Starpabs

It all started in 2015 and now 4 years later we are done.

We believe we are not done – YET – this is just the beginning

StartUp Passion was a project which offered students the possibility to explore their potential, and learn it by doing it. During the duration of the project we had 794 (!!) students participating, from numerous different countries and backgrounds. All of them with the hope to create new ventures and new life changing opportunities. We need to say, not all of them were successful, some of them gave it a try and some bulled it off. But what is more important, the fact that all of them learn from each other and learned how to do things completely on their own. The project made its impact on many people, project team, project partners and all the mentors. When we talk about learning outcome or learning curve, we need to admit it was very high. It was a true pleasure to support teams and the students around it, and see them growth and shine. We clearly can say, the project was for students and became a success because of the students; who actively participated, and developed their own ventures. Another important success factor was the project team itself and their commitment, passion and professionality, made it an award winning project.

Sum up the project in a nutshell

A brief history of Startup Passion

At our info graphic you can see what really happened during the project, and the numbers of babies during the last 4 years is not fictional – it really happened. Important to mention the birthrate in Finland increased cause of StartUp Passion with 7 Babies. As a project manager, I had my challenges to find new team members. When you are working in the startup environment, one important attitude you need; be spontaneous, problem solver on a fast base, not afraid to do dirty jobs, and find solutions fast. Commitment and the willingness to work for the same goals, are one important facts as well. Throughout the project we had achieved 26 startups, and approx. 50-60 teams participated. We participated in 13 different events with our teams, and organized each year 6 events = 18 events in total we organized. We shipped our participants around the Baltic´s and beyond. The network we created and contacts we gathered are beyond our expectations. We got surprise by the talent our students have and the applicability to learn and to do things for themselves. The growth among students and also staff members was tremendous, each of us achieved and learnt something new. I, for myself, got the opportunity to be a facilitator at the Cranfield university in the UK, and to be a mentor and startup coach in Africa.

The importance to be mention is the team effort and the team behind the project:

May I introduce you to the butterfly butchers

Ladies first – Why are we called like this? It all began already in 2014 during the Startup Summer Camp in Kotka organized by PatteriES. We three Ladies had been invited to be in the panel for a pre-pitching event at Vellamo. As we were sitting and “judging” we figured out, that each of us had some clothes with a butterfly on. During the session we figured out, each of us have a different style of judging, me the pure and brutal honest Austrian judge; Kirsi Rouhiainen the heartwarming “I love everybody” judge, and Heidi Sjögren the businesslike-always-the-right-question judge. A good combination of three lovely Lady´s which, by the end of each panel, are just meaning it good, even if some of the participants cry. This is how we became the “Butterfly Butchers” In the project Cursor was our Lead Partner and Heidi the PM, nowadays she is even our new college, as a Research Manager of Digital Economy in Kotka. But we also became friends and enjoy each others company.

The male section of the StartUp Passion project

Another important member of the team and the brain and idea generator behind the project is Ari Lindeman. His idea of creating and developing not only student-based startup teams, but also cross-border startup coaching approaches. As well as, to find out their commitment , strengths and challenges regarding its process. The cross-border coaching perspectives are supplemented by the coaches and mentors reflections and also the cultural perspective. Ari is a strong believer in people and their applicability to achieve the most out of their potential, that makes him in all kind of ways an asset. Next in the line is for sure our one and only Antti Leppilampi our media guru and SoMe specialist. He made a wonderful documentation of our project, which is a collection of all our Live-videos and interviews during the project. We had plenty to laugh during the project and he is truly blessed with lots of positive energy and many good ideas in mind.

The StartUp Passion project team was not only working with those mention above, others like Marianne Roslund (Startup MOOC), Teijo Javanainen (Startup MOOC), Niina Mässeli (Startup MOOC), Ksenia Sharapova (Startup MOOC) and many others. All those team members, made the project an award winning project. With true honesty we can say, there were no unpleasant working days during the project. We had a great communication and all of us were working for the same goal, to make the students proud of themselves.

Now we are heading to ISRAEL – to explore the startup ecosystem

Our team won in 2018 the ENTREPRENEURSHIP AWARD FOR BEST INTERNATIONAL PROJECT WITH A GLOBAL TWIST by the Finnish Entrepreneurship Federation. We now have the opportunity to explore new borders, and great new ventures for our students. We will travel to ISRAEL this month, and seek for new possibilities to cooperate. This November, Innocamp Virtual Incubator in cooperation with ISRAELI COLLEGE. During our 5-days stay we have planned to visit universities, startup seminars, co-working spaces and meet like-minded people, to explore new options.

There will be more to come and more to explore

Last but not least

I would like to THANK all the people behind the project. Four years went fast and I am grateful for this experience and all the support I got, during the time. I learnt much even my Finnish language skills are better, but I could explore my own potential and achieved my own goals.

THANK YOU

Author:

Sabine Suorsa

Project Manager – Projektipäällikkö

RDI – Expert – TKI asiantuntija

RDI Creative Industry – TKI Luovat Alat

The startup mentoring journey continues, with my trip to Africa into the unknown world of entrepreneurship in Kenya. I decided, to have no expectations, to be open-minded and happy to get this opportunity; that is how my journey to Africa started. Beforehand I made some research, about the startup ecosystem in Kenya.

A booming ecosystem with a great intense to growth. Places like Nairobi Garage (Co-working space and innovation HUB), iHUB founded in 2010 (launched as many as 170 !! startups). In other Kenyan cities, such as Mombasa (SwahiliBox), Kisumu (LakeHub), Eldoret (Dlab Hub), Voi (Sote Hub) and Machakos (Ubunifu), co-working spaces and innovation Hub’s supporting young future entrepreneurs to become the next superheros.

For years, Nairobi has been the cradle of technological innovation in Kenya, and the center of countries thriving tech ecosystem, famously known as Silicon Savannah. Nairobi is still an expensive city to live, but its community and logistical advantages, support young entrepreneurs.

First time at the south part of the equator

Friendly faces and beautiful colors

Being the first time at the south part of the equator is bringing you into a complete unexpected world. The nature, environment and people are so beautiful and exciting. When I arrived at the airport, I stepped out into a world full of colors and a very welcoming culture. I got picked up by my driver named David, a local taxi-driver, who is also organizing safaris. He was patiently waiting for me at the airport, as it took me almost two hours after arriving to get my ”first entrance visa” and all the security checks. After almost 16h on the road, I though I will be tired, but I was too excited and curious of what I will see. My first wonderful moment was to see close by the airport, at the Nairobi National Park a giraffe standing. My journey could not have been starting any better.

The traffic and the transport in Nairobi is one of a kind, like in any other African city. Matatu are buses and BODABODA are two-wheel transportation (maybe not to recommend, but a great experience still). UBER is working perfectly in Nairobi, locals advice you to use UBER instead of normal taxis, and the transportation costs are between 200 to 2000 Kenyan Shillings. If you find a great driver, he will explain you local attractions and hot spots. The traffic itself in Nairobi (approx. 3.5 million citizens) is challenging, as there are no rules, traffic-light is existing but ignored, roundabout traffic is regulated by the police. It could take a while during traffic hours to arrive at your final destination. If you are traveling to Africa, not only Nairobi – Kenya, leave your being punctual, stress or worries at home, cause everything is Hakuna Matata (=no worries).

Meeting our enpact.org startups and seeing their progress

Since August lot of things happened to all of them; the startup environment is not always an easy one, struggles are daily challenges. This has nothing to do, if you are in Africa or Europe. All of the enpact.org teams are working on their promising future and it is great to see them and their success. I met during my stay, for example Wanjugu from The Textile Loft (a premium quality fabric outlet); she previously in September moved her company to Nairobi – Westlands and has now a bigger space. She has now more room to receive bigger quantity orders, and also have more employees to work for her. They are producing wonderful high quality clothes. Her mentor Songya Kesler, ordered a whole collection from Wanjugu, it will be wonderful to see the result.

I also was visiting Esther Mukami from Elegant Touch Wellness Clinic; I could experience one of her treatments, you can feel and experience the passion she has for her profession. I enjoyed an one hour treatment, a cupping session, light foot reflex massage and a very much need back massage. A wonderful feeling to be so relaxed and centered.

My next visit was my own startup Tracey from Funke Science, she should me around in her lovely premises of Funke Science. The location is beautiful and full of potential and ready to welcome lot of kids to experience science projects. Now we will focus on producing valuable science videos, as we got funding for it, which is a great success. After we will have couple of videos, ready to publish, we will share it in the beginning around Nairobi area and then expand to a more wider target audience.

Fascination of Africa´s nature and the Nairobi National Park

Beside working in Nairobi, there was also some time for enjoying the natural environment. With three other mentors, Songya and Alex, we decided to join a short Safari, which David is organizing. We left from the hotel at 6.00 a.m. in the morning, it was raining, but still nice warm. The national park is right beside the city. The paradox on it is, that you see those wonderful free living animals and behind them the skyline of Nairobi, which has something very spectacular. We were very lucky, cause we could see almost all kind of animals, rhinos, white and black ones, giraffes, lions, gazelles and buffalo’s. The safari took us four hours, and at the end our drivers car had a broken wheel. Africa an all its colors, wonderful people, friendly and kind left a very big impression on me. My stay was just for one week, but I am glad to have the opportunity to go again in February this year to Nairobi, and once again meet all the great people there. I am grateful for this opportunity.

What enpact.org is doing

In Africa, they support entrepreneurship among all fields, it is outstanding and a good example of making positive impact. During this year over 100 startups applied for their startup-mentoring program, the wide awareness they build including the network is very promising for the future. Even the rate of failure in the startup environment is high, still no reason for not trying. Enpact.org is giving each and every startup the opportunity to explore their possibilities and introducing them into a new way of thinking; plus to guide them into the right entrepreneurial direction. Their mentors are coming from different fields, and each of them have valuable input to bring, it is of pure pleasure to talk to each and everybody. I am grateful to be one of the mentors and value my participation highly, opportunity seeking is always my curiosity goal. I am looking forward to meet all those great people behind this organization again, each of them is highly to praise for their unconditional effort and drive, rarely you find committed people with such a similar goal. Not only to travel and enjoy life, also to give something back, our social responsibility duties to the society.

Next stop – February 2019 Nairobi

Author:
Sabine Suorsa
Project Manager – Projektipäällikkö
RDI Creative Industry – TKI Luovat alat
International Coordinator – KV-koordinaattori
XAMK international affairs

As I mention before, you will find yourself as a mentor in an international startup-mentoring program. The story and the project continues, in November we will travel to Nairobi – Kenya for another five days of mentoring.

May I introduce you to my fellows at startup-mentoring.org

Chris Kaiser CEO and Co-Founder Bed n´Tree

My first impression about Chris was, that this young enthusiastic man with lots of passion and enthusiastic ideas. From beginning on I liked his idea, Bed n´Tree (https://bedandtree.com/). What does it do: every time you book a bed, we plant a tree, so each time you go to his page, directly to one of the links, like booking.com and you will be part of a wonderful idea to support the environment and to make an impact.

More impressed and touched I was by his story, about the wonderful little elephant named HaHa. This little pressures elephant passed away as she was only 2 years old, cause of a illness that elephant receive at a young age. This was the start of this wonderful project by Chris Kaiser. I admire Chris for his passion and commitment, he has a mission and it is wonderful to be part of his journey. So far 11683 trees are planted this year, and this is just the beginning.

Those two Lady´s are both developing great educational projects and program.

Tracey Shiundu-Kamande, CEO FunKe Science

Tracey is the CEO of FunKe Science, they are offering young kids fun experience with exciting science activities in schools around Nairobi (Kenya). Simple tools, and no need of technology are used in teaching kids how to explore themselves and try out new things. One example to be named: How to use baking soda and vinegar to inflate a balloon.

I am really honored to be her mentor, female entrepreneurship and social impact are important topics in the future. There is not a need to create applications, technical solutions etc. simple things are also great to use, in particular when it comes to education. Now we are working on a platform to even spread the word about FunKe Science even more. Tracy is a wonderful person, and is doing such an amazing work, to support young future scientists.

Last but most definitely not least in our team of entrepreneurship

Doreen Richard Mushi Founder, Lead Developer and Educational Technologist of TusomeInnovations.

TusomeInnovations is offering education for children and young adults which are deaf. In form of digital educational quizzes, that are covering topics such as science, math, geography or even history. In the near future, audio books for blind children are in the process.

In Tanzania, 55% deaf population is illiterate, and have limited schools for inclusive education, and resources for children with visual and hearing disabilities. Those numbers are not only in Tanzania or elsewhere, also in European countries such as e.g. Albania, is a high demand for support in that sector. Doreen, she has a Master of Science in Computer Science from the Lappeenranta University of Technology. She also participated with her team, last year in December at the SLUSH.org conference. Doreen and her startup was selected to attend the SLUSH Global Impact Accelerator after they were winning a local pitching competition.

So the questions of  the WHY NOT?- attitude, can be answered very simple. Supporting and listening to those fellows and their story, and seek for new opportunities and possibilities.

NEXT step in November we will go to NAIROBI and a new adventure ahead.

Photo by: www.der-gottwald.de

Author:

Sabine Suorsa

Project Manager – Projektipäällikkö

RDI Creative Industry – TKI Luovat alat

International Coordinator – KV-koordinaattori

XAMK international affairs

You will find yourself in the position of becoming a mentor in an international startup-mentoring program! You will gain new experience and seek for opportunities for yourself, and for the organization, you are working in.

What is the Startup-mentoring program by enpact.org?

Enpact.org is a NGO founded in August 2013 with the aim to strengthening economic relations between young entrepreneurs from the startup scenes of the Middle East, Africa and Europe. (enpact.org, 2018). The 8-month program starts with a 5-days intensive Bootcamp in Germany and continues on virtual bases until November in which everybody meets up again, this time in Africa (Nairobi-Kenya) and continues with a second meet up again in Africa.

Who is responsible for my invitation, and why there is no chance of declining it?

The responsible person for my invitation is Erik Kristiansen (Founder of BRAINS), which I met during the *ship disruption camp in 2017 and the i2i program in the same year, at Cranfield University in the UK. So now, this year I was invited to be part of this amazing 8-month program as a startup mentor was and at the same time to represent our organization.

Everything started with a very intensive week in Berlin, Germany, where we all met the startups and the people behind the ideas. The participants known as fellows mostly came from West Africa (Kenya), all with different ideas and business, the most inspiring impression I got during the week, was the willingness to give back and to make a social impact. Some of them had the possibility to study abroad and after their study time, moved back to Africa and started their own venture. All together around 40 startups/scale-ups joined the week in Berlin.

Every mentor got three fellows, which fit to your experience you offered beforehand. With those fellows, you will experience the roller coaster ride of entrepreneurship. Each of them are on different level, some of them early-stage some of them can be seen as scale-ups, your task as mentor is to switch to each of their needs and provide them with excellent coaching.

Stage 1 – Bootcamp Berlin/Bad Belzig

The camp in Berlin was tight and packed when it comes on the schedule, no time to get lazy. It was a real pleasure to talk to each and (almost) every fellow, listen to their stories and support them. It was an emotional experience, some of the stories are for us hard to believe and understand (probably), and you might feel supersaturated and spoiled. In particular, when you hear that € 2 for a simple tool to learn sign language is for some people in e.g. Tanzania too much, you might re-think the value of what you have and get each month. When you dive into a world in which not everything is for granted, all the time you spend with those fellows are golden and can be seen as a win-win situation.

end of part 1

Author:
Sabine Suorsa

Project Manager – Projektipäällikkö
R&D Creative Industry – Tki Luovat alat
International Coordinator – Kv-koordinaattori
XAMK international affairs