Canadian machine learning royalty Yoshua Bengio and PIXAR’s Matthew Luhn will headline the Coopérathon kickoff Wednesday evening in Montreal at the Old Port’s Grand Quay. It all starts at 4:00 PM, with DJ Van Did spinning tracks.

Overall, more than 2,400 participants are expected to attend for the event.

Coopérathon is be a 25-day event seeking to push entrepreneurs to get their business idea off the ground, with more than $100,000 in prizes to be won. According to event organizer Ilias Benjelloun, the Coopérathon is for anyone who dreams of joining or launching their own impactful project.

“For entrepreneurs that haven’t commercialized their idea yet, for aspiring entrepreneurs, students who want to learn and have a taste at the entrepreneurial journey, for engineers, designers, programmers, professionals, field experts, and citizens, it’s for everyone,” said Benjelloun.

This year, buses will bring participants from as far away as Toronto, Sherbrooke and Ottawa. Meanwhile, a dozen startups will pitch their ideas at Mtlnewtech’s demo night. The event kickoff will also feature a “social mixology” to mix and match entrepreneurs, designers, developers, citizens and companies and organizations in the hopes of sparking ambitious entrepreneurial projects.

“Beyond the big kickoff, I’m trying to make this a place where sustainable B2B startups can start from the get-go with a corporate partner. I’m working hard to make it a sustainable idea-to-startup catalyst for ambitious impacts, starting with real world problems and adding in experts and coaches that can solve those problems,” said Benjelloun.

Since 2015, the annual Cooperathon has gathered thousands of people for a 25-day program focused on a single goal: launch innovative startups with strong impact!

Each participant receives training “worth over $5,000,” with over $100,000 prizes to be handed out.

Teams receive personalized coaching, weekly workshops and exclusive access to potential partners and clients throughout the five weeks.

Are you interested in attending Cooperathon? Head to www.Cooperathon.com and use the code MTLNEWTECH for a special discount for MTLinTECH’s readers!