by Victor Karamalis
For Alexander Pagidas,the Idea Contest 2.0 is an effort to bring the Bay Area’s brightest to address issues and solve problems that affect not just the US but the world at large. The first event in May was successful in bringing people together to brainstorm on internet solutions to humanitarian issues confirming his belief that “the tech community has an underlying idealism that is absent in other business industries.” The second event promises to help entrepreneurs with their dreams by supplying a platform for the exchange of ideas at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco later this week. The format was designed to create a win/win situation: Any entrepreneur can ask a question, set a reward for the answer, and let the audience try to win the reward by answering the question. The rewards are up to the entrepreneur, but they don’t have to be material. They could be expertise or even networking resources. So someone could ask a question about Web 2.0 development and reward the person who answers it with his expertise on marketing or his connections in the Angel investor community.
Pagidas, a consultant who describes himself as “a Human Factors Specialist but with a focus on Philosophy and Psychology instead of Design and Ergonomics”, is gaining momentum for the second Idea Contest 2.0 happening on Thursday evening beginning at 7pm in 2174 Market St, San Francisco. The Meetup page for his group contains approximately 200 people. When I spoke with him at a café in Soma, he was hopeful in getting at least 100 of his fellow entrepreneurs and creative thinkers to help each other through the exchange of ideas. “As more people understand the concept, I aspire that this will grow to an open and diverse think tank that will be of value both to businesses and non-profits who want to make a difference in the world,” he confided to me as he sipped his herbal tea.
Since its inception on April 2007, Idea Contest 2.0 is gradually becoming a focal point where entrepreneurs exchange ideas and dreams while connecting with potential employers and employees. Pagidas has created an event unlike others in the Bay Area, in that it doesn’t assign its members the role of passive spectators of emerging technologies but rather that of creative participants actively shaping the future of technology. This is one case where ideas beget action and the world may benefit from it.