Cambridge: A pretty good place to “do something great”
When Cambridge's Mark Littlewood put out a rallying cry for everyone to "do something great" yesterday, his simple message deftly captured both the sense of inspiration felt and the desire to honour one of the world's most influential and creative entrepreneurs and business leaders.And certainly similar sentiment was expressed widely throughout the Cambridge technology community. On his Tumblr blog, Andrew Pepperrell, developer of Mac productivity app, Alfred wrote: “It it were not for Steve, I would not be sitting at my own desk, working for myself, doing what I love - Programming for Mac, striving for perfection.”
Another local apps developer, Tony Short of Jasper Apps felt equally indebted: “I have him to thank for the opportunity to change my career, and making it possible for apps like My Vacation to be created. There will be thousands of developers around this world sharing the same thoughts today.”
Short and Pepperrell are working at it, but it's not an easy ask, how could it be, doing something great. And it's much harder to do it alone, which is why in Cambridge we should count ourselves lucky, a place where those ploughing furrows in the world of technology have more opportunities than most to kick-start something great, we just need to take full advantage of them.
Short and Pepperrell are working at it, but it's not an easy ask, how could it be, doing something great. And it's much harder to do it alone, which is why in Cambridge we should count ourselves lucky, a place where those ploughing furrows in the world of technology have more opportunities than most to kick-start something great, we just need to take full advantage of them.
For instance, a mobile and internet apps hackathon where government advisers are on hand to provide all manner of data in easy to use formats. Great, but wouldn't it be good if the people from Apple, Facebook, Google and Android developers were there to help instantly answer awkward and unexpected questions.
Yes, of course this is all happening as part of the Silicon Valley comes to the UK (and Cambridge) and if the opportunity to produce something great and worthwhile from this isn't enough to persuade you, there's nine road-trips to Silicon Valley followed by SxSW.
You better hurry though, that starts tomorrow. Too soon? Then try Cambridge Wireless's Discovering Startups competition which only has another three weeks of entry time left and get the chance to pitch to 25 potential investors including Qualcomm, Microsoft, Arm, RIM, Nokia and Broadcom.
Anglia Ruskin offers the Big Pitch, £10,000 last year and incubator space. Cambridge University Entrepreneurs is three rounds with potentially £6,100 on offer as well as the ear and eyes of many of Cambridge's top angel investors.
It's too late for i-teams, but there is the new kid on the block, Springboard, back next year.
These aren't all necessarily student events either, the Appathon, Springboard, Discovering Startups are all free and all open to anyone.
Then there's the free stuff that takes no pitching but helps develop and grow your business like St John's Innovation Centre's Understanding Finance for Business or the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning’s Enterprise Tuesday and of course the networks, over 50 groups of all sizes and denominations.
Steve Jobs was a college drop out, adopted and brought up by high school and college drop outs, he played the hand he was dealt to phenomenal effect, what excuse do you have not to do something great?
Yes, of course this is all happening as part of the Silicon Valley comes to the UK (and Cambridge) and if the opportunity to produce something great and worthwhile from this isn't enough to persuade you, there's nine road-trips to Silicon Valley followed by SxSW.
You better hurry though, that starts tomorrow. Too soon? Then try Cambridge Wireless's Discovering Startups competition which only has another three weeks of entry time left and get the chance to pitch to 25 potential investors including Qualcomm, Microsoft, Arm, RIM, Nokia and Broadcom.
Anglia Ruskin offers the Big Pitch, £10,000 last year and incubator space. Cambridge University Entrepreneurs is three rounds with potentially £6,100 on offer as well as the ear and eyes of many of Cambridge's top angel investors.
It's too late for i-teams, but there is the new kid on the block, Springboard, back next year.
These aren't all necessarily student events either, the Appathon, Springboard, Discovering Startups are all free and all open to anyone.
Then there's the free stuff that takes no pitching but helps develop and grow your business like St John's Innovation Centre's Understanding Finance for Business or the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning’s Enterprise Tuesday and of course the networks, over 50 groups of all sizes and denominations.
Steve Jobs was a college drop out, adopted and brought up by high school and college drop outs, he played the hand he was dealt to phenomenal effect, what excuse do you have not to do something great?
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