Rob wins "Elevator Pitch" at c4di

Won a prize today for speaking in an elevator. Not done that before. Only at c4di. 

As I walked into the building yesterday I was asked if I'd like to take part in an "elevator pitch" competition. The idea behind an elevator pitch is that perhaps one day you'll find yourself in a lift with someone like Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. So you've got the time it takes to get to the tenth floor to convince them to give you a hunk of money to let you follow your dream. 

I was told I had sixty seconds in the c4di elevator (up to the top and back down) to convince someone I'm worth backing. I wasn't really prepared for it, but I said I'd have a go, and off we went.

I'd got a Hull Pixelbot with me (Crystal Masie as it turned out) and so I decided to wax lyrical about the joys of building tiny connected robots. When I'd finished I asked how much time I had left to speak.

Forty more seconds. 

So I went on a bit more about getting people making and coding, and my dream of building an arena containing 100 Hull Pixelbots wandering around, just to see what they'd do.  Finally the time was up and I went back to my room to do battle with the Microsoft Bot Service. As you do. 

Today I found that I'd won the competition, which is awesome. I got a fantastic trophy and a lunch at Nibble. 

I love that c4di are doing things like this. You can watch the community of developers building up thanks to the efforts of Dee and Jess.  And getting practice telling people what you are doing and why it's a good idea is vitally important for professionals today. So everybody who took part has got something out of it. 

Great fun.