VideoLine: The first Twin Cities Startup Weekend--tech companies from scratch in three days

From the busy third floor of the CoCo coworking space in Saint Paul during Saturday's work time, Startup Weekend Chief Operating Officer Shane Reiser gives us the rundown on the first Twin Cities Startup Weekend, held September 17-19. The event attracted 95 participants whose goal was to buddy up, brainstorm, pitch tech startups--then work on them and bring them as close to reality as possible, ending with demos of the projects on Sunday night.

Along the way, there were speakers (including TechDotMN's Jeff Pesek and MixMobi's Lisa Foote) and mentors, like attorney and MOJO Minnesota mainstay Ernest Grumbles, to advise the teams as they developed their projects. But as Reiser points out, the emphasis was on working rather than "conferencing," and work the Startuppers did. They pitched 39 ideas and formed 13 teams. Grand Prize winners Qonqr (as in "Conquer") will take their "location-based, Risk-like, mobile game played out over the face of the earth" to Chicago for midVenturesLAUNCH, a midwest-wide tech-startup showcase and funding competition.

For all the metrics, winners, prizes, and other details of the Weekend, go here.