Collision, the major North American tech conference, is offering subsidized tickets for students at the price of $10 each, in celebration of its first year in Canada.
As first reported by BetaKit, Collision is making its Canadian debut in Toronto this May. Now, Collision is offering 1,500 students the chance to attend the conference by purchasing tickets for only $10. In comparison, a general admission ticket is currently $495 CAD and ticket prices range from $375 up to more than $22,000.
This initiative is a part of the Inspire Programme, which first launched in 2016 by Web Summit, the company behind Collision. The program aims to invite full-time students to attend the conference in Toronto, which will be host to tech industry leaders from around the world. This is the first time that Web Summit has made the initiative available for its sister conference.
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“Last year and just at Web Summit alone, our student programme was so popular it attracted over 120,000 student applications,” Paddy Cosgrave, founder and CEO of Web Summit said. “We have always wanted to expand the initiative to Collision to give students a chance to attend.”
The $10 tickets are available for university students, who will receive access the talks held on the event’s Centre Stage, and to Night Summit, including a new student lounge. Students will also be able to walk through the exhibition floor after stage talks end, allowing them to network with global startups and investors.
At Web Summit 2018, Mayor John Tory told BetaKit, “We’ve got [Collision] for three years but we’re taking nothing for granted. We want them to come away saying ‘that was the best conference I’ve ever been to. I’m coming next year and I’m bringing my friends.”
In addition, Collision has also announced a new health and fitness tech track for this year’s conference, HealthConf, a track that Web Summit already hosts.
Collision’s 2019 Centre Stage speakers include Kara Swisher from Recode, Palmer Luckey from Oculus VR, Major Lazer’s Christopher Leacock, and Ev Williams, founder of Twitter and Medium.
Last April, BetaKit broke the story about Collision choosing Toronto as its next location, after spending the past three years in New Orleans. In June, Collision’s organizers held an event at the MaRS Discovery District to drum up excitement about Collision 2019 and the conference’s three year stint in the city.
With files from Douglas Soltys.