Spark Walk Jacksonville : A festival of Art

About the Event
One Spark is an annual crowdfunding festival held in Downtown Jacksonville, Florida, United States.
In the event, "creators" display projects in various categories (including art, innovation, music, science, social good, and technology) and crowdfund from attendees. The event also offers opportunities for private investment in projects as well as speakers, music, and entertainment.
The event launched in 2013.

Let’s know the walk
Jacksonville Downtown Artwalk is held on the first Wednesday of every month.
The Art Walk headquarters at Hemming Park hosts dozens of artists, seeking to show and sell their works. From jewelry to paintings, accessories to sculptures and many more, you’ll find a mix of unique, handmade items from both emerging and established artists.

Spark Walk 2016
Spark Walk 2016 was presented by One Spark Inc., in collaboration with Downtown Vision, Inc.
It was held from noon to 10 p.m.
The creator showcase was on Laura Street, from Adams Street to The Jacksonville Landing.
There were live performances, food junctions, stalls by startups and small businesses and art walk monthly artists.

My experience
It was my first Art Walk in Jacksonville and I was really excited to see the fusion of creativity and
uniqueness that was at display at each stall.
And I was not at all disappointed. The work of each artist was really commendable. Every time I
used to pass a stall, my eagerness to see something new increased manifold and my expectations
touched a new level.

Apart from artists there were also small startups and businesses who were promoting their stuff.
Each had a new concept and story to tell. I liked most of them but was really impressed by
“123 Apps Studio”.

The life performances were ok, not that great.
Food looked yummy but as I was full so could only crave for it from a distance.

123 Apps Studio
123 Apps studio is Mobile App development platform for small businesses starting at $25 per month. It’s mission is to help small businesses build their own mobile app at affordable cost and as simple as 1..2..3 steps. At this point, they are focusing on food service industry which includes Restaurants, Cafes, Bakeries and other food junctions.
With the app a restaurant would you be able to provide special offers, rewards, online orders and many more features. Also restaurants would be able to manage the entire data on the app.

                                                                  Meet The Founders

Currently they are working with early customers and launching apps for first 5 customers by end of April.
For more information and to enroll as a customer reach out to them at info@123AppsStudio.com

Insights on the biggest tech conference of India : Surge 2016

Surge – Intro

The biggest tech conference of India, SURGE 2016 was a two day event held at “Manpho Convention Centre” in Bengaluru on February 23^rd and 24^th 2016. It was a massive platform for startups to showcase their mettle and convince the investors.
Over 5,000 people from 72 countries were present to attend the conference.

Surge – Stats & Figures

1.       433 Startups from across the world.

2.       288 pre-arranged meetings were held between Surge Mentors and startups.

3.       480 meetings between Surge Startups and investors.

4.       130 speakers gave talks on Surge stage.

5.       290 international media was present such as BBC, Wall Street Journal, CNBC and Financial times.

Surge – Impact

Although it was the first event of Web Summit in India it had lot of positive aspects associated to it.
Surge was able to create a sharp focus on the startup ecosystem in the country and what it can do to make life easier.

One thing that was clear from the event was not just the boom in startups but also the quality of the output and products. The innovative thinking is very much there but what is required is to direct the thinking to get into action and deliver. This was the context of most of the discussions and it was a pleasure to watch them live.

Such discussions & talks are important as it moves the ideas into a reality and the adjustments from idea to deployment will highlight the challenges and innovations that will be needed to get it in place.

Investors are looking at new startups to help build their wealth and bring with them the expertise to scale up. SURGE was precisely looking at disruptive technologies that will speed up innovation and impact human life in a positive manner and more so looking at the disruption to impact low income regions that can then translate to impact in high income regions and developed countries.

The real question that needs to be asked is if the event will become a startup mainstay in India and the answer to that is still not clear.

One thing that became very clear with most interactions is that there is a need to move ideas to production quickly and they have to impact human condition. Though it is a large challenge but not impossible. Most ideas are not able to move cost effectively to production and that is precisely a reason funding is drying up.

Surge – Issues

Undoubtedly, for a first time event it had its fair share of issues:

1.       The location chosen had no mobile signal coverage.

2.       The Wi-Fi in the convention center failed.

These were just the 2 of the smaller issues I would say.

One of the major issues was the media interaction with the speakers. It could have been managed better with a common platform being created as we could have collectively got all our questions answered.

Surge – Spotlight

Ather Energy was one of the startup which was able to gain some limelight by unveiling India’s first smart electric scooter on day one.

Arctron Mobility, the winner of the Pitch (A startup Competition held at Surge) was also one of the few startups which got investors attention.

Surge – Learning

Gone are days when we had funds coming in freely to support ideas. It is now the survival of the fittest and that is where it we will see real value being translated.

Surge – PhotoWalk

Pics Credit - Here