Venture Camp 2011: here's what happened

33 speakers, 15 startups, 375 participants, #MTBVentureCamp the top discussion topic in Italy on Twitter, just to name a few numbers.

Part of the discussions we had, ended up on the Italian Government official website. Santoro has been chasing us and our speakers every since. The real "Iene" wanted to exchange T-shirts, like you do at the end of the worldcup (expect that we run out of ours).

Established entrepreneurs who attended the events are saying our startups are officially ready to play the major league, meaning Silicon Valley (Massimo Sgrelli: "Startup italiane pronte per la Serie A")

Even more established industrialists, at the very end, communicating they want to invest heavily and directly in the Mind the Bridge Foundation (Gaetano Marzotto: min. -38)

But what happened really?? It's all kind of blurred now. I remember showing up with Iene-like sunglasses, talking with Rampagna (RCS) about the role of larger companies in Italy (to acquire startups!), with Villanueva (McKinsey) of the role of governments in promoting Startup Chile-like programs, with Earner (VC) about the chances of Italy to survive at the current pace of innovation production, while discussing the always spicy assessments of my good friend Vivek Wadhwa (Washington post, Techcrunch, etc)

I then remember Loris Degioanni and Bonzio talk about the role of role-models and father figures in one's success ("Chi vola vale, chi vale vola, chi non vola non vale (ed e' un vile)")

Bassetti, Marzotto and Beretta (that is, the best of Italian brands in the world!) kind of looking back and see how to leave a significant imprint for younger generation of entrepreneurs.

And then Vito Lomele (Jobrapido, $20M+ revenues in less than 5 years), Mario Mariani (ex Tiscali), Leandro Agro' and Gabriele Gresta (Bibop) proud representatives of a new Italy that is making waves, against all odds!

And then Nick Heller (Google) describing Google's new efforts in the "startup-incubation'

space (new incubator in London, support for similar programs in Israel and South Africa), Gesess and Baldini about their recently launched new funds.

And then Byers (Stanford) and de L'Etraz (IE) addressing the key questions entrepreneurs should answer.

And how to forget a highly inspired and always funny, Lady Innova, bringing the wisdom of the crowds (=Twitter and Facebook) in the room with the speakers.

And the evening event? Playing Light Painting with Claudio Bonoldi (boy, is that difficult!), listing to the live music of the Trio Fabio Mariani and... being totally disrupted by the Il Moralizzatore from the IENE... all flown in from Rome to attend our evening event.

Was it all real??

Did you miss it? Really??? Listen up. This is your last chance: in a few days you'll be able to see all the videos from our YT Channel.

PS the awesome pics are by Paolo Bonnacorsi, photographer (Paolo, you rock!)