Social Entrepreneurship Fall Conference Preview | Social Entrepreneurship

Spring and fall are the two big conference seasons for most industries, and our nascent field is no exception. The list below just covers some of the biggies, and is not nearly a comprehensive list. If you know of others, feel free to add them in the comments and we'll build a more extensive running list.

Dangerously Ambitious
What: A first time event hosted by social venture incubator Sparkseed, Dangerously Ambitious is a three day event coming up this weekend in Silicon Valley. It's restricted to about 75 participants and promises a dynamic, immersive environment full of wine hikes and sky diving.
What to watch for: The central idea here is to build something that's a community bonding experience more than a pseudo academic learning experience. I think they've done a great job planning, but the test will be how people respond.
When: August 19-22
Where: Silicon Valley, CA
Registration: Closed

The Feast
What: The second annual Feast conference is sort of like Social Entrepreneurship through the lens of the Lower East Side. A cool day long conference full of big talks, flanked by workshops and presentations the day following.
What to watch for: The Feast is run by an extremely dynamic young group, and I would be surprised if there weren't some interesting format and content twists.
When: October 14-16
Where: New York City
Registration: Open now

Social Capital Markets 2010
What: Continuously moving into place as the Fall's anchor event of the field (particularly for social investors), even in only its third year SoCap is one of the few conferences with the scale to really bring huge cross-sections of the movement together en masse.
What to watch for: Like any event that has over 1,000 people, SoCap faces the challenge of overwhelming people with content. This year, they've put power in the hands of domain experts across six "Tracks" like "Tactical Philanthropy" and "Mobile Technology" which seems like a really promising way to improve the flow.
When: October 4-6
Where: San Francisco, CA
Registration: Open now, 20% discount code: EB20

Opportunity Collaboration
What: The second year of this anti-poverty unconference in Mexico, Opportunity Collaboration rocked onto the scene last year by offering a fundamentally different experience for participants. They booked an entire hotel, let attendees (mostly) control the content, and got everyone disarmed in flip-flops.
What to watch for: Second years are always tough - particularly for unconferences. The event will surely be great again, but finding the balance between structured and unstructured content will be a challenge.
When: October 15-20
Where: Ixtapa, Mexico
Registration: 92% full, open now.

Pop!Tech
What: The annual anchor event of an extremely dynamic multi-sector community, PopTech brings artists, designers, social entrepreneurs, business people and others to Camden, Maine each October for a few days of brilliant talks and performances, as well as to introduce them to opportunities for collaboration throughout the year.
What to watch for: Some of the most amazing stuff about PopTech is what happens throughout the year beyond the event, like their collaboration on mobile health Project M. The holy grail would be finding ways to pipeline attendees into those sort of projects.
When: October 20-23
Where: Camden, Maine
Registration: Request a spot here

Photo credit: Pop!Tech

Tags: -->

via socialentrepreneurship.change.org

Posted via email from soulhangout's posterous