Plugg 2009 even better as in 2008!
Last year, I was present at the first edition Plugg as a start-up finalist speaker for MyOwnDB. It was a truly
wonderful event then. But this year, it was even better. Congratulations
to Robin Wauters
and Veronique Pochet for bringing us such
a high-quality event.
For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, Plugg is a one-day conference
with a clear focus on celebrating entrepreneurship and innovation in Europe
and raising global awareness for those European start-ups in the Web / Mobile
2.0 field that stand out in the crop.
Mike Butcher is a great host and knows how to
retain the audience’s attention throughout a full-day event. I’m less
enthusiastic about Sien
Luyten as a presenter for the core of the event, the start-up rally. But
that’s just me, I suppose, as I heard other people congratulating her for her
efforts.
My personal highlights of the day, however, were not the presenting start-ups
(even though I found their pitches of a much better quality as last year’s
contestants), but the very inspiring talks of Dries Buytaert and Bart Decrem. First of all, I am
personally quite a fan of both these guys. Big Belgian names in the world wide
Open Source community (that’s reason enough) ánd able to work on what they
love most in their own businesses (need more reasons?).
I was very inspired by them, explaining the European entrepreneur that being
in the United States is not a bad idea for your business and that we should
not be afraid to think BIG.
I’m not a big fan of the States myself, but I can see their point. Thinking
BIG however, is something I have in me. Let’s see where it gets me. :-)
One last thing I want to share is that it really struck me how nearly every
startup was highlighting the fact that their product was platform-independent.
Nothing we saw was tied to the Microsoft platform at all. I think the big
shift towards the mobile platform, where no monopoly has settled yet, makes
businesses rethink their platform compatibility strategy. Moreover, most
key-note speakers clearly mentioned Open Source as being a really important
factor in today’s digital world (Inmaculada
Martinez, Dries
Buytaert, Bart
Decrem, Paul De
Decker, …). I can’t help but think that the current crisis the world is
finding itself in only accelerates this trend of Open thinking. This is
good news for all us Open Source oriented businesses!
Anyway, it was nice meeting new and great people yesterday. I’m already
looking forward to the third edition in 2010!