Why I'm Excited About Next Week's IT Expo

There's one reason I'm excited about IT Expo. It's called Startup Camp. 

Startup Camp is perhaps the most relevant example of what is really happening in the telecom and tech world today at the twice annual confernence.  For the past four StartUpCamp they have had standing room only crowds, and key speakers iincluding startup luminaries and legends Craig Walker (GrandCentral), Bob Metcalf (father of Ethernet, 3COM), Jamie Siminoff (Simulscribe, Unsubscibe) and Jeff Bonforte (Gizmo, Yahoo Voice, Xobni). This year will have Sir Terry Matthews (NewBridge Networks, Mitel) as the keynote offering a neat perspective from years of experience nurturing and building companies.

But the event is more than talk. It's about the baby companies getting their start. One of the former presenters to graduate via exit was GroupMe, which was bought Skype, and other forward thinking companies like Twillio, OpenTok have all supported the event as sponsors to help make it a success.

This year's class of participants again includes four companies who will battle it out to impress the judges that include moderator Siminoff, Brooks Robinson (co-founder of cBeyond), Alan Duric (Camino Networks, Goji and Telio) and Gary Pudles (AnswerNet).

StartUp Camp is Thursday, February 2 starting with cocktails at 4 PM.