Tickets are available through noon Friday for the SparkAK, a weekend-long team event aimed at entrepreneurial types that begins Friday evening.
“Startup enthusiasts” will get to “meet one another, listen to and interact with interesting speakers, come up with some insane ideas and execute them,” organizer Nicholas Petroski said.
Participants will be divided into teams with the opportunity to pitch what they’ve created to a panel of judges. Prizes will be awarded. Judges are: Heather Barnes, chair of the intellectual property practice group at Akron law firm Brouse McDowell; Andrew Holland, who runs an Akron Web design and hosting enterprise; and John Myers, with the University of Akron Research Foundation.
The event will be at Office Space Coworking Tech Lab at 12 E. Exchange St. in downtown Akron. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is the weekend’s key sponsor. Petroski opened the Tech Lab earlier this year as shared work space that caters to entrepreneurs involved with tech startups. He recently moved the more traditional Office Space Coworking, or OSC, at 12 E. Exchange.
The SparkAK weekend will feature the speakers, lunch and dinner on Saturday, lunch on Sunday and time for participants on each team to work together. The OSC Tech Lab will be open throughout the weekend.
Petroski said the weekend is targeted to developers, designers, marketers, finance professionals and anyone interested in startups, building things, “or meeting ambitious people.”
Twenty people have signed up so far; the event will accommodate about 50. Tickets start at $50.
Tickets can be purchased at a discount by using the code: tchlab07. Group rates are available. For more information or to buy tickets, go online to www.osctechlab.com/sparkak.html.
Katie Byard can be reached at 330-996-3781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com.