On Day 2 we have divided the conference into three tracks. The first track will cover basic elements of business plan competitions and is suitable for you if your organization has only been recently established, is about to be established or is simply looking to improve the organization of its business plan competition.

The second track will cover more advanced topics for entrepreneurial support organizations (not only business plan competitions) where we cover what is important from the entrepreneur's perspective and discuss mentoring as part of the organization.

In the third track we will create an interactive session where we look deeper into what one can do to set up organizations from scratch and start to address entrepreneurial topics in regions where there is little or no entrepreneurial ecosystem. What should come first? Would an NGO business plan competition, a professor initiative, or maybe a network organization be the break-point in your region? We will present different cases where entrepreneurship has grown to be an important part of the ecosystem, and let the discussion flow from there. This session is organized together with Net Impact, an organization working to create a greater focus on socially responsible businesses.

You may change your choice of track up until the last week before the conference by using the password provided upon registering.

The post-conference events are not sponsored by the GSW, nor are they required in any way. However, after the conference we encourage you to take one or more tours to experience Norway. We have arranged for three mutually exclusive tours on Thursday, March 29th. They will give you varied perspectives of our country. The most spectacular trip is the Coastal Express, where you get a chance to see our beautiful coast. The other trips are closer to Trondheim and will enable you to see and learn about both the city and the area around Trondheim. You can sign up for these trips when you register for the conference, and can change your registration by following the instructions provided at the end of the registration process.

Thursday 29th March:
We have arranged three different tours for Thursday. The first one will take you on a trip to the town of Røros. The second one will take you around to different industries in the area around Trondheim. The third one is the industry trip.

Day trip to Røros:
The Røros municipality has approximately 5,650 inhabitants. The biggest villages are Brekken and Glomos. No other town in Norway lies at such a high altitude: 650 meters above sea level. The mining town of Røros itself has a population of approximately 3,500. Røros is one of the few cities in the world that's honored to be on UNESCO's World Heritage List. The town was built around the copper mines and today is a living history of the mining community that dates from the middle of the 17th century.

Price for any one day trip: 500 NOK (around 80 USD)

Industry Trip:
Around Trondheim there are several industry areas. This tour will take you to at least one of them where you will get to meet local businesses and learn more about what business is like in Mid-Norway. We will post more information soon.

Guided Trip:
The is the best of Trondheim. You have the chance to travel around and see our beautiful city, and listen to our Orchestra. The tour starts with a guided trip around the city center, and in the evening you can come with us to enjoy Verdi's Messa da Requiem performed by the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra.

Trondheim is a meeting place; a meeting place of the old and the new; of the crown and the church; of warriors and peddlers; of grassroots and high technology. More than a thousand years have passed since the Viking king Olav Tryggvasson sailed up the Trondheim fjord in his long ship and decided that this was where he would found his city, which he called Nidaros (997 AD). From his 18-metre high statue in the town centre he still surveys the city, over a thousand years later.

We have arranged for guided tours, so you can get all the information you wish about the sights and the possibilities that Trondheim can offer you. Our guides welcome you to an enjoyable tour of the city by foot.

Price for the guided trip: 100 NOK (around 16 USD)

The Trondheim Symphony Orchestra has enjoyed a long musical tradition. Up to the 19th Century, Trondheim was the center of sacred music, and a place where many significant musicians settled. Messa da Requiem was played for the first time in the Markus church in Milano, in May 1874. It quickly won a big audience and won a special place in the music history.

Price for the concert: 220 NOK (around 35 USD)

Friday 30th March: The Costal Express
You are invited to join us on the Coastal Express which takes you on an extraordinary overnight boat trip from Trondheim to Bergen. You will get to see our beautiful coast while you relax and enjoy the facilities on the MS Midnight sun.

We depart Trondheim at 10 AM on Friday March 31 and arrive in Bergen on Saturday at 2:30 PM. The price includes lunch and dinner on Friday and breakfast and lunch on Saturday.

Price for the Costal Express: 2200 NOK (around 350 USD)

How many people will each organization send to the conference?

You may send as many as you like, but we recommend two to five persons in order to make the most of the conference experience.

The Global Startup Workshop is the world's foremost forum for discussing how to best organize business plan competitions. This year we will extend the focus to include entrepreneurial support organizations working to promote entrepreneurship in their communities, and in particular at universities. Whether your organization is new or mature, we believe that we have put together an agenda that can offer value to you. For more details, please look at our conference agenda and the details on the three different tracks.

Your three main expenses will be conference fee, hotel cost and airfare. The conference fee will increase by 500 NOK on February 15th. Our hotel recommendation is the Royal Garden Hotel, but we also provide a budget alternative not too far away. It should be possible to get airline tickets below 10,000 NOK from most places in Europe, but the sooner you book them, the better the chance of getting a bargain. Please see our website for more information.

Look at our webpage. It suggests several travel routes to get there. There are also many good search engines for flight tickets available on the Internet that will help you find tickets.

First, look at the conference website or the Norwegian Immigration office website to see whether you need one. If you need one, you should register for the conference and upon receiving the registration letter contact the nearest Norwegian embassy. You may need a signed letter from us. In that case write an e-mail to gsw-contact@mit.edu and request such a letter. Ordinary tourist visa take up to three weeks, so please act quickly. See the conference website for more information.

In general we do not send out invoices on international conferences, and you will have to pay up-front, either by wired transfer or by credit card. You will get a registration confirmation letter by E-mail when you register. This is usually enough as a receipt, but if not, please send an e-mail to gsw07@adm.ntnu.no. This is the registration secretariat and they will provide you with an invoice.

Partly correct. The concert starts at 7PM. The other tours end around 5-6PM. If you get a flight out of town that night, you do not need a hotel for that night.

The registration is per February 15th closed for changes, and it is not possible to re-issue your mail. The tours (except from the Coastal express) are still open for registration until March 15th. Please send an e-mail to The registration secreariat to register for one.

Registration fees are withdrawn the same day or the day after registration (i.e. not per registration time, but by manual transaction later the same day). Hotel costs are to be paid directly to the hotel upon departure. Your credit card is given the hotel in case of No-show, but will not be charged unless you do not show up, or you do not pay the bill when you leave.