After much anticipation, on September 14, 2012, Labs held their Inauguration Event at BBC Worldwide head quarters at the BBC Media Centre in White City and home for the next six months to our Labs start-ups. All six were given a chance to pitch their businesses to a packed room of over 120 people made up of the Labs advisory board, Labs mentors and BBC Worldwide community. Such was the interest in what our teams had to say there wasn’t even standing room to spare and we were amazed that the waiting list was packed with over 50 people.

The event was introduced by our very own Jenny Fielding, Head of Labs, followed by short speeches from both Dan Heaf, EVP & MD Digital, BBC Worldwide and Ralph Rivera, Director of BBC Future Media, celebrating the start of the programme but also sharing their visions for Labs and urging everyone to connect and explore new opportunities. These were followed by short 3-minute product pitches by each of our start-ups: WireWAX, KO-SU, Krowd9, Foodity, Flooved and Minimonos.

We then continued the conversation over coffee and a networking session which gave the start-ups a chance to meet many of our mentors for the first time as well forge new relationships with the wider BBC Worldwide community who were all keen to understand more. Everywhere you went you could hear coffee and follow up meetings being arrange which in our minds is a fantastic start!

Here are some pictures from the event:

Gerlinde Gniewosz, Simon Davies and Emanuele Cipolloni from KO-SU and Krowd 9 await their turn to speak.

Hamish Brocklebank from Flooved presenting.

Steve Callanan from WireWAX presenting.

The crowds in the Think Tank.