Aaltoes Fair, the biggest startup fair showcasing promising startups and connecting different actors in the ecosystem, introduces the startup shakers and movers to a selected audience of investors, business professionals, technology forerunners and determined students.

Arranged for the third time, Aaltoes Fair will take place this Wednesday evening, February 9th. We are expecting over 300 attendees for an evening of fast-paced pitching, challenging ideas and big dreams. For students, Aaltoes Fair offers a low threshold way to experience the startup world excitement combined with an excellent opportunity to network with a mixed crowd of professionals – we hope to see many students jump on the challenge and come to Design Factory this Wednesday!

Please visit the Fair homepage and signup on the Facebook event.

We have just wrapped up our first week back after the Winter Break. Drinks, pizza and pitching – the very first Aaltoes Open Mic gathered some 40 people to share their ideas and build upon others.

Jens Sorensen and Ville Simola opened the event with a brief introduction to Aaltoes and idea generation from Steve Sammartino.

The lively discussion in Aaltoes Open Mic was something that we were especially proud of.  Store reviews, task management, digital paintings and Shanghai train among others spurred some very interesting roadmaps for the ideas. Pick a target group, speak to the users early on, get the team and don’t worry about competition – these were some of the advice from the crowd. Thanks for all the presenters and participants. Hope to see many of the ideas in the future Aaltoes Pitch and Talkoot.

The next Aaltoes Open Mic is going to be organised in TaiK on February 4th, see you all there!

SLUSH 2009 from Popagenda/Vesa Salmi on Vimeo.

Some Bazaar and Aalto Entrepreneurship Society are proud to invite you to SLUSH 2009 on Nov 3rd and 4th at Kaapelitehdas in Helsinki. There are three ways to participate in this event:

1) Take part in the making of Slush – get an inside look into the event as well as some free refreshments. Participate in the building team on 2nd Nov and/or the backstage crew during the event by contacting Valeria at valeria.gryada (add at-mark) gmail.com. The building team and backstage crew have guaranteed access to both days of Slush.

2) The event is free of charge for all students, but we can admit only a limited number of applications, so act quickly and register at www.slushhelsinki.com/tickets. Registration is very important – we’ll have a badge for you at the door.

3) Apply for Slush Seven competition with your idea and get a chance to make your idea reality and win prize money to fund your busines development. Signup by 30.10. at http://slushhelsinki.com/index.php?article_id=1441&_subm_=1

So what is Slush? If you are a budding entrepreneur and would like to showcase your business idea, or simply thinking about making it big on your own, then come and join us. Nov 3rd is dedicated to Talkoot – a venue where experts of various fields are on hand to lend a hand. All without a charge as Talkoot should be. So if you are taking your first steps to become the next Finnish success story, but would need some (peer) support and help, come join us.

For those of you who already have a company with international ambitions, the Talkoot day on the 3rd will include an Internationalisation Clinic hosted by Culminatum oy. There are slots for 15 2-hour promising and ambitious companies. Signup today!

To learn more about Slush go to www.slushhelsinki.fi and get information by signing up to the Slush Facebook group.

See You at Talkoot! The Facebook event can be found at http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=68214196217&ref=ts

Aaltoes Pitching attracted some 100 people to listen to the ideas and executions of future startups. We had a great array of ideas ranging from dictionaries to mobile reminder services. The winner, Language Café, captivated the audience with a strong social message: connecting elderly people and foreigners to actively learn languages and improve their social connections.

The Stage auditorium was full and packed as the thirteen contestants pitched their ideas. The Jury included names such as Marja-Reetta Paso from Veturi Growth Partners, Antti Kokkinen from Blue Run Ventures, Teemu Seppälä from Tuli funding and serial entrepreneur Taneli Tikka. One of the main take backs for the presenters was for sure the feedback from the judges: pertinent insights and suggestions to take the ideas forward.

Stefania Passera from the winning team Language Café pitched with enthusiasm and clarity their concept: introducing a new language learning method to connect elderly people with expats and exchange students.

- We are a team of students with different backgrounds who participated last summer in the Murjottelu–programme and developed concepts on the theme how to keep seniors active. Our coach Anssi Tuulenmäki suggested that we should take part in the pitching competition with this idea, Stefania explains.

The Jury saw a lot of opportunity in the idea of Maria Ullner, Stefania, Reetta Maila, Sami Norovuori and Riku Nagasaki and felt that development of the business idea in Talkoot would really take it further. The team has however been proactive about developing their idea.

- We actually did field-tests already last summer. We invited some exchange students to Ateneum Café to work with seniors – it worked like a charm! We had prepared some memory games, discussion topics etc. in case the conversation was about to end, but that was not a problem, Maria and Reetta smile.

Next AaltoesPitch is just around the corner, so if you’re still interested in coming to Stanford, please register your idea here http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHJKam5rbERHeEEzUExxZzA5NDJIYWc6MA .  It’s worth joining also if you have a startup or an idea and need some team members.

Winning pitches: 1) Language Café – Stefania Passera P, 2) Late No More – Antti Virolainen, 3) OCR Based Dictionary – Haritash J. Tamvada, 4) Cur?ous – Sachin Gaur 5) Digital Receipts – Sivakumar Karuppusamy

Video was filmed and produced by CityVice.

It is again the time for all great minds to punch their pitch on the 8th of October! Aaltoes is organizing the first pitching evening of the  semester @ Design Factory, the mecca of creative ideas. We strongly encourage you all who have a good idea to enroll and give your best shot or just show up and enjoy the show with like-minded people and Aaltoes sponsored refreshments.

The Aaltoes hosted pitching night last spring was a great success and it gave launch to several new businesses.  Also for the audience, the event was a great chance for many to find out that making a pich is not exactly rocket science. Come and see it yourselves! Before that here’s a taste of last spring’s winning pitch.

Incentives for the competitors couldn’t be much better: the winner gets 1^st round Tuli funding up to 5k and wins a trip to Stanford, USA with all the like-minded people from Aaltoes.  Teams qualifying 2^nd and 3^rd will also be awarded. Additionally, to all teams, there’s a possibility to form contacts that will push your future business further. Furthermore, the top-three teams will get the chance to take part in Slush 2009.

Pitching rules are pretty simple: every participant has 4 minutes and 4 slides at tops. Wouldn’t do harm if the slides are structured as follows: the problem, the solution, the profitability of your idea and your needs regarding the possible funding.

Due to our funding program one must remember that at least one of the team members ought to be a student or a researcher of Aalto University. Also, existing companies cannot be funded.

For more information go our Facebook event and if you want to pitch, sign up here before 7th of October.

Wish to see all you guys there!