Futureful - A Predictive Discovery Engine
Futureful is a Finnish, research based startup that is developing a predictive discovery engine. In essence, they want to help you discover more interesting content on the internet, based on your behaviour and liking. The company was founded by Marko Anderson and Jarno Koponen and they pitch themselves as "imagine if Hunch and Flipboard bootstrapped a lovechild."
Finland's 2B Euro Tax Money R&D Investment Generates 3M Euros In Licensing Revenues
Writing this directly from back seats of the Kasvufoorumi event organised by the Finnish Software Entrepreneurs Association while it's still going. While there are a lot of traditional presentations from companies and organisations involved in this ecosystem, there was also a presentation by Pasi Sorvisto, Juha Ruohonen and Pekka Roine that really caught my eye.
The study titled The Value Creation For The Research-Based Ideas revealed very interesting numbers and the honest true state of the Finnish so called "innovation system". Based on the executive summary of the presentation it has managed to coin the state of our innovation ecosystem the best I've seen so far.
Video Interview With Will Cardwell - How Should Universities Play The Startup Game?
Last week during the Mindtrek conference in Tampere, I had a quick chat with Will Cardwell the new Head of Aalto University Center of Entrepreneurship. I talked to him about how he sees the university being a part of the startup ecosystem and what kind of role should they be playing to further speed up the development. In short - it's not easy, but there are ways to go about it.
Aalto Bootcamp, Y Combinator-esque Program For Students And Researchers
There's much talk about the new Aalto University in Finland, which is what came out when Helsinki School of Economics, Helsinki University of Technology and Helsinki University of Art and Design were molded into one school to rule them all. A lot of potential I'm sure, but wait, there's more!
There's a new kid in town. Many of our readers felt the waves from Aalto Entrepreneur Society last year. The student group headed by Kristo Ovaska hasn't been resting on their laurels. Now they are coming with a new Y Combinator-esque university accelerator program, Aalto Bootcamp. It's a five week program for students and researchers to get a feel for the joys of entrepreneurship and build a company. And yes, become a bona fide entrepreneur.
