Join TechBikers On Their Way From Vienna To Budapest This May

Drop your laptop and hop on your bike for a 320 km journey. That’s what near 400 entrepreneurs, investors and techies have done since 2012 by participating in the initiative called TechBikers, an unusual way of supporting children’s education in developing countries through the charity Room to Read.

After the first success in 2017, from May 18-20 2018, TechBikers is hosting its 2nd CEE ride by hitting the road between Vienna – Bratislava – Budapest gathering 40 riders from the tech communities of the 3 cities but and from all over Europe.

Fundraised Money Contributes To Building Schools

“We have participants from the tech communities in the region but also from London or Copenhagen. For the event this May, we still have around 10 slots available,” says Pierre Charvet, one of the entrepreneurs and volunteers organizing the CEE ride. You can sign up before May 3rd on TechBikers’ CEE webpage. Their goal is to reach 20.000€ for this first ride in this region.

No need to be a professional biker either! Anyone can participate and accept the challenge. The ride is not a race or a competition. The goal is to cycle and finish as a team for a sole and unique cause. The aim of the initiative is to support charity, network, share ideas and spread the startup vibe during an unusual weekend. The money fundraised contributes to building schools and libraries in developing countries.

Behind TechBikers are Eze Vidra, former Partner at Google Ventures (and Founder of Google Campus), Benjamin Southworth, ex-Deputy CEO at Tech City UK, and Abraham Choi, Founder of Decision Analytics and Mark Jennings, Founder of Shaken. TechBikers started in London as a collaboration within the tech community to promote child literacy. This resulted in charity bike rides between European capitals that have raised over 400.000€ to date and created a pan-European network of founders, investors and key people in the technology ecosystems.

“The TechBikers community is incredible. Once you join the ride, you are part of a real family. Everyone stays in touch, helps each other and also helps in promoting or organizing the ride”, says Pierre.

The condition to sign up is the payment of a minimum fee of 190€ to contribute to the cost of each rider, while it is expected to fundraise at least 300€ for Room to Read. Organizers themselves, for example, advise selling cakes or contacting friends and family to reach the fundraising goal. All the logistics is organized by TechBikers and supported by great sponsors like Slovak Telekom and Dagital Legal.

TechBikers Already Contributed To Building 14 Classroom Libraries & 1 School

TechBikers’ rides had a great impact last year, building 14 classroom libraries in India and Vietnam and 1 large school library in Tanzania. Eze Vidra, the founder, talked about it in this medium post. You can check out the video below to see what is like to be part of the TechBikers community!

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