The future is here – and right now, it's in Vienna. The Pioneers Festival is taking place on June 1st and 2nd at Vienna's venerable Hofburg Palace. Munich Startup is there to share its impressions.
When it comes to which startup festival or founders' fair boasts the best location, the Pioneers Festival is at the forefront. By a long way. This founders' festival doesn't take place just anywhere, but in Vienna's Hofburg Palace. And that's likely to impress even the most sophisticated tech pioneers who gather here. The combination of tradition and modernity works quite well. Because, in our opinion, Pioneers deserves the title "festival": The atmosphere is relaxed, the audience is mixed—relatively few in suits—and the sessions cover a wide range of topics: From "Autonomous Societies" to "Tattoos are Crazy Fun and Social," everything can be found on the Main Stage. Incidentally, it's located in the Hofburg Palace's rather breathtaking ballroom.
“Awesome” what’s coming out of Munich
This year's Pioneers Festival focuses entirely on the question of how technological developments will continue to influence our daily lives. And how humanity is not lost despite all technological advances. One thing is already clear at the opening show: We're not talking about a future. far far away, in fact, the future is already here!
Interest in this question—and in Pioneers in general—is high, as the (self-proclaimed) pioneers, startups, and investors throng the Hofburg, which in some places resembles a small labyrinth—making it not always easy to find the right space. The day begins in the arena, aka the ballroom, with a brilliant opening show—which, however, lacks some interest from the audience—with a talk between Pioneers founder Jürgen Furian and Siraj Khaliq, partner at the London-based investment firm Atomico and also an investor in the Munich startup. Lilium Aviation. This then makes it to the main stage with a video contribution and Furian is enthusiastic: “Awesome” be it what's coming out of Munich! When asked which technology Khaliq finds most interesting at the moment, he doesn't have to think twice: Artificial Intelligence. Because, in his estimation, we're experiencing a new revolution, with computers becoming fitter and better than humans. So much for the future is already here.
Two Munich startups among the TOP 50
Let's leave the arena to search for the pitch area. This is where the startups selected as the most promising among the Pioneers500 will pitch during the first day. The Munich startups have also made it into this top 50. Viscopic in the area of Top Industry 4.0 Startups and MotionsCloud in the area of top fintech startups. Unlike many other pitch events, the startups at Pioneers don't go onto the stage completely clueless, but rather received online mentoring before the event. They were also able to attend Mentors Day the day before the festival, which included a one-on-one mentoring session with an international expert. So, no one can complain about poor preparation here. And the actual pitches are also accompanied by a pleasantly relaxed atmosphere – festival or not. This is certainly also due to the fact that the pitches take place in a room where almost meticulous care is taken to ensure that the doors are closed. Viscopic then performs confidently and Marco Maier, the Managing Director, is satisfied:
"We were already at the Pioneers Festival last year and noticed that there were also top-class investors there. To make further contacts, we decided to participate in the startup exhibition and pitch competition this year. We are proud to be among the top 50 startups and are now eagerly awaiting the jury's results..."
The top 8 from the first Pioneers day then advance to the finals, which will take place on the Main Stage on the second day. A bit of fighting spirit is worthwhile, as the prize is a trip to San Francisco, where the winning startup will meet Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel and VC Tim Drapier, among others.
Task for Day 2
Time flies at Pioneers. At one point, Frank Thelen—who's speaking on the Main Stage about "Empowering Tech for Startups"—rolls past us on a mobile (?), a camera right in his face... We watch and move on. There's still plenty to discover, after all, knowing where the future is. Apparently in Vienna.
Task for Day 2: Take a closer look at all the Munich startups participating in Pioneers 2017! #staytuned
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