The local entrepreneurial community will come together in April for the third 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 6th 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 6th through Saturday, April 14th, including the 2018 Athens Game Jam April 6-8, the UGA Idea Accelerator Demo Day Monday, April 9th, Students 2 Startups Wednesday, April 11th, and the UGA Next Top Entrepreneur Thursday, April 12th. Details for Startup Week events, and a link to register as an attendee, are available on the official Athens GA Startup Week website at https://techstarsstartupweekathensga2018.sched.com. Startup Week 2018 also brings a new hackathon, the Animal Health Hackathon presented by Boehringer Ingelheim, and a free RailsBridge web development workshop for underrepresented groups in tech.

Paul Singh and the Results Junkies will also be visiting with Athen’s entrepreneurs, educational institutions, government leaders, economic development organizations, and established businesses, during a three-day conference during Startup Week.

“The real goal of the Tech Tour is to bring functional expertise and venture capital dollars to parts of North America that don’t regularly get the same amount of attention as the well-known tech hubs,” Singh said. “This tour isn’t just for companies that want to raise VC money or tech startups trying to be the next ‘Uber for this or Uber for that’. We want brick and mortar businesses, too, and those who are working on their own entrepreneurial dream. It’s important to realize that technology is so interwoven into business such that every startup or entrepreneur needs to understand how to make it work for them.”