The local entrepreneurial community will come together in April for the second annual Athens GA Startup Week to highlight the innovative leadership of local startups and small business. Business leaders, founders, and funders will participate in a week-long series of programming to take place across Classic City in recognition and support of the creative and entrepreneurial spirit of Athens-based businesses April 10th through 14th.

As part of the official Startup Week event series supported by TechStars in cities across the globe, the annual Athens GA Startup Week is designed to support and strengthen the local entrepreneurial community through open opportunities to connect, learn, and be inspired by expertise and talent in the area at events in a variety of formats throughout the week covering key success topics such as finding funding, linking local resources, effective marketing, and performance management for startups and small business models, while celebrating Athens’ unique culture.

Entrepreneurs, founders, service providers, and members of the Athens creative community are invited to participate in Athens GA Startup Week 2017. The main events of the week are scheduled from Friday, April 7th through Friday, April 14th, including the 2017 Athens Game Jam April 7-9, Students 2 Startups Tuesday April 11th, Next Top Entrepreneur Wednesday April 12th, and the Idea Accelerator Demo Day Thursday April 13th. Details for Startup Week events and a link to register as an attendee are available on the official Athens GA Startup Week website at athensgeorgia.startupweek.co.

This year, Athens GA Startup Week aptly occurs during the inaugural Acropolis Innovation Festival, a new initiative to promote Athens' culture of creators and forward-thinkers coordinated by a volunteer coalition representing local leaders in business, academia, government, and others. Spearheaded by Athens-Clarke County's Economic Development Department, Acropolis will span the entire month of April in a city-wide effort to identify Athens as the ascendant outpost for modernity, creativity, invention, and culture in the Southeast it has become.

As Jordan Burke, Executive Director of local economic development nonprofit Four Athens, and Acropolis Programming Committee Chair, describes, “It is serendipitous the Acropolis effort coincided with the second annual Athens GA Startup Week planned for the month of April. We want to engage the spectrum of innovative minds in our community, and inspire them to connect with one another on ideas and issues that matter, and that’s what Startup Week is designed to do. I am excited about the opportunities that will result from the week's events, and from the month as whole.”