📌 Meetup: InovaSampa

InovaSampa is an event aimed at digital entrepreneurs looking for partners and collaborators to succeed in their startups. The event took place last Saturday at the IME-USP and was organized by the Digital Entrepreneurship Group of the Center of Free Software Competence (CCSL) of IME-USP, with support from the USP Entrepreneurship Center (NEU) and the USP Innovation Agency.

Along with a classmate (Paulo), I went to "test" an idea we have (which I may write a post about later, but for now I'll omit it), and it was a great experience.

Firstly, there was a lecture by Professor Emeritus Shlomo Maital from Technion, who had taught entrepreneurship at MIT for 20 years. Professor Maital has a blog where he posts about creativity and entrepreneurship, in addition to teaching a course on these topics on Coursera. One quote from Maital stood out to me: "[...] when you have a checkbook, everything becomes easier, and creativity often disappears [...]," and I identified with this a lot. I've often been told that I do too many "hacks" or "workarounds," but I think the opposite is true. I've worked in companies with limited resources and always improvised. In fact, I'm always improvising in my life. I don't have a closet, but these days I improvised a "rack" (which turned out pretty nice), and gained space and organization.

At the event, we had to give a quick pitch. One minute may seem like a short time, but not when you're speaking to a select audience. I've never seen a minute go by so slowly!

The event also featured some well-known people in the technology/development area, such as Daniel Cukier (part of the organization) and Jose Papo.

Overall, the event was excellent, the networking was great, and the coffee was good too. I think people should participate more in these types of events! It's worth it.

PS: Professor Maital wrote a blog post about the event, so if you want to see it, check it out here: http://timnovate.wordpress.com/2014/08/17/think-b-i-g/