Sure you have heard of book tours, concert tours, and even roadtrips designed around helping local charities. But I bet that you have never heard of a BarCamp tour. Until this morning no such thing existed. But the creative minds over at Grasshopper Group, MailChimp and Wufoo have teamed up to help entrepreneurs all over the country create amazing BarCamps.
Now some of you probably thinking ‘what the heck is a BarCamp?’ Basically, it is a gathering of entrepreneurs, developers, designers, etc. in an informal workshop type setting. The first BarCamp was held in Palo Alto in 2005 and since then BarCamps have been held in over 350 cities around the world – in North America, South America, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Australasia and Asia. Most BarCamps are held at company offices or actual bars. Wifi and coffee are the two most critical components, and BarCamp topics have ranged from health care to public transit to WordPress development.
The BarCamp tour will officially kick off at BarCamp Boston next month and aims to hit at least 10 BarCamps across the country over the course of the year. The BarCamp tour founding team includes Kevin Hale from Wufoo, Amy Ellis from MailChimp, and Stephanie Bullis and Jonathan Kay of Grasshopper Group.
The BarCamp tour will rely entirely on the public to choose their destinations. If you are interested in holding a BarCamp in your city all you have to do is apply and you could be on your way to getting your BarCamp pimped.
BarCamp tour cofounder Stefanie Bullis of Grasshopper explained, “Having conversations with entrepreneurs is absolutely inspiring and I’m so excited for the opportunity to travel all over the country and meet amazing people doing ridiculously cool things! Mailchimp and Wufoo are such influential entrepreneurial companies and I’m just so humbled to be able to learn from and work with Kevin and Amy.”
In addition to actually attending and sponsoring certain aspects of each BarCamp, Wufoo has generously donated it’s services to ALL BarCamps. So, anyone organizing a BarCamp can setup a free Wufoo account to collect attendees information. Also, Stickermule has designed and donated some pretty cool BarCamp Tour stickers as well as offering all BarCamps free stickers for their events.
Bullis emailed, “We’re using this to describe the “What is BarCamp Tour.” BarCamp tour is our way of saying, we love Barcamps! It’s the entrepreneurial adventure of Grasshopper Group, Mailchimp and Wufoo helping BarCamps across the country. Since BarCamp isn’t your traditional conference, BarCamp Tour is nothing like your traditional sponsor. We are active and enthusiastic participants in each conference. Our goal you ask? To provide organizers with the resources necessary to host ridiculously awesome events which empower attendees to share their passions.”
This is fantastic opportunity for any startup to engage their local community by holding an educational and fun BarCamp. The BarCamp is also sponsored and will be pimped by Grasshopper, MailChimp and Wufoo; so, what are you waiting for? Apply today.
For the original article, check out BostInnovation.com.
