The Tech Entrepreneurship Lab began full force — a great post lunch re-energizer. We had a full table, and began by introducing ourselves and what we could bring to a startup (I pitched myself as chief hustler/dev/product designer).
We thought of an idea, based off of the fact that we had people from Square at the table, to create a way to pay that’s even easier, even more intuitive — using fingerprints. We called our little imaginary company beID (“Be your ID”). There were many pitches — relating to education, safety, baby monitoring, health.
I think it was a great decision to have an ‘idea bucket’ available, with some set scenarios for people to riff on. A couple teams used them, but I think far more came up with their own. It’s less intimidating to look at a canvas with a couple of proposals than to look at a blank one.
I love these sorts of activities (last year I wrote about a similar innovation birds of a feather session). They’re a great brain workout, a great way to meet new and interesting people, and definitively fun. We had a TechWomen member at our table, someone who literally works blocks away from Paperless’ NYC office, and a new friend I made over lunch who’s worked in hardware 10 years and is now intrigued by startups. How great is that?
This blog post is coverage of a talk/activity at Grace Hopper 2012.