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Become a speaker

Take the opportunity to connect with the Venture Café community and build your personal and professional brand!

Propose Session

Why you should become a speaker

Connect

Connect with the Venture Café community of innovators, experts and maybe even investors or future clients.

Learn

Test your ideas, products and services and get genuine feedback from the Venture Café’s community of early adopters.

Share

Share your knowledge with eager minds and give back to the Venture Cafe Community.

Recognition

Build your personal and professional brand by positioning yourself as a thought leader in your field.

Play

Experiment, try new things and get inspired! Venture Café’s community is a great place to have fun with peers!

We want ideas that help people understand innovation on a broader and more applicable level.

Venture Café offers a reflection of the diverse, talented and entrepreneurial innovation community of Edinburgh and the region. Thursday Gatherings provide our innovation community with access to high-quality sessions and educational programming designed to create intentional spaces. Every Thursday startups, scale-ups, corporates, investors, talented individuals, and governmental organizations convene, connect, and build relationships at Venture Café.

Our goal is to provide our community with new, exciting, thought-provoking sessions to fuel conversation at Venture Café. We want ideas that help people understand innovation on a broader and more applicable level. Events should inject new ideas and perspectives into the conversation and enrich our thinking.

Suggest a SessionStep 1 of 4
The Venture Café Credo

Before you propose a session, make yourself at home.

Venture Café isn't a happy hour or a sales floor. It's a neutral, inclusive room where founders, builders, and curious humans help each other. Reading and accepting our credo is the first step to becoming part of our program.

01 / Make yourself at home

Be welcoming and friendly… and help keep the place tidy.

02 / Be inclusive

The community thrives because we welcome participants without regard to color, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression, or disability.

03 / Be interested

Learn about other guests' projects, explore new perspectives, consider the absurd. Ask yourself how can I help?

04 / Connect responsibly

We are not a bar, this is not a happy hour. If you think it is, you are in the wrong place.

05 / No hard sales!

Innovation is about top level thinking, not bottom line outcomes. Focus on building relationships that will last.

06 / Have fun!

Challenge yourself to think outside of your norms and grow. Be willing to provide constructive feedback and share your ideas.

Do you accept the credo?
Step One · Who you are

Let's start with the human part.

Tell us who you are and where to find you. We use this to confirm your session and keep you looped in.

Please tell us your first name.
Please tell us your last name.
We'll need a valid email to follow up.
If you're independent, put "Independent" — that's a real answer here.Tell us where you're coming from.
Step Two · The session

What do you want to put in the room?

A clear title and a few honest sentences go further than a polished pitch. Tell us what would happen and who it's for.

Your pitch · keep it honest, keep it specific02 / Title · Description
Keep it specific. "AI for good" tells us nothing; "Designing a 30-min discovery call with a CTO" tells us a lot.A session needs a name.

A good session description answers three questions. You don't have to use the headings — just make sure the answers are in there.

Q1
Who is this for?e.g. "Early-stage founders fundraising their first round…"
Q2
What happens in the room?Format, agenda, who speaks, what guests do.
Q3
What will guests walk away with?A skill, a contact, a perspective — be concrete.
Two short paragraphs is plenty. Aim for 80–200 words — enough to picture it, not so much that nobody reads to the end.Help us picture it — even just a few sentences.
Pick one of the three formats.
Choose a breakout format *
Choose an info-table format *
Choose an office-hours format *
0 of 3 selected
Pick at least one industry (up to 3).
0 of 3 selected
Step Three · A few more things

Almost done. Just a couple of quick yeses and nos.

These help us route your session to the right person and stay in touch about ways you might want to engage with Venture Café going forward.

Have you presented on this topic before?// just so we know — first-time presenters welcome
Are you a CIC Member?// CIC member events get priority scheduling windows
Interested in supporting Venture Café as a sponsor?// no obligation — we'll only follow up if you say yes
Final look
Presented by—
Email—
Organization—
Title—
Description—
Format—
Industry—
SDG focus—
Suggestion received

Thank you. Your session is in the queue.

We just sent your suggestion to our program team. You'll hear back from us within a few business days about scheduling and next steps.

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In the meantime · come say hi at the next gathering
No worries — we get it

Maybe another time.

Venture Café only works because everyone in the room shares the credo. If it isn't a fit today, that's okay — we'd rather you opt out now than be uncomfortable later. The door is open whenever you want to revisit.

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