So the Athens Startup Weekend came and went and I think it’s left a most positive impression to everyone involved and about all its aspects. Andrew and Alexandros were there with us to show us how starting simply from an idea you can turn it into a startup within 2.5 days. Patrick and Lydia from Microsoft which hosted the event in the offices of the Microsoft Innovation Center made sure all our technical and maintenance (i.e. food and drinks) needs were met – thank you both for that! Apart from the participants, a number of people with a background on business, law and PR (as well as a few possible funders) were also invited to contribute their expertise to the event – ensuring each team had access to all the disciplines necessary to make their product work. And of course, everyone collectively contributed to create an excellent atmosphere choke full of creativity, ideas, positive vibes, effectiveness and above all results.

Speaking of which. the startups that presented in the end were the following:

1. pettycards allows micropayments using mobiles and scratch cards
2. howsocial.ru calculates the total social impact of individuals in a number of online communities
3. Digital Rights Protection collects all legal data on various worldwide legal systems and allows search for patents aiming to help interested parties look for infringements
4. rentawife.gr outsources household chores to others so you can regain your quality time
5. blognudge allows you to put a button on your blog so that people can suggest that you should write something and perhaps include a topic or send you a donation
6. mobcommerce.com allows e-commerce store owners to create mobile stores automatically
7. freecycling FB app helps people organise giving of stuff they don’t want to people who ask for them instead of throwing them away
8. mydoulapa FB app organises your wardrobe and allows you to donate some items to charity while fashion houses can also create an identity in it and tap their demographic of interest
9. beeshopper presents an array of e-shops in a single interface categorised per field
10. uArt looks like a deviantArt clone… only with a monetisation model for the artists’ works
    
11. betcafe is an online gambling site

And of course we’d like to wish all the best to pettycards who managed to stand out from the rest and attract the promise of the GIVE fund to take a closer look in their project and hopefully invest seed money in them. Congratulations guys! And congratulations to all who participated and helped make the weekend a success.

(Tag for content on twitter, flickr, YouTube, etc is #asw – and sometimes #aws)