CEO Day has begun with some real start-up spirit

Each year more entrepreneurs, suppliers, supporters, investors and representatives attend the CEO Day organised by CTI Invest and CTI. This year almost 600 people registered, 288 are entrepreneurs, 100 of them are investors. Jean-Pierre Vuilleumier told startupticker.ch that he rejected 80 applications from people that do not fulfil the criteria for participation which means that the number of participants is high and at the same time the quality is very good.

The CEO Day started with three introductions and one important news: the Venture Guide 2013 is out. The online version is available at www.swissventureguide.ch. The speakers mentioned two interesting articles in particular: one with the results of a new study about the financing of start-ups in Switzerland and one about the planned swissfund. But of course there is more very interesting content in the magazine. We will publish a longer article about the Venture Guide in the coming days.

Patrick Warnking of Google Switzerland spoke in his keynote speech about the huge opportunities that are a result of the growing number of internet users. At the moment 2 billion people have internet access but in a few years it will be 5 billion. This will change a lot of industries and business disciplines such as marketing and will create a lot of business opportunities. Warnking mentioned the Swiss startup Holidaycheck as one of the start-ups that realized this and took the opportunity to build up a new business with a strong growth. At the end Warnking showed a video of a visionary project called Loon. Project Loon is a network of balloons traveling on the edge of space, designed to connect people in rural and remote areas, help fill coverage gaps, and bring people back online after disasters. With the project the keynote ended with a vision – a good start for CEO Day with all those ambitious entrepreneurs in the audience. The day started with a bit of Silicon Valley start-up spirit and of course Warnking claimed in his talk that Google is still a start-up. 

The CEO Day combines established and new elements: workshops, 1to1 meetings, “investors on stage” and a Dragon’s Den competition. We will be tweeting live with the hashtag #ceoday and report in detail on Thursday about the event on startupticker.ch.