Global innovation competition, Entrepreneurship World Cup’s Finnish finalists have been selected. Three startups will be pitching their solutions in the areas of ecological construction, medical data management and waste to value in the EWC Finland National Finals on August 26th. Everyone can participate and join listening the impressive solutions of the finalists via live stream of the event. One startup will proceed to the next stage in the competition, an Acceleration 2 phase, from which 100 global startups will be invited to the main pithing event held in October.
The competition is very diverse. Startups at all stages have been invited to apply around the world, from any lines of business. To be among the 100 startups in the global finals, the entrepreneurs have to go through four different stages. Finland National Finals is the second last phase in the journey. Before reaching the national finals, the applications have been reviewed on two rounds with judges.
100 startups around the world will compete for the EWC top prize in October.
entrepreneurs full on in the competition
Markus Silverberg from Block Solutions is excited about the nomination in the Finland National Finals. His company is developing an economic and ecological housing concept combining circular economy and high engineering technology from Finland. His company has been running for 5 years and it is about to make its break through.
39 % of the emissions come from construction. Our solution tackles with not only reducing the emissions, but also reducing waste and micro plastics getting into the nature. We collect our raw materials from the environment, nothing new is produced
Silverberg remarks. One of the categories in the competition is for best social enterprise and Silverberg thinks the competition fits them perfectly. The company’s business is aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and UN Habitat is their reference customer. The affordable housing concept is reaching out to the markets in Africa and seeks to empower the local communities by creating jobs and offering inexpensive, but quality housing.
UPharma Care is a technology startup from Eastern Finland. Its diverse team consists of business as well as healthcare professionals. The idea for their solution, an application for medical data management, comes from practical experience and insight on the challenges in nursing and taking care of patients treated by different specialists. UParma Care has been waiting for its momentum for years and true progress started to happen six months ago.
We started working on the application more seriously around the New Year. Right people came together and things have been moving forward fast since that. There is no similar application in the market and it has several use cases for individual users as well as organizations
, tells Johanna Jauhiainen, the CEO of the company. Managing the medication data is a big problem in healthcare. UPharma Care’s solution presents a simple and safe way to keep track on individual patient’s medication.
Nu Cycle is a Finnish startup with the most of its team based abroad; in Indonesia, Russia and Portugal. The company is almost ten years old and the new ’waste to value’ concept has been under development for couple of years. The solution utilizes information technology, big data and circular economy to facilitate building of sustainable systems in the waste to energy sector.
We are piloting our solution in Indonesia, which is our first market, in Europe in Portugal and in Brazil. These are the countries where our offset clients are located, but we are strongly striving to new global markets
, partner Natasha Viitasaari comments from Portugal. The company’s solution brings about a new viewpoint onto the desirable ’zero waste’ trending across the industries, and presents a model to create value from waste. Viitasaari sees vast opportunities in waste management for companies operating in the field of circular economy, which is in many countries predominated by governments at the moment.
Entrepreneurship World Cup was organized the first time last year. The main venue was held in the city’s illustrious Kingdom Center, one of the tallest buildings in Riyadh.
Global Buzz Online
The main event of the competition, Entrepreneurship World Cup Global Finals on October 18th – 20th will also be organized online. The international event, which is organized the second time, has been challenged by the global pandemic as networking events and buzz around new business, typical in the startup scene, have been cancelled. Nevertheless, the transfer to digital format has been agile and bringing new ways of cooperation and deepened the networking online. For example, there is an opportunity to participate the national finals of other countries around the world.
Altough this year there will be no live-buzzing happening, the EWC 2020 will for sure offer again new exciting solutions to the world, fruitful initiatives for collaboration as well as impressive variety of opportunities for the participating entrepreneurs – mentors, investors and life-changing prizes.
You can participate the EWC Finland National Finals here. The online event welcomes everyone to join listening the pitches of the three impressive Finnish finalists.
The Entrepreneurship World Cup is an initiative of the Misk Global Forum, Global Entrepreneurship Network and the Global Education and Leadership Foundation, backed by a broad collection of entrepreneurial support organizations and strategic partners. Xamk Small Business Center is the national organizer of the competition and will sponsor the national winne to the EWC GLobal Finals.
Elina Pöllänen
Project Manager and RDI Specialist at the Xamk Small Business Center, EWC Finland Coordinator