Startup Weekend generated seven sustainable business ideas

In September, around 40 participants gathered to startup community Tribe’s facilities for Startup Weekend Tampere Sustainability 2019. The aim of the event was to develop new business ideas that would have a positive impact on the planet.

During the intensive 54 hours, participants heard inspiring speeches, formed teams and received valuable feedback from experienced entrepreneurs.

It was interesting to notice how there were no common understanding about the term sustainability, and thus all teams had their unique view to the issue, says designer and entrepreneur Anastasiia Kozina, who was coaching teams during the whole weekend.

Ideas varied from deposit system for cotton shopping bags to dental treatment system for disabled people. Different applications were presented for example to help people to get rid of bad habits through coaching and for providing information about sustainable food products. Also ideas about meal-kit for sustainable food products and education for farmers were introduced.

The winning idea improves the charging experience of e-cars

The final decision about the winner was not easy, because there were so many good ideas. However, the jury picked team Charge now as a winner. Their idea was to ease the route planning and improve the charging experience for electric cars. The judges saw that Charge now had done exceptionally good work with articulating the problem and the solution as well as identifying possible competitors.

This team has a solid chance for a pre-seed investment with an investor, tells judge Sanna Mari Huikuri from City of Tampere.

The reward for the first place was an entry to Red Brick Accelerator, a consultation with Product Owner & Platform Developer Ben Matthews from Leodan:Design, 10 visits to Toinen Toimisto coworking space and free tickets to Stream Startup Festival.

More than just a competition

Even though the competition is an important part of the concept, Startup Weekend also gives much more. The event is a great opportunity to realize the importance of learning by failing and to find the right team. It also supports growing a startup mindset, which means growth-seeking global perspective and more action.

Startup Weekend creates a safe space to trust and enjoy the lean startup process and apply in it many business fields and projects, says Startup Community Manager Tommi Uitti from Business Tampere.

The weekend was fruitful for the participants, but also for sponsors such as the City of Tampere. Tampere aims to be carbon neutral by 2030, and thus the City needs everyone to join the force and develop new sustainable solutions. For the City’s international STARDUST project, this was also a kickoff for the co-operation with stakeholders in the field of startups and entrepreneurship. The project is studying the existing startup ecosystem, its strengths e.g., skills and networks but also weaknesses and the entrepreneurial discovery process especially from the angle of sustainability. The goal is to find potential opportunities that will emerge through this interaction between sustainable Tampere and startup activities in the City.

More information

Maarit Vehviläinen
Project Manager, STARDUST
City of Tampere
maarit.vehvilainen@tampere.fi
tel. +358 50 336 7696

Startup Weekend Tampere Sustainability 2019

Tribe’s article about the event

STARDUST was one of the sponsors of the event. STARDUST is an EU Horizon 2020 Smart Cities project, which brings together advanced European cities, thus forming into a constellation of “innovation islands”. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and Innovation programme under grant agreement N°774094.