There are a lot of students out there who want to start an Internet company but are lost, either because there is not enough “push” from the community to motivate them to get started or because they don’t know where to find the right people. U of T’s Web Startup Society wants to connect student entrepreneurs with people who aspire to be entrepreneurs.

In Stanford, or even in Waterloo, most students want to create their own startup once they graduate. However, over here, the startup scene is fairly disappointing. The WSS wants to change that by starting a culture in which people will once again believe that they can change the world through the Internet.

Throughout the year, they will have seminars featuring some of Toronto’s leading web entrepreneurs, including U of T Alumni who are currently working in the startup industry. At the end of the term they will hold a Web Startup Exhibition, which will showcase several startup companies from across Canada. Students would be able to get a hands-on demo on the cool stuff that Canadian startups have worked on. At the same time, they would also benefit from asking questions and getting personal advice from the founders, who have a wealth of experience under their belt. Lastly, the WSS will host an event similar to a DemoCamp, wherein students who are currently working on a startup could demonstrate their project to a group of judges, developers, designers, investors, and students.

You should join if you are a) interested in designing or developing websites or b) planning on building a startup or currently working on one, since you would benefit from finding potential partners. Although prior programming experience helps, it’s not really necessary to have.

As a member, you can benefit from getting a hands-on experience and understanding of what the world of startups is all about. One way to do that is by attending or volunteering to help out in their events. You will benefit from meeting all kinds of interesting people and learn valuable lessons. Plus there is no membership fee this year.

If, at this point, you are thinking, OMG I want to join, do this:

1. Go to their Facebook page.
2. Click “join group.”
3. Email your name, student ID and contact number to soa_dias [at] yahoo [dot] com with subject “Join WSS”.

And please don’t forget blogUT when you are a millionaire startup founder

Thank you to Reginald Tan for helping to write this article.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Clubs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.