The European BizSpark Summit starts June 7. 

We've got a lot going on right now in the run up to the event. There's this People's Choice Awards challenge. We're going to give the People's Choice Award to one of the fifteen companies that gets the most Like votes through Facebook. You can go to this site and make your selections, but we have also written up a summary of what each company does here. 

I've gathered all of the Twitter handles of the people who will be at the event.  You can follow them live during the event as they tweet out what is going on in these panels. We are also going to live stream the event throughout, but it makes no sense to put that link up now, so just wait and you will be able to stream the panels while you work next week. 

Here are the Twitter handles of Microsoft people on the ground, who will keep you informed of the startup activity during the summit (Note: A Microsoft champ is a person working for Microsoft who interacts on a daily basis with entrepreneurs and startups. They are the person who can tell you the most about the BizSpark program as it relates to activities in their particular country. We have four of them going to this event; they range in countries from France, to Netherlands, Portugal and Belgium):

  • Bindi Karia (UK) BindiK
  • Blaise Vignon  (Microsoft France champ) Blaise_V
  • Mark Voermans (Netherlands BizSpark champ)  Markvoer
  • Ruud de Jonge  (W.Europe evangelist startup lead)  ruudj
  • Microsoft Europe MSEurope (Brussels team – also the team behind Microsoft EU)
  • Ben Piquard (Belgium champ)  benpiquard
  • Soha Hohnecker (W.Europe startup lead)  twiiitme
  • Henrique Carreiro (Portugal champ)  hcarreiro
These people are impomrtant to follow even after the summit. They are the people at Microsoft in Europe who are having some intense interactions with the entrepreneurs and startups that are growing rapidly across the western part of the continent. If you want to sniff out trends, or get some eye-opening insights into how the developing business world is emerging in these areas, it would be good to put them into a list and monitor what they are saying.
In fact, we have already done that for you.  Here is the BizSpark EU Twitter List. 
You can also follow Douglas Crets, Director of Social Media for the BizSpark Program. He is @douglascrets on Twitter.