Thousands Will Gather in Riga for TechChill Week

This week, Latvia will become the center of the Baltic startup ecosystem, gathering more than 2000 tech enthusiasts, experts, speakers and students from all over the world. With more than 20 different side events taking all over the city celebrating ideas, startups and innovations, with the leading event – TechChill startup conference – hosting attendees eager to get inspired and meet like-minded people for the 8th year in a row.

For several years the IT sector has been the fastest growing sector of the economy in Latvia. Systematic export of IT services continues to grow, thus clearly marking Latvia’s economic potential. Not only is the IT industry as a whole growing rapidly, but also the development of the environment of Latvian and Baltic start-ups in general, and hence the interest of investors, media and big companies in the Baltic market. Not only are new and successful companies emerging, but in recent years Latvia has marked itself on the start-up world map with state support initiatives, new events and international cooperation projects with Latvia represented abroad.

The TechChill week events commence on Wednesday morning with the presentation of the Latvian Startup Ecosystem Research results, within the framework of which the Ministry of Economics together with the Latvian Startup Association will present several months of research on the industry, its development and challenges. The Riga Venture Summit Policy Forum will also take place on Wednesday to discuss Baltic level innovation policy issues and international examples of support for start-ups. Meanwhile, Development Finance Institution ALTUM will celebrate the successfully completed first startup batches of their accelerator funding program launched in autumn. In Autumn 2018, three accelerators, Overkill Ventures, Buildit Latvia and Commercialization Reactor Fund, started their first programs that provided acceleration services to the 18 most promising local and international startups selected from over 600 applications.

There are several more events planned during the week. The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Latvia, Garage48 and the leading Latvian mobile operator LMT are joining forces to boost entrepreneurship and innovation in the field of mobility across Europe at the Future of Mobility hackathon. The Hackathon will take place on the 19th to 21st of February 2019 in Riga at LMT Headquarters, and the finalists will also get to pitch on the main stage at TechChill on Thursday. In the evening, Startup Wise Guys and Swedbank Financial Technology Accelerator Wise Guys Fintech will mark the end of the second program on Thursday, while the Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA) will relaunch the brand new startup news portal LabsofLatvia.

The pivotal event of the startup week is TechChill, the leading tech and startup conference in Riga and one of the most anticipated events of the year in the Baltic startup ecosystem. This year, the stage agenda will offer a programme with more than 70 speakers from such companies as Twitter, Uber, Google, AngelList, Vinted and others. The agenda focus this year is on how technology impacts regions and societies around the world in the long term. Innovation can be a force of immense good, and no one will dispute that science and technology are the key drivers that improve our lives, making them easier and better. However, as technology permeates our daily life and seemingly takes over every aspect of it, we are inevitably left with the hard and uncomfortable questions – how to deal with the rapid changes and the consequences technology brings? Speakers will talk about such issues like today’s rapid change in people’s lives caused by technology, how to create tech companies that would be beneficial to everyone, as well as the consequences of disruption.

The startup competition Fifty Founders Battle is one of the key parts of TechChill and will offer an insight into the ideas of 50 most promising and innovative startups from 19 countries, who will pitch their ideas fighting for the main 10 000 EUR prize.

See the full TechChill agenda here: https://techchill.co/agenda/

About TechChill

TechChill is known as the year’s most ambitious and recognizable Baltic startup ecosystem event and the best opportunity to meet the most promising new founders and ideas from the Baltics. The conference has grown rapidly – from a few hundred participants to two thousand international visitors. Every February, under the TechChill’s leadership, Riga becomes a global innovation, business and networking center for a week. The next TechChill will take place on February 21-22, 2019 in Riga. Read more: www.techchill.co

TechChill is sponsored by LMT, Swedbank, and Magnetic Latvia. Our supporters are Accenture, TWINO, Printful, Karma.vc, Taxify, LIAA biznesa inkubators, Adyen, TestDevLab, TechHub, RGSL, LIVE R?ga, Altum, Practica Capital, Tilde, AJ, AkzoNobel, Cobalt, Funderbeam, Tera Ventures, Change Ventures. Our friends are SAMSUNG, Ethos, aws activate, Institut Francais, Mežpils, Grimbergen, Mailigen, Kingdom of the Netherlands, Nordic Council of Ministers Office in Latvia, Rixwell, Days Hotel, Wellton, RIJA Hotel, Parrot, WebDev, JCDecaux, Caffeine, Norden, Funderbeam, Tera Ventures, Change Ventures un TrueSix. Our media partners are DELFI, 150sec.com, The Baltic Course and Labs of Latvia.