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Mar 30, 2020

20+ Online Startup Events, Conferences, Webinars and Virtual Programs in 2020

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In a world changed by the social distancing realities of COVID-19, startup founders and early-stage entrepreneurs are seeking new opportunities for structured feedback.

At the Founder Institute, we work with entrepreneurs and teams in the pre-seed stage, typically before they are advanced enough to gain acceptance into a seed-accelerator program. At this moment, we’ve temporarily suspended all in-person events globally, even in cities where COVID-19 cases have yet been reported.

Your safety and well-being is important to us. For that reason, we’ve recently launched a new series of free and interactive online startup webinars for entrepreneurs at OnlineStartupEvents.com. 

To provide further direction for entrepreneurs searching for new online events, organizations, and opportunities for expert feedback, we’ve compiled a list of the so-far announced 2020 top online entrepreneurial events and programs, from virtual mentor-matching portals to incubators and accelerators that have made the switch to online.

We hope to see you soon and remember, we are all in this together!

Online Startup Events and Conferences:


1. Founder Space Online Startup Program

  • Description: “Founders Space’s Online Program offers the same content and lessons that we use in our startup accelerator programs around the world.”

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: Business education, entrepreneurship and learning resources for startups.

  • Requirements: Online registration to access their lessons.

  • Cost: Starts at $150.

  • Notable People: Charles Hudson, David S. Levin, Gareth Keane, Ramneek Gupta, Semil Shah, Sumeet Jain

  • Length: 5-20 minutes.

2. General Assembly

  • Description: “General Assembly is a pioneer in education and career transformation, specializing in today’s most in-demand skills. The leading source for training, staffing, and career transitions, we foster a flourishing community of professionals pursuing careers they love.”

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: Coding and skill bootcamps, educational courses and workshops.

  • Requirements: Apply online for their courses.

  • Cost: Varies by course.

  • Notable People: Alicia Morga, Cliff Gilley, Domenick Propati, Matthew Listro

  • Length: Varies by course.

3. Online Startup Events

  • Description: These free startup webinars from Founder Institute give entrepreneurs direct access to the knowledge and experiences of top investors, founders, and startup mentors from around the world. This series was specifically designed in response to COVID-19 to support founders through these unprecedented times.

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: Startup funding, mentorship and support.

  • Requirements: Online registration. 

  • Cost: Free

  • Notable People: Adeo Ressi, Amy Wu, Peter Diamandis

  • Length: 1 hour.

4. Adobe Summit 2020

  • Description: “Each year, we look forward to hosting our customers, partners and employees from around the world at Adobe Summit and Magento Imagine to talk about the future of customer experience, unveil the latest product and platform innovations, and get inspired together as a community.”

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: Product and platform updates, customer experience and inspirational talks.

  • Requirements: Online registration. 

  • Cost: Free

  • Notable People: Anil Chakravarthy, Shantanu Narayen

  • Length: Launches on March 31, 2020

5. AWE USA 2020

  • Description: “With over 1 billion users and most of the Fortune 1000’s on board, Spatial Computing is finally entering the mainstream. Get awe-inspired where industry leaders get together to shepherd the AR and VR industry into the next decade.”

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: AR/VR-focused: keynote speeches, networking opportunities, online exhibits, etc.

  • Requirements: Online registration. 

  • Cost: $199

  • Notable People: Benny Lee, Daniel Beauchamp, Jake Zim, Julia Schwarz, Scott Stanchak

  • Length: May 26-29, 2020

6. AWS Innovate Online Conference 2020

  • Description: “AWS Innovate Online Conference is a free online event designed to inspire and educate executives and IT professionals about AWS. At AWS Innovate, you can learn how to build artificial intelligence (AI) applications and machine learning (ML) models, choose the right database, modernize your data warehouse and applications.”

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: Data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence learning workshops.

  • Requirements: Online registration. 

  • Cost: Free

  • Notable People: Dean Samuels, Glenn Gore, Olivier Klein

  • Length: 15 minutes to 1 hour.

7. Collision from Home

  • Description: “Collision from Home brings together the people and companies redefining the global tech industry. Think of it like working from home: join the event online from wherever you are in the world.”

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: Tech-focused: inspirational talks, community building and networking.

  • Requirements: Online registration.

  • Cost: Starts at $98.

  • Notable People: Dan Doctoroff, Monica Drake, Steven Levy, Thuan Pham, Yasuo Miyakawa

  • Length: June 22-25, 2020

8. Content Marketing Conference

9. Disrupt SF 2020 (Disrupt Digital Pass)

  • Description: “TechCrunch Disrupt is three days of non-stop programming with two big focuses: founders and investors shaping the future of disruptive technology and ideas and startup experts providing insights to entrepreneurs.”

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: Founder-focused: launching disruptive startups, networking and ideation.

  • Requirements: Online registration.

  • Cost: Free

  • Notable People: Erica Joy Baker, Marc Andreessen, Marc Benioff, Ray Dalio, Roelof Botha, Stephen Curry, Vitalik Buterin

  • Length: September 14-16, 2020

10. Global Pitch

  • Description: “GlobalPitch is an online showcase event powered by DealMatrix, aimed to connect startup ecosystems from all over the world. It is a space provided for entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas online to corporates, investors, accelerators and media in order to get potential investment, partnership or exposure.”

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: Pitch competition: investment and partnership opportunities.

  • Requirements: Online registration

  • Cost: N/A on website.

  • Notable People: Aleksandar Vucicevic, Dirk Ploss, Esté Oosthuizen, Harald Buettner, Luise De Almeida, Matteo Landi, Oscar Ramos

  • Length: N/A on website.

11. Hack Covid-19

  • Description: “LET’S HACK CORONAVIRUS! Join us for a global online hackathon hosted by Starfish. It’s imperative that we create solutions to address Coronavirus challenges and keep people as safe and healthy as possible!”

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: Hackathon: ideation, building solutions to counter the coronavirus outbreak.

  • Requirements: RSVP online.

  • Cost: N/A on website.

  • Notable People: N/A on website.

  • Length: September 1, 2020

12. IBM Think Digital

  • Description: “Join Think Digital to learn how to best enable new ways of working, manage risk and optimize cost, and maintain customer satisfaction. Adapt quickly by leveraging the latest advancements in technology, then engage with the experts who are leading the way.”

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: Best practices, customer satisfaction, technology trends and learning sessions.

  • Requirements: Online registration.

  • Cost: Free

  • Notable People: Amal Clooney, Arvind Krishna, Ginni Rometty, Imogen Heap, Jim Whitehurst, Mayim Bialik

  • Length: May 5-6, 2020

13. Remote AID 2020

14. Startupfest 2020

  • Description: “Canada's largest startup event, for aspiring founders, ground-breaking innovators and veteran entrepreneurs from around the world.”

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: Entrepreneurship, innovation, technology trends, inspirational talks and networking.

  • Requirements: There’s a strong possibility that Startupfest 2020 may be held online. You can sign up on their website to receive updates.

  • Cost: Starts at $249.

  • Notable People: Catherine Stewart, Darrell Etherington, David Siegel, Mike McDerment, Stephanie Lampkin

  • Length: July 15-17, 2020

15. The CoronaVirus Hackathon

  • Description: “To solve what happens after the #Coronavirus. The economy will not be the same. Let us reinvent it!”

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: Hackathon: ideation, creating business models, services and proof of concepts to counter the coronavirus outbreak.

  • Requirements: Apply online to participate.

  • Cost: A donation of £10.

  • Notable People: Dhruv Boruah, Nicky Adamo, Nicola Keen, Noah Al-Hachich

  • Length: April 9-10, 2020

16. Women Tech Global Conference

Online Startup Programs:


1. AFWERX

  • Description: “Connecting Air Force innovators and accelerating results.”

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: Air Force and the military.

  • AFWERX Requirements: They are looking for innovators with disruptive technologies to collaborate with the Air Force. 

  • AFWERX Deal Terms: Even though the deal terms are not disclosed, they offer educational resources and mentorship programs to develop ideas; plus, access to investors and potential customers.

  • Notable AFWERX Alumni: N/A on website.

2. NVIDIA Inception Program

  • Description: “The NVIDIA Inception program nurtures cutting-edge AI startups who are revolutionizing industries. This virtual accelerator offers go-to-market support, expertise, and technology for program members through deep learning training, exclusive Inception events, GPU discounts, and more. Accelerate your AI startup today.”

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: Artificial intelligence.

  • NVIDIA Inception Program Requirements: Innovative AI startups looking for growth. 

  • NVIDIA Inception Program Deal Terms: They provide business support, networking events; plus, access to NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Institute and DevTalk.

  • Notable NVIDIA Inception Program Alumni: Aidoc, DeepZen, ICEBERG, TheTake.AI

3. StartupDevKit

  • Description: “We empower aspiring entrepreneurs and startups anywhere from idea to growth-stage to create sustainable and successful startups. We help by providing online incubator and accelerator program courses (3-mo online accelerator program coming early 2020), an extensive platform of resources, and a community of like-minded founders.”

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: All tech or tech-enabled businesses.

  • StartupDevKit Requirements: All entrepreneurs are welcome; as well as early-stage startups looking to develop and scale their ideas.  

  • StartupDevKit Deal Terms: They provide startup development resources (idea validation, legal templates, product development, etc.), growth marketing strategies and tools to raise capital (pitch deck templates, access to investor networks, etc.).

  • Notable StartupDevKit Alumni: Blockstake, My Clever Calories

4. Techstars Anywhere Accelerator

  • Description: “This program follows Techstars proven approach with one critical difference: It's mostly virtual, enabling companies to work from anywhere.”

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: All tech or tech-enabled businesses.

  • Techstars Anywhere Accelerator Requirements: They are looking for strong and balanced teams who possess a wide array of skills.  

  • Techstars Anywhere Accelerator Deal Terms: Startups are offered a $100,000 convertible note; plus, Techstars contributes $20,000 USD to support living expenses during the accelerator program. Techstars receives a 6% equity until the startup raises a priced equity financing of $250,000 USD or more.

  • Notable Techstars Anywhere Accelerator Alumni: ClassPass, DataRobot, Digital Ocean, Localytics, Pill Pack, Remitly, SendGrid

5. Y Combinator

  • Description: “At Y Combinator, our goal is to get you through the first phase. This usually means: get you to the point where you’ve built something impressive enough to raise money on a larger scale. Then we can introduce you to later stage investors—or occasionally even acquirers.”

  • Sectors / Markets of Focus: All tech or tech-enabled businesses.

  • Y Combinator Requirements: Having a startup (international or local). Also, solo founders can apply to the program.  

  • Y Combinator Deal Terms: A $150,000 investment known as the ‘YC safe’ that converts into 7% of the company. YC supports the company in the price equity round and other financing rounds.

  • Notable Y Combinator Alumni: Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Gusto, Instacart, Machine Zone, Stripe, Zenefits

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