Have you heard about The Pitcher yet? If not, it's time you do as it is a fast-growing pitching event in which entrepreneurs and startup teams are given the opportunity to showcase their ventures in front of a large audience of investors, venture capitalists, fellow entrepreneurs, journalists and mentors and to possibly secure funding for their companies.

On Saturday, April 21 the pitching event aptly entitled The Pitcher will take place at the Istanbul Technical University's Ayazağa campus in Maslak from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.This event, which takes place in English is an opportunity for entrepreneurs and startup teams to be able to present and promote their businesses for potential customers, investors and mentors, giving them the chance to secure funding for their startups. For investors, this is an opportunity to observe promising startups and to be introduced to aspiring and game-changing ideas and meeting the talented and ambitious entrepreneurs behind them. For the audience, The Pitcher will undoubtedly be an inspiring experience in which you get to listen to interesting people revealing innovative pitches while making new contacts with people from all over the world.

The first The Pitcher was held in 2016 with 30 pitchers. Since then, the event has grown exponentially. In 2017, there were over 750 attendees with pitching startups from countries such as Dubai, Finland, Egypt and the U.S. and over 70 investors from Silicon Valley and Europe.

With the interest in this year's event, The Pitcher has moved from the previous venue at Workinton Levent to the Istanbul Technical University (İTÜ), Süleyman Demirel Cultural Center as what was once a "local get-together" has now become a "global blast" according to the team behind The Pitcher. There will be over 1,000 attendees, dozens of pitchers and over 100 Turkish and international investors.

The event will be broadcast live on the internet and in addition to special prizes, there will also be seed funds available for startups. Furthermore, this event is completely free to attend you just need to register under either the general admission or investor categories on thepitcher.org.

The day kicks off at 9 a.m. on Saturday, April 21 with a one-hour opening and networking session. Then day will continue with four hour intermittent hours of pitching and breaks followed by an award ceremony that will take place at 4:30 p.m.

The top 20 companies that will be pitching will soon be announced on The Pitcher's website and each will have the opportunity to pitch their businesses for five minutes after which they will also take part in an additional five-minute Q&A session with the jury. This year's moderator of the event will be London-based actress and performance coach Amy Tez.

Organized by the talented team at the digital content agency Insprad, The Pitcher is run under the close supervision of its co-founder Batuhan Dalcı and The Pitcher's International Relations Manager Silvia Pavlova. Silvia is also the author behind the innovative blog that is accessible through The Pitcher's website. Joined by many guest bloggers, The Pitcher blog has become a great platform to share tips on startups, networking, pitching and business-related topics, according to Silvia. Check it out at https://thepitcher.org/blog/.

Ideathon in Bodrum

Over the same weekend, from Friday, April 20 to Sunday, April 22, the Herodotus Cultural Center will be hosting a three-day Ideathon in which entrepreneurs are invited to pitch their ideas and solutions to some of Bodrum's most pressing problems. Broken down into the categories tourism, transportation and recycling, the winning ideas will be awarded prizes such as one-week and weekend stays at a luxurious hotel in Bodrum. The event is being organized by Start-in-Bodrum and mentoring and guidance will be offered by Stage Co, dubbed the earliest international, independent community platform for startups, mentors and investors in Turkey. On the jury will be Bodrum Mayor Mehmet Kocadon as well as the head of the Bodrum Hotel Association (BODER) Halil Özyurt and the chairwomen of StartersHub Ebru Dorman. Registration is free and possible from the website https://www.startinbodrum.com.

Failure Week 2018

Istanbul Technical University will also be the host of a two-day festival of sorts celebrating "failures," in other words, failed ventures, inventions and innovations that will take place on Friday and Saturday, May 4 and 5. Organized by the university's entrepreneurship club (İTÜ Girişimcilik Kulübü) and entrepreneurship and innovation center (İTÜ Ginova) and held at the Maçka campus, Failure Week will have two full days of events and activities celebrating life's entrepreneurial failures. There will be live music played on the grass, panels and open-air workshops, games, "Business Failure" nights and an opportunity to meet other startup entrepreneurs capped off with a closing concert. Entrance is limited so registration is a must, which you can do on http://www.failureweek.org.