Next Thursday we invite you to meet The Difference Engine in Vilnius. It is a UK based accelerator program which follows Techstars mentorship-based model and offers fairly good startup opportunities with 20k GBP investment, thirteen weeks of incubation and introductions to 100+ mentors along with the deal. A Lithuanian team – Geogoer – has already stepped out of the forge of this accelerator and will be present in the event to share experience as well. The Difference Engine is bringing along Stewart Townsend, startup master, previously behind Sun Startups Essentials programme, who is also one of the mentors, and Annely Lautre of UK Trade and Investment. The trip this summer is to spread the good word about how open The Difference Engine is and to invite the more startups to participate. Together with the founder, another TDE startup is comming Jonathan Shrago from Tagorize, a Seedcamp 2009 finalist.

The event will take place at the formerly usual place in restaurant Pegasus (Didžioji g. 11, Vilnius, map), at next Thursday (07-15^th 18:00). We expect the event to last approximately 2 hours, and the space will be open longer should the networking wage on.

During the event we expect:

• Presentation from The Difference Engine (followed by short Q&A)
• Short speeches by key speakers
• Pitchers from Lithuanian startups to show what Lithuania has
• Networking session that is likely to include discussion with the guest about accelerators

Everyone is invited (the event is free) and welcomed to contribute. If you feel you could add to speeches / pitchers drop us a line at rokas.tamosiunas@opencoffeeclub.lt

Please register for the event at http://differenceengine-vilnius.eventbrite.com/

During last 4 months we were actively engaged in hosting two major events – Startup Weekend Vilnius and World Lithuanian Economic Forum. Both of these events were planned out two months forth and delivered more or less throughout them. So what can we, as organizers, say of the two events? Well, the difference is paramount. After SW there were six pages of notes of what could have done better, or wasn’t there at all, we had round up meeting during which some tones were not the happiest. Well, after last event the mood is way better, there are no major notes, and about the only valid criticism that sticks – lack of plans B – so plans A were ok. Let’s note here that we had a very capable team during SW that individually in more than one occasions stretched out for the team – no offense intended.

So what’s good about WLEF? No major flaws, clear script, smooth execution. We had a large audience with great number of VIPs in it – which took subtle care to handle all their inquiries while ensuring timely delivery of all sorts of small pieces. We had spaces that allowed for networking, conference, backstage meetings and even dinner. We had a very professional sound, and less sophisticated video equipment that took three persons in total to operate smoothly so that the content was fluent and harmonic. But we did it. In all fairness it must be noted that we had no online presence and virtually no interaction whatsoever. A clear path for improvement there.

We hope this will end up as a trend of quality and the next major event we do is going to be of the same level or above. We had a 10-months-long small event’s chain last year that allowed us to perfect some small details of event hosting, and now we’re scaling it up. To share a few ideas what we’d like to have in the next big thing we do is greater engagement with audience, be it Twitter channels or Facebook wall. Ideally we can come up with some sort of reduced forum system that would run smoothly on cells, then have wireless stations set up, and the chat linked with presentation material allowing everyone to get a better focus and enabling to deliver feedback / ask questions at will.

To give a small insight on what’s coming, well – it’s summer time. So we are likely to have one or two small events here in Vilnius themed with some international events. There is an idea of hosting training towards the end of August. Maybe some small events after that. Autumn is likely to see some partnership projects: we’ve took a part in JCIs CYEA, maybe more partnerships will come out of that way, or a totally new partner will step up. Ideally there will be one more large event before end of the year, during which we’ll be able to apply much of what we learned so far.  Keep an eye on us if you’re interested.

Last week we’ve finally reached the conference day of WLEF. For half a day over 150 people gathered in central London to listen, talk, and network Lithuania. As the conference third part was focused on Lithuanian startups, over two dozens of VCs turned up at the event. While the rest of the audience was comprised of Lithuanian and foreign high profile businessmen, a large delegation from Lithuania itself, and a margin of various other guests. This is an attempt to give you a fair impression of what happened during that half of a day.

The conference was kicked off by a speech delivered by Lithuania’s PM Andrius Kubilius, right after greeting speeches. PM gave a snapshot of Lithuania’s fiscal consolidation, key advantages and pulled that joke about basketball victory and Eurovision being the next hard targets of the government, while everything else being easy. It was followed by quite thoroughly seconding speech by a representative from IBM. Next on the panel for a moment it looked that “Strategic Staffing Solutions” and “Barclays” outright loves Lithuania from what they’ve said, but the impression was later effectively downed by a question from the audience about whether Barclays retail banking will come to Lithuania – the answers was: not any time soon. Minister of economics, who joined the panel to answer questions admitted it was his job to engage Lithuanian’s abroad and those about to leave, but failed to give a good reason why national problem of emigration will be reversed.

The second panel was more dynamic, providing more than one interesting thought on how to nurture entrepreneurship ecosystem. While minister of economics said startups where a priority, Bill Morrow from Angels Den said healthy startups should spring where it is tough, meaning no direct influx from the government. It was furthered by Henrik Albertsen from Nordic Venture Partners as he said he would not invest into a startup who has received public money. On the other note from the panel two successful Lithuanian companies spoke about their experience that painted a picture of business being a lone warrior in the field of Lithuania. During the question sessions minister of economics said he would go green tech should he return to business after his present duties. An indication for us all.

Last session was comprised of seven Lithuanian startup pitches. Quality of the presentations for once (during the second panel it was voiced that all Europeans, especially from northern part are terrible at pitching) was quite good, some of the pitchers really demonstrating great skill, and the content of all of them was considerable. We at Open Coffee Club believe that all seven were good business opportunities for VCs. This can be backed by number of very positive responses from VCs collected after the conference. One more note worth mentioning, is that aside traditional IT startups from Lithuania, we had greeen-tech, bio-tech, an even nano-tech pitching at the event.

To sum it up it was intense half of a day, with great number of messages to be heard and outstanding networking opportunity. Hopefully Lithuania lit up lighter on the minds of quite a few in London, as well as gave good chance for Lithuanian and foreign companies to meet up and hopefully bridge some lasting partnerships. So let’s collect the fruits of this event and brace for the one next year.