Based on the same hypothesis, I've been brainstorming on first how to gather people around meaningful discussions & ideas, and then on how to motivate them to implement them. What I came up with is that people need to commit. And to make them commit, they need to be feel motivated, engaged and confident about their goal and their team. And to achieve that, we need recurring events in a trusted place whith trusted people where a strong culture reigns.
One way to implement this is to use existing structures, such as coworking spaces, and provide to their members the possibility to gather in the same place, after work.
Rather than expediting the event like a "startup weekend", I'd rather define a longer-term strategy separated in phases. That kind of program could start with one or two months of weekly discussions, inviting speakers, in order to set minds on the right track. Then the second phase could be focused on the definition of teams and projects. Afterwards, the third phase consists of the implementation of the ideas. People could work on them whenever they want, but a weekly event will still be held to keep track of progress and, more importantly, to exchange feedback. Finally, the last phase would consist on some sort of demo day.
What do you guys think about that?