Web 2 Ireland

The Startup 2.0 Competition has been around for a few years now and has always bubbled up some interesting companies that are not on the usual tech blog circuit. This year is all about Mobile and they are looking for the best Mobile Startups and Apps across Europe.

The process is very simple:

1. Submit your entry here
2. An international jury and Internet users will vote for the best 5 mobile apps
3. On June, 17th the 5 best startups will present their projects at the Nonick Conference in Bilbao and people will vote to select the winner.

Disclosure: I’m one of the jury members.

There is so much happening in mobile in Ireland right now, it would be fantastic for those apps to get a wider audience.

It’s a Worldwide Programming Competition kicking-off today. $5,000 cash and all the glory to the winner. Do it.

It’s that time of year again where start-ups all over the island are busy tweaking their business plans for the Seedcorn competition. There is still enough time if you start now and you’re missing out on a big opportunity if you don’t. There is €360,000 in prizes up for grabs.

Do you meet the following criteria?

• In the seed, startup or early stages of business development
• Incorporated on the island of Ireland
• Not more than 5 years old at Friday 25 September 2009
• Have a new equity requirement of at least €100,000 (or sterling equivalent)
• Have cumulative sales targets of less than or in excess of €5m by year 3,4 or 5

Deadline is 1PM FRIDAY 25TH SEPTEMBER 2009

The IQPrize pitching and judging will run from 9am-5pm tomorrow. Good luck to all the finalists.

The winner will be announced at a party afterwards which is on from 7pm-9pm in the Source Bar, Level 5, Guinness Storehouse. Each of the finalists will give their elevator pitches before the winner is giving the giant cheque. All attendees can also vote in the People's Choice award where one of the shortlist can win an extra €1,000.

If you’re interested in coming and seeing who wins the €10k prize please RSVP to coryann.joseph@iqcontent.com.

The site goes live at 2pm today. It’s very simple, send IQContent a 5-page business plan that shows how your will turn your idea into a great online business.

The best submissions will be shortlisted and asked to present their business plans before a panel of independent judges.

The final winner will be announced at the end of June.

This bit is important:

We're not investors. We're not venture capitalists. We're not looking for equity and we don't want any intellectual property. There's no catch. There are no strings. Seriously.

All details on iqprize.ie. What are you waiting for, get your ass over there!

Ruth Spencer from The European Journalism Centre (EJC) contacted me to let us know about The European Blogging Competition they are launching in Brussels from 25th to 27th of January coming.

The theme is TH!NK ABOUT IT and the focus of the competition is the European Parliament Elections 2009. EJC wants to offer a platform for journalism students, aspiring journalists and bloggers to express their views on European topics as well as to report and cover the elections.

They want to have three bloggers from each country attending the launch event and will cover the travel costs. The timeline is:

• Launch event: 25 January, 2009 – 27 January, 2009
• Blogging: 1 February, 2009 – 9 June, 2009
• Competition results: 12 June, 2009

If this is of interest to you, read all the details and apply at www.thinkaboutit.eu

If you are wondering what this has to do with Web2Ireland, I’d simply say that the direction the EU takes over the next few years, particularly in how it deals with a global recession, will have direct impact on start-ups here.

To complement our lovely new design we thought it might be cool to get a logo to go with it too. This wouldn’t just be for the site but also for events etc.

David Lenehan from PollDaddy came up with the very smart idea on Twitter of running a competition with prizes. Within minutes we had several offers for those prizes. So we’d like to announce the competition now.

The rules are simple, just send us a sample of your logo(s) in one of the standard bitmap formats by Friday May 2nd to web2ireland DOT editor AT gmail DOT com. We will then publish a post showing them all and a poll allowing you to vote on them. The design with the most votes after one week wins!

The winner will not just get lots of publicity here and a permanent credit on the site but they will also win the following:

• One year of PollDaddy Pro sponsored by PollDaddy
• A copy of Microsoft Expression Studio sponsored by Microsoft Ireland
• A year of Blacknight VPS hosting sponsored by Blacknight Solutions

Many thanks to David, Martha, Clare and Michele for the brilliant prizes!