Get Ready For The Innotribe $100K Start-Up Challenge

It's that time of the year again. The time when the beautiful summer days start to make way for CONFERENCE SEASON. While this may sound like impending doom, it's actually a fantastic time of year. Sure, the travel can be gruelling, but there are some great events this fall that I urge you to attend. An event that is quickly approaching is SIBOS. I have been a SIBOS regular for a number of years now, and this year SIBOS takes place in Toronto, Canada. There are several different session tracks at SIBOS, but only one of these is fully dedicated to innovation. Innotribe is known as "the incubation zone for new ideas." Peter Vander Auwera, Innovation Leader at SWIFT, describes Innotribe as, "SWIFT’s initiative to foster collaborative innovation in financial services – through debating the options (at Innotribe events) and supporting the creation of innovative new solutions (through incubation)." The Innotribe session I am most excited about is the $100k start-up challenge. I will be participating as a judge and mentor. It’s an opportunity for startups in banking, payments, securities, trading, social media, big data, security, identity, mobile, small business & IT infrastructure to introduce themselves to over 9,700 banks and corporations, and win one of two $50K prizes. 10 finalists will pitch to an invitation-only audience at Sibos on September 21, 2011 in Toronto. Startups must apply by August 14, 2011 on http://www.innotribestartup.com/. The full list of Innotribe sessions at SIBOS can be found here. I look forward to seeing you all at the conference! Please contact me if you would like to meet at the event.