Startup scene in Finland (a lot of photos included)

Speech of Peter Vesterback, developer at ROVIO (Angry Birds)

Hi all!

I would like to share information with you and tell about startup-scene of Finland. For me this is an incredible country, small but at the same time combines a lot of amazing, interesting events which are focused on helping young entrepreneurs. Until recent years Finland didn't have any startup scene, and not many of people would even consider it [startup scene].

I got to know about the existence of Aalto Entrepreneurship Society in February this year, by reading about the kick/off of the Summer of Startups 2011 via StartupDigest. I strongly recommend you to sign up for the updates from StartupDigest if you haven’t done it yet! Not only you will be given opportunity to be updated with the events in your hometown, but also informed of the achievements of your native people.

It’s remarkable how it took only several years for the students of Aalto University School of Science and Technology to create society of interesting and purposeful people; involve guests and professionals from all over the world who coach and train startups of AaltoES. For example, I had chance to get to talk to the founder and general manager of MySQL, founder of the Skype, as well as with the other business people, guests from Silicon Valley and Stanford University. I believe it would be interesting for the fellow people who are interested in startup scene to get to know AaltoES closely and learn how to be member of it.

A lot of interesting people come to the BBQ which is organized every Wednesday

Aalto Entrepreneurship Society is located at the Aalto University School of Science and Technology’s campus. It is a private organization. One of the main objectives of it is to develop startup scene of the Baltic rim.

One of the main annual projects is ‘Summer of Startups” program. Young companies on their early stages are being invited to participate at the program. Selection process consists of 2 stages; out of hundreds of applications they chose 20 teams for the interview. By the end of the selection process most interesting 10 teams out of 20 are being selected to participate at the program. Program lasts for 10 weeks; for this period of time teams are being granted with the financial support of €5000, payment for accommodation, work space, coaching sessions by the best professionals and entrepreneurs of the entrepreneurial area, they get to know worldly famous people, have opportunity to benefit from the AaltoES’ wide network of European and USA companies from various areas. All in all, you are being given opportunities that one can only dream about! The only thing that is required in return from the teams is to work efficiently and build excellent, successful company.

There is a second program named ‘Startup Sauna’. Organizers are visiting countries of Baltic rim, as well as 4-5 Russian cities as a part of the program. They select 1 team from each city to participate in the program. Terms of a program are almost similar to the Summer of Startups, and give the opportunity for the young companies to make fast steps forward.

Startup Sauna 2011 winners

Girls are making salads

Entrance to the Garage, where numerous amount of events are happening

Inside view of the Garage

Speech of Ville Miettiinen, #1 professional in crowdsourcing area, founder of Microtask and Hybrid Graphics (company belongs to the company NVIDIA from 2006)

One more co-working space

Our company participates at the Summer of Startups; if you are interested I can continue writing about what we have learned during last 8 weeks and how it helps us to develop intensively.

Original text: Alexey Solomatin, http://habrahabr.ru/blogs/startup/125004/

Translated from Russian: Zaira Mammadova {Aalto Center for Entrepreneurship}