State's signature dish.
As Tonti sees it, the Rhode Island Startup Weekend — and RIHub as a whole — will be key to increasing entrepreneurship in Rhode Island. Tonti herself is a serial entrepreneur here, having raised over $30 million in venture funding for three startups since the 1990s, but she is an anomaly. Rhode Island has repeatedly ranked near the bottom of the pack for business due to its tax and regulatory climate, aging infrastructure and generally slow economic growth.
This weekend is an opportunity to change that. The RIHub team, which focuses mainly on high-tech startups and businesses with a high opportunity for growth, wants to foster connections between technical and science-minded people and business folk.
"One of the things we want to do in Rhode Island is increase the collisions between the high-tech people and the entrepreneurs," Tonti said. "That is where the magic happens. I don't see enough of that in Rhode Island. We have organizations that have tech people, and organizations that have the entrepreneurs, and one of the things we want to do in 2021 is find ways for those to meet each other."
