Summer of Startups: 10 Startups to Graduate from Finland’s First Ever Incubator Internship

Summer of Startups, a first-of-its-kind hands-on entrepreneurship program arranged by and for students with university and government support, is approaching its end. One more week to go, the teams are finishing up their summer task lists and getting ready for this Friday’s Demo Day.

During the summer, Summer of Startups has given 10 selected student startup teams an honest snapshot of the life of a start-up entrepreneur.  Backed up by Aalto University and the Finnish Government and arranged in cooperation with Finnish student entrepreneurship societies, Summer of Startups provides the teams with a bootstrapper’s salary while taking no equity from these early stage businesses.

Over a period of 8 weeks, the teams, whose range varies from innovative home decoration to mobile services, have focused on themes such as business models, legal, networking and presentation skills, as well as went on an trip to Estonia where the group, among other visits, pitched to the country’s top VCs, Ambient Sound Investments.

On Friday, the 27th of August, the class of Summer ‘10 will graduate in an open Demo Day at the Aalto Venture Garage in Otaniemi, Espoo. Starting at 13 p.m, the teams will showcase their demos and the visitors can mingle and enjoy light snacks and refreshments provided, after which, at around 14.00, the teams will pitch for a jury who selects the grand winner. The most promising Summer of Startups team will be awarded with a trip to Silicon Valley in October.

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On behalf of all the graduating summer startups, we welcome you to the Garage on Friday to show your support for the teams!

The 10 teams to graduate are:

Arada Services: easy and affordable access to intercity transportation via mobile in East Africa
Buffee: a platform for social games to collect feedback from users regardless of their mother tongue
Dealmachine: a web service that rewards salespeople for every step they take towards a sale
eXperQ: increasing customer-company interaction to make the world a better place to be a customer
IncSpark: an internal Facebook for companies
Living Canvas: creates “Rainforest-in-a-box” for office spaces
MiDA: a mobile service to scan and collect info of your diet in real-time
Octarine: helps organize information from your social networks around your life experiences
Pamoja Innovations: promotes development of greentech and renewable energy in East Africa
Refetch: location-based reminders (e.g. “buy toothpaste” when in supermarket)