MindTrek Startup Launchpad finalists have been chosen. The following companies made the cut (in alphabetical order):

Floobs
HammerKit
MahShelf
One Did It
RunToShop
Star Wreck Studios
TripSay
Zipipop

There will be eight finalist in total in the pitch competition and each startup will have 6 minute pitch to present to the high profile jury. Read more about the Startup Launchpad here.

Congratulations and good luck to all the finalists!

The free bus ride for startups to the MindTrek and back from Helsinki on 8.-9.10.2008 will depart 8.10. Wednesday morning at 7.15am in fron of Kiasma  (the bus has MindTrek sign on it).

The bus will head back to Helsinki on 9.10. Thursday at 4pm departing in front of Hotel Rosendahlin at Tampere. If you want to come along contact Hanne Lehtola at hanne.lehtola [at] culminatum.fi

Antti Akonniemi from Kisko Labs is also running an Ignite while we are driving up there. Antti wrote a short intro on what’s on offer for the ride up:

If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? And what if your stage was an actual bus full of startup entrepreneurs? Fun of karaoke and excitement of Powerpoint combined. Sounds too much like the movie Speed? Introducing Ignite:Mobile. Join ArcticStartup’s bus trip to MindTrek and experience the first ever Ignite:Mobile.

There should still be plenty of room in the bus, so drop Hanne a mail and come along.

MindTrek Conference 2008 is just around the corner, so if you’re a startup make sure to apply to the  Startup Launchpad competition if you haven’t already. It’s worth it.

Registration is open until September 19th. You can register here for the Startup Launchpad and here for the Conference itself. I’ll be hosting the competition itself and the jury include Marc Davis from Yahoo! and Sharon C. Ballard to name only a few.

We’re organizing a free bus ride with Culminatum, Sombiz and Floobs to the to the conference leaving from Helsinki on the 8th and coming back on the evening of 9th.

The idea is to rent a bus and take off to Tampere together from Helsinki with a bus full of start-ups. Spend the Oct. 8th and 9th at the Conference and give the start-ups a possibility to pitch at Startup Launchpad competition.

Antti Akonniemi from Kisko Labs is also running an Ignite while we are driving up there. Antti wrote a short intro on what’s on offer for the ride up:

If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? And what if your stage was an actual bus full of startup entrepreneurs? Fun of karaoke and excitement of Powerpoint combined. Sounds too much like the movie Speed? Introducing Ignite:Mobile. Join ArcticStartup’s bus trip to MindTrek and experience the first ever Ignite:Mobile.

Even if you decide to not apply or will not make the cut, you’re more than welcome to join us for the bus ride up and for the conference itself. Although for the conference you will need a ticket.

Antti Akonniemi, founder & CEO of Kisko Labs, has begun the Seedcamp application round we wrote about earlier (remember that we’ll be giving each company/idea visibility in ArcticStartup so do let us know if you are applying).

Antti is apparently applying to Seedcamp with his new service called These Are My Brands. There is very little available on the website at this moment, which goes well with the rules of Seedcamp. Seedcamp rules suggest that your service should not have launched yet - however, you ought to have a prototype ready.

Good luck to Antti! We’ll be providing an interview with him later on.

BarCamp lands in Helsinki! Helsinki has seen some interesting international event concepts land in the city within a short time frame including Ignite and OpenCoffee Club. This Saturday is BarCamp’s turn.

BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees. Antti Akonniemi (from the IgniteHelsinki fame) is partly responsible for bringing the event to Helsinki. Along with Antti, Mari Koistinen a prominent blogger, is part of the organizing committee. Both active Jaiku users, Antti and Mari along with a few others kick started the event organizing in the Jaiku forum.

The proposed BarCamp Helsinki sessions include the following:

• Time management
• Creative flows
• Case studies: Effects, aspects of use of Jaiku as organizing tool
• Location-based services
• Microformats for bloggers: What, why and how?
• Scred vs BillMonk (with Peter Robinett

The event takes place in the new Fjord offices on Saturday 10th May.

The first ever Ignite Helsinki -event is being organised this Friday in Dubrovnik Lounge and Lobby.

Those who are unaware of the ignite format - it is a set of short 5 minute presentations given by speakers on various topics where the presentation slides change automatically every 15 seconds. Therefore you have 5 minutes and 20 slides to get your point and issue to the crowd. Ignite events have been held in many of the large tech cities of the world and now for the first time it will be organised in Helsinki.

I was asked to speak there about Finnish Startups and would have done so if I’d be in Finland. If you’re interested in giving a speech - send an e-mail to the organisers. I’m sure they’re interested in getting more submissions.

The doors will open 5.30pm and the event will start at 6pm, free entry. Update: A slight shift in schedules as Antti told us in the comments - the doors will open at 6pm and the event will start at 7pm. And it’s still free entry :)