Culminatum Innovations has come up with a totally new program to generate better growth companies from the digital content and services sector in Finland. The program is called International Business Program and it has several stages. The companies participating in the clinic this year may be eligible for 10 000 euros worth of internationalisation services.
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Sponsor Post: Culminatum Innovation To Strongly Support Internationalisation Efforts
Illtags Takes The Fight Against The Flu Online
Illtags, a Finnish startup that also took part in Slush event, aims to keep us a bit more healthy by letting us broadcast how we feel online. The service is founded by two young guns, a developer and a doctor, that I would call social entrepreneurs.
Illtags aims to combine two things for its analysis: 1) Tags depicting symptoms inputted at Facebook, Twitter or illtags.com and 2) Places, events and groups where users might catch or spread a bug. The strength of this approach is that all of this information already exists in social networks. By combining these two elements Illtags aims to analyze how diseases are spreading across social networks at an individual level, and let us avoid the places where the flu has taken over.
The service has a website, but just as with Dopplr that was acquired by Nokia, with Illtags you don’t really have to visit their website as they aim to integrate deeply into other platforms. Currently they are putting their bets on Facebook as most us are there already and we many times let our network of friends and family know when we have a cold or a flu.
Are Web Conferences A Waste Of Time?
There has been lively discussions of whether the many web conferences are really the most effective use of time for a startup. Similarly many people see the value in these conferences very differently, for example people from the United States tend to spend most if not all their time networking in the lobbies and hallways, at least more so than the Europeans are used to. We, the Europeans, on the other hand, tend to pay equal attention to the speakers at the stage.
At ArcticStartup we believe that meeting friends and strangers, as many as possible, is the best way to spend your time in these conferences. But that’s just us. Thus, we wanted to know what other startups think and decided to ask a group of Finnish startups, who travelled to the LeWeb with us, what they think. Here are some perspectives:
Cellictica’s Kimmo Sainio
I talked very briefly to Kimmo Sainio of Cellictica, a Finland based mobile applications company focusing into translation services in Slush. Their service Trippo is available in the Nokia download catalogue in about 10 different countries, which has proven a good partnership for Cellictica. Trippo is a Java language based server-client application that can be used to translate a number of phrases. It currently supports translations from/to English-French, English-Italian and English-Spanish.
The cool thing about Trippo is that even if you’re shy – you can use it, the service itself can dictate the translation and thus help you out in an awkward situation abroad. The only question that comes to my mind is about the required internet connection to the server. John Biggs of CrunchGear once again reminded people travelling abroad to avoid data roaming – it still costs a fortune. This is a huge show stopper for many mobile consumer applications. Once we sort that out, a ton of applications will become a lot more useful.
Risto Siilasmaa Keynote in Slush Helsinki
Risto Siilasmaa, the founder and former CEO of F-Secure (among other tricks of trade), kicked off Slush Helsinki last week with his keynote addressing the current economic situation. Mr. Siilasmaa is one of the most famous Finnish entrepreneurs of all time, having IPO’d F-Secure and now directing such companies as Fruugo, Nokia and others as a board member.
Apologies for the small ticks in the film, you’re not missing more than a few secs in total – technical glitches.
Juha Rytky Of Ball-IT.com
I interviewed Juha Rytky, the CEO of Ball-IT, in Slush last week. Ball-IT has developed a very cool solution combining a physical object with some motion control technology to become a game control for different platforms. With the recent success of Nintendo Wii, they have decided to go after several platforms such as mobile phones as well as the PC market.
There’s definitely a lot of potential in their technology and a working demo of the product without any glitches whatsoever did play a part in making up my mind. Just as Juha tells in the video, they are currently looking for a set of partners to take their products worldwide – something which in my opinion will determine how successful they will be.
Traditional Press Uninterested, President Apologizes
Now what kind of a title for a post is that you may ask. It’s a title that is trying to constructively criticise the traditional press about its methods. We’re talking about Slush Helsinki of course.
The sad truth is that the traditional press was uninterested in covering anything from Slush, be it a short article online or a in a more material format. A quick query with Ampparit, a Finnish news aggregator site, results in 0 results about Slush. The irony of this is that the President of Finland, Tarja Halonen, has written an apology e-mail to Helene Auramo, one of the organisers, apologising that she was unable to attend (Helene wrote about this in Jaiku). The press did not bother to reply to any queries about coverage.
This is extremely sad, when Risto Siilasmaa, one of the most successful Finnish entrepreneurs said in his keynote about growth entrepreneurship the responsibility everyone has in times of crisis. He also nodded towards angel investors, as they need to believe more than anybody in these companies to invest in them – when it makes no economical sense whatsoever. Risto also talked about the responsibility of the media – these companies need visibility – ahem ahem, are we the only ones supporting this cause?
Slush Helsinki was an extremely successful event in many different ways. We managed to get the elite of the Finnish growth entrepreneurial scene under one roof for the first time in Finland and in a way that close to 400 people could listen and learn from these experts. This in itself is something that should interest many people, what do these experts have to say about pushing yourself beyond belief in a venture that only you believe in with endless passion – looking to make it big from the Arctic.
However, being able to organise such an event that created so many happy faces, so many positive thoughts about the future of the growth entrepreneurship and so many new deals during a time of huge, unimaginable financial crisis. I believe these sort of events are extremely important as they lay the foundation of hope for something that is crucial to the economy in terms of not only growth, but competition in the international markets when we, Finland especially, cannot count on the support of the more traditional industries such as forestry or machinery.
Then again, Slush Helsinki was not created with support of external financing nor official support from a member of government. It was created out of passion and belief that growth entrepreneurship does and will happen out of the Arctics. Maybe in a few years we can turn to the traditional press and tell them – we told you so.
Apologies for a long rant without any bigger news value (pun intended), but I believe this is an important issue that should be addressed and not only in Finland. We’ll be releasing lots of video material in the coming days to spread the knowledge from the event.
Slush Live @ ArcticStartup
You can follow Slush live at ArcticStartup via Floobs’ live streams. Remember, do give us insight in terms of who you’d like us to interview in the comments of our previous post about Slush. The event will kick off at 9 am EET and the video streams are courtesy of Floobs.
Slush track 1 – Entrepreneur 2.0
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Slush track 2 – Software Developer’s Gathering
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Will be great to meet all of you at Slush!
Countdown To Slush Helsinki
Slush Helsinki is tomorrow, November 24th. ArcticStartup will be there to cover the event and interview the speakers and visitors. Want us to interview someone special from the program? Let us know in the comments!
Two Free Tickets To Slush And To TechCrunch Brunch
Slush, an event for startups by startups, will take place next Monday in Helsinki, Finland. We have a whole lot of people already coming, but wanted to give out 2 tickets for two lucky persons who still haven’t bought their tickets.
Also, we have two tickets to give away for the TechCrunch Brunch @ Slush that takes place the day after Slush itself. Mike Butcher, the editor of TechCrunch UK will come to Finland for the first time to host an event for the local startup scene:
TechCrunch UK is partnering with Slush, and we’ll be throwing a breakfast brunch event for 100 start-ups, entrepreneurs, investors and key industry players the day after the Slush conference, so you’ll be able to come along and network over some great Helsinki coffee. If you’re a Scandinavian or Baltic startup, then this should be an event right up your street. It will be on Tuesday, 25th November at 09:30am to 01:00pm.
We will award a ticket to Slush and to TechCrunch Brunch for two persons who come up with the best English translations for the Finnish word Sisu. Every successful entrepreneur has a lot of this magical stuff that gives her the will power to push through against all the odds. Here’s the Wikipedia translation to get you started. You should write your own version into the comments below.
The description should be a one or two sentence punch line. We will choose the winner sometime tomorrow afternoon, so you have until that to write your version in the comments.
If you rather buy your tickets make sure you do it soon, since Slush is less than a week away. You can buy your ticket to Slush here, and your ticket to the TechCrunch Brunch for the day after here. Hope to see you at both.
Photo by Phineas H (CC:BY).
Slush Is Just Around The Corner
Slush Helsinki is taking place in two weeks time on 24th November at Korjaamo, Helsinki. The event is a collaborative effort from Helsinki startup scene aiming bring together Helsinki’s startups, past and current, and showcasing some of the more interesting startups in the region.
Slush will stop selling tickets on the 19th November, which is next week’s Wednesday. If you’re planning on attending make sure to buy your ticket while you still can. You buy there here.
Slush party will take place at Helmi on the evening of 24th. This will be naturally included in the price of the ticket. I just heard a rumor that the mysterious Finnish startup Fruugo might be giving away invites to their Beta at the Slush party. (More about Fruugo here)
We have teamed up with TechCrunch UK and Slush to hold a Brunch at Ekberg Cafe the following day (25th November). You need a seprate ticket for this, which can be purchased here. The space is limited so make sure you get your ticket while they last! (Story on TCUK here)
Slush has also combined forces with Access Forum, which is a two-day networking and match-making event with focus on cutting edge mobile technology. Access Forum 2008 will host an Israeli delegation which will include some of the largest venture capital firms from Israel.
Access Forum will also bring FIG Marketplace to Slush. It’s a matchmaking event for mobile high-tech firms and takes place at Slush on Monday 24.11.2008 from 13:30 to 16:00. The event provides you excellent possibility to find new business partners, customers and technologies among the participating Finnish and Israeli companies. You can fill in your own Company Profile and search the on-line Catalogue for partners and company profiles. It is possible to request bilateral and pre-scheduled meetings with event participants. The meetings last max. 30 minutes each. The FIG Marketplace @ Slush is free of charge for the companies who participate at Slush. The event is organized by Technopolis Ventures and Enterprise Europe Network Finland. For more information and to register, visit here.
Slush Startup-Competition: One More Week To Submit Your Idea
Slush, an event for startups by startups in Helsinki, Finland, is this month (24th November) and deadline to submit your idea for a startup is closing in. You will have until 7th 14th November which is this next Friday, so better hurry up if you don’t have submitted your ‘next big thing’ yet.
You can read more about the competition and submit your idea here.
If you think you have a great idea and you are brave enough to test your idea, the Slush team (which I’m part of) might be able to help to get you started. We aim to choose up to seven teams with potential ideas for a successful startup and give them little seed money to work on their project on summer 2009. We hope that we can give 6 000 euro to each team and possibly fund up to seven teams.
At the end of the day the number of teams we can fund depends on how succesful the event will turn out to be. We are not looking into making any profit from the event and all the organizers work for free to make the Slush event happen. We will channel all the remaining money after expenses have been covered to the Slush Fund to fund these startup projects. In essence, the amount of money we can give out depends on the number of people that will buy the ticket and show up, so make sure you’ll be there!
So who’s coming to Slush? The whole Finnish startup scene, TechCrunch UK, VentureBeat, many of our friends from TheNextWeb if they possible can. Best wishes to Partrick at Amsterdam. We all hope he gets well soon.
TechCrunch is coming to Slush Helsinki
ArcticStartup is partnering with TechCrunch UK and Slush Helsinki in organizing a brunch for start-ups, entrepreneurs, investors and key industry players the day after the Slush event. Slush will take place on Monday 24th November and the brunch on Tuesday 25th.
Slush is an event for startups by startups in Helsinki, Finland. The event will showcase all the major Finnish Internet-era success stories from F-secure to Jaiku, from Habbo Hotel to MySQL, along with all the hottest Finnish startups.
TechCrunch Brunch @ Slush kicks off with discussions about entrepreneurship and startups in general with Mike Butcher, the editor of TechCrunch UK initiating and moderating the discussions, followed by plenty of networking over brunch.
The event is sponsored by Muxlim, a Finnish born Muslim online community with users from over 190 countries across the world. The site is the official Finland nominee to the World Summit Awards 2009, for the “e-Inclusion & Participation” category.
There is limited capacity for attendees at TechCrunch Brunch @ Slush, so TechCrunch is asking for a €20 cover charge to minimise no-shows. The brunch will take place at Cafe Ekberg, from 09:30am to 01:00pm. You can register for the TC brunch here, and for the Slush itself here. Hope to see you in the Slush on the 24th as well as at the brunch the day after!
Slush Helsinki
There has been much talk around Slush lately. Yet, it has not yet been very clear at all what is happening and I’m partly to blame. Now I try to shed some light onto the issue and at the same time invite you all to Slush.
In a nutshell Slush is a new Helsinki originated event for startups by startups. The whole process started when I along with a few others passionate about the subject were trying to brainstorm on how to give a boost to the Finnish startup scene, home and abroad. We had an idea that a bigger annual event might be the answer for the lack of visibility among Finnish startups in the global arena. If nothing else, we saw that such an event was missing from the Finnish startup fabric.
After throwing ideas back and forth for while I, Peter Vesterbacka (of Mobile Monday fame) and Kai Lemmetty (of Floobs) came up with an event that would show the best Finland has to offer, once a year every year. Later on Helene Auramo from Zipipop jumped along to bring her positive energy to the team and give it an even stronger startup perspective. Peter came up with the name Slush and so it started.
Finnish summer can be an amazing experience with its nightless nights, but there’s also the dark winter we
live with the other six months. Thus, any startup born in Finland have equal number of slushy and dark Novembers in their DNA as they have those warm sunny Julys. Many say the one quality a startup needs above all is perseverance against adversity and out of all the languages Finnish is the one that has its own word for describing just that. The word is Sisu and I believe that it has much to do with Finns pushing through those dark slushy winter months. Thus, an apt name especially for a startup event. Having said that, I believe this is the case with startup DNA all over the Nordic and Baltic countries.
After finding the right people to take on the challenge we were ready to start working. What we really aim to do is light up the startup scene, namely by showing students what entrepreneurship can be at its best, and show the international crowd that there is much more to Finnish startups than the tip of the iceberg they’ve seen so far. Naturally big part of the whole event is to enable the Finnish entrepreneurs meet not only each other but also investors and other businesses from home and abroad.
We know there’s a plethora of events that are not working as well as they could for the entrepreneurs themselves, and thus we decided that everything we do should be done in the interest of the startup scene in mind. If something is in conflict with that focus, it will be scrapped from the agenda. For startups by startups or nothing.
Now we are at a point where the website is up and running so we can tell people about the event, invite them along and spread the word. Even the fact that the website leaked out half ready turned out to be only beneficial, since many people wanted to help out. For example the nice guys at Valve volunteered to help out right away. I’ve also heard that the Bolder guys are ready to do their part and Scred has promised to make the actual platform for selling tickets for the event.
The event itself will take place 24th November at Korjaamo Culture Factory in Helsinki and run through the whole day. The program will be a combination of four parts:
- Success Stories – This is were we have the Finland’s finest web entrepreneurs lined up. Risto Siilasmaa from F-Secure, Petteri Koponen from First Hop/Jaiku, Ilkka Paananen from Sumea/Digital Chocolate, Asmo Halinen from Apaja only to name a few of the entrepreneurs that have started small and made it big.
- Technology track – This is modeled on the Startup Developer Gathering (SDG), which was put together by Kai Lemmetty. For Slush Kai is putting together a tech presentation bar none. This track will go on all day and have many Finnish heavy weights like Teemu Kurppa (Jaiku/Google) presenting their insight for the Slush attendees.
- Thirdly, a showcase where up to 40 local startups can show what they have, be it products, services, their team, philosophy behind the concept and what not.
- Fourthly, probably the most important reason pulling the event together in the first place, we have seven pre-screened teams presenting their business ideas to the audience. These teams will be funded by the Slush Fund. The Slush Fund will be in effect just as big as the combined sponsorship revenue plus the proceeds from the sold tickets will allow it to be. In another words we will channel all the money from the event (minus cost e.g. rent for the venue etc.) to the seven teams. If you are a student with an idea for the next big thing you should apply. Instead of writing code and making coffee at one of the big corporations next summer, you could spend the summer of 2009 working on your own idea and have the expertise of most of the Finnish startup community to draw from.
In a nutshell this is Slush Helsinki. An event for startups by startups.
If the website seems that it does not give out all the details yet, it is by no means because we want to keep you in the dark but rather because we are working on the agenda as we go along to make it as good as resources and time allow. ArcticStartup will be naturally reporting what is happening at the event itself but also how the event is developing from now until the day itself in late November. Welcome to the Slush everybody!
Edit: There was a mistake saying October instead of November. The correct date for Slush is NOVEMBER 24th.
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