Starter Tartu spring programme comes to an end with the spring semester. This semester was a challenge for both the Startup Lab and the students, because instead of physical meetings, all activities were organised online. Nevertheless, a large number of enterprising students completed the programme.

7 June marked the end of the two-year international cooperation project "Innosme" led by University of Tartu Startup Lab. The project focused on developing cooperation between Ukrainian entrepreneurs and universities by promoting the development and growth of self-confidence of women entrepreneurs.

UT Institute of Computer Science, Garage48, and UT Startup Lab organized the 8^th Student Startup Camp that brought together university students from all over Estonia. Due to coronavirus restrictions, the camp took place completely online.

The pre-selection round of Kaleidoskoop also took place completely online this spring. Student teams selected based on three-minute video pitches will have the opportunity to present their ideas at the business festival Startup Day on 27 August.

Meeting with mentors is a good way to get feedback from people who have been involved in their field for a long time. They give honest feedback to your idea and guide you in the development of the idea. What do you need to know before meeting a mentor?

On February 18, the first online Idea Hackathon took place in sTARTUp Lab. The 5 hour Hackathon was on Zoom and participants could listen to an interesting seminar, present their ideas, and find teammates.

STARTER alumni Merili looks back to the lessons learned and gives advice for newcomers.

There are many myths about startups that sTARTUp Lab has heard over the years. During the programme these thoughts have been converted.

Kaleidoskoop pre-selection will take place  on 10th December!. Kaleidoskoop is a student idea competition that this year takes place for the 15^th time.

sTARTUp Lab team BerryBot won second place at the regional HACK AgriFood 2020 hackathon in Lithuania. BerryBot develops a strawberry picking robot that operates with AI.

Students’ business idea competition Kaleidoskoop invites student teams to join the competition for the 15^th time already. In the online competition, every student team has three minutes to present their idea to a panel of judges. Registration for the pre-selection is open until midnight on 7 December.

Green mindset is the common feature of the teams S-Kub and Sorter, winners of the 14th Kaleidoskoop business ideas competition. Both have a bigger goal of saving the planet and promoting environmentally friendly behavior.

The University of Tartu sTARTUp Lab is inviting all student teams to participate in the pre-selection round of the students’ business ideas competition Kaleidoskoop on 14 May. To participate, the teams have to send a three-minute video pitch of their business idea. Ten best teams will be selected to the finals to compete for the awards. 

The current emergency situation has brought both major changes and inspiration to the University of Tartu sTARTUp Lab’s STARTERtartu business idea development programme. Teams formed in the University of Tartu Delta Centre in February continue to develop ideas virtually, also offering solutions to alleviate the corona crisis. 

University of Tartu sTARTUp Lab teams CommuniCare and A Story won several awards at “Ajujaht”, the biggest business ideas competition in Estonia.  

Best STARTER team 2019 and finalist at Ajujaht team CommuniCare: take part of STARTER to turn ideas into reality!

We asked, what was the best thing in STARTERtartu programme. Here are some examples of what participants wrote.  

Baltics’ biggest business festival sTARTUp Day took place for the 4th time on 29-31 January in UT Sports Hall in Tartu with 4400 visitors, 158 speakers, and 4 stages. Although the Head Organizer Marili Vihmann said the aim was to keep the same number of attendees as last year - around 4000 guests, the festival still grew by 400 visitors. The festival had visitors from 60 different countries. 

13th student business ideas competition Kaleidoskoop Finals was held at the business festival sTARTUp Day 2019. Team Münt who is developing eco-friendly toothpaste tablets was selected to be the winner. Their mission is to make the planet earth a cleaner place.

On the 12th of December one of the biggest students’ business ideas competition Kaleidoskoop Pre-selection round took place for the 13th time at the SPARK HUB. 36 teams pitched their ambitious business ideas to the jury who selected 10 best to go to Kaleidoskoop Finals at the business festival sTARTUp Day on the 30th of January.

On 24th of October sTARTUp Lab hosted a Mentor Feedback Carousel which brought together STARTER  and Smart-Up Lab programme teams and experienced mentors to help teams develop their ideas. Teams rotated between mentors to get feedback to their ideas from different experts. By the end of the event, mentors invested virtual play money checks to the teams they liked the best.

New season means new beginnings! As sTARTUp Day is the most innovative festival in Estonia, we aim to keep our festival fresh. We are expecting 4000 guests and over 100 world-class speakers; we are bringing you 4 stages, a demo area, a special day for side events and tons of startup vibe. However, one thing that will always stay the same is the very, very strong program.

The InnoSME project, which is designed to promote innovation in Ukrainian small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) so as to strengthen their competitiveness by building efficient networks between universities and SMEs, was launched on 16 September under the aegis of the University of Tartu’s sTARTUp Lab. The project will focus on boosting skills and awareness in innovation and product development.

Do you have crazy ideas that seem impossible to implement? Or do you have no ideas and are wondering how to find them? Either way you've come to the right place When you join to the mini-hackathon of crazy ideas.

The University of Tartu team io_developers won the second place and a $2000 prize in the pitching competition of the international business development programme NGAL® (Network Globally, Act Locally).

Last weekend, the winner of the Kaleidoskoop business ideas competition was announced. The winning team was Io_developers, who develop application-controlled optical eyeglasses that enable focus adjustment.

On 28th of March, IdeaLab hosted a Mentor Feedback Carousel which brought together teams and mentors. Team's got feedback to their fresh ideas from different experts and by the end of the event, mentors gave play money checks to the teams they liked the best.

University if Tartu IdeaLab is shifting entrepreneurship education in Ukraine.

On 18th of October IdeaLab hosted a Mentor Feedback Carousel which brought together over 130 people, 37 teams and 16 mentors! Teams got feedback to their idea from different experts and by the end of the event, mentors gave play money checks to the teams they liked the best. The overall winner of the Mentor Feedback Carousel was team Vetik from Tartu Biotechnology Park!

The autumn season of the University of Tartu’s IdeaLab started on 20 September with Idea Hackathon, which was also the opening event of the STARTER programme and the new Fast Track Tartu programme piloted by members of the Tartu startup community. 

UT IdeaLab started its new season with ideation workshop led by inspiring trainer Harald Lepisk. There were almost 70 people present and 14 ideas were selected!

On 22nd of February took place 4th Idea Storm with few hundred people to generate 100 new ideas! There were 22 topic experts who helped young people to think innovative solutions to problems in table topic areas. „Space as a Service“ was selected the best idea of the evening!

Half of IdeaLab’s STARTER Advanced programme is already over! So what have we accomplished during the previous months?

Are you ready for an exciting life of an entrepreneur? Apply for the pre-accelerator program, build your team, develop the idea and start a business! As simple as that with the new project ‘EstLat-Accelerate’ that is launched as a part of European Regional Development Fund program ‘Interreg Estonia – Latvia’. There are two partnering cities involved – Riga and Tartu. And five strong community partners have joined forces to boost startup scene of both countries.

On Friday evening, 23rd June University of Tartu teams took the two first places at the final competition of an exclusive NGAL® business development program. Among ten student teams from Estonia and USA, Cody was selected to be the winner and got 3,000 USD to implement their idea. The second place and 2,000 USD went to the Coulomb Sailing Group, a space technology start-up grown out from EstCube. 

As the first and second day were full of interesting talks and valuable lessons, we decided to put some more focus on teamwork and getting things done during the next days. However, those days were full of new experiences: meetings with experienced investors, lecture on history, tour at SPARK and University of Tartu, trying out Estonian sauna and visiting Narva, the easternmost point of EU!

Tuesday, 6th June was the second day of NGAL ® and well, it was even more fun! We started the day off with the reflection, got some sun during the team time, visited Mooncascade - one of the coolest IT companies in Tartu - talked about design thinking and UX with wonderful Helen Kokk and ended our day with amazing pasta!

First day of NGAL® (Network Globally, Act Locally) was all about getting to know each other, discussing the business ideas and setting goals for the project. The program started with opening words from prof. Erik Puura, prof. Maaja Vadi, Joonas Põder, Vaido Mikheim and Ermo Tikk.

In September 2017 UT IdeaLab will start a project for developing practical entrepreneurship education in Ukrainian universities. The aim of the project is to promote the entrepreneurial attitude and develop entrepreneurship skills of Ukrainian students, based on the Estonian best practices.

Thursday, May  the 11^th marked the date of the selection round of Kaleidoskoop competition -   the biggest youth business and project ideas competition in South-Estonia, taking place for eighth time already! In the first round, the board of judges picked out 10 most promising ideas that will compete in the finals on 19^th of May!

Festera and Tritsu, winner teams of last yeas’s business ideas competition Kaleidoskoop, pitched their business ideas at the international start-up event Polar Bear Pitching in Oulu, Finland. The event  took place already for third time and there’s a specific aspect that makes this event distinguish among hundreds of other similar events – during their pitch participants have to stand waist-deep in ice-cold lake water!

On Thursday, 16^th of February around 200 students, entrepreneurs and start-up mentors gathered at Dorpat Convention Centre to generate and share ideas at the inspirational event “Idea Storm. 100 ideas that could change the world”. The discussions were held on 21 different topics, every discussion was led by an entrepreneur from particular field. Later on, the best ideas and solutions from every table were presented.

On UT IdeaLab stage at sTARTUp Day business festival on 9th December the finals of Kaleidoskoop business ideas competition took place. The main prizes were given to the student company Festera who produces recycle bins that eliminate biodegradable waste using special bacteria, and UT IdeaLab’s STARTER program graduate Triplecase who has developed a practical three-zipper pencilcase.

The 7th of December marked the date of Kaleidoskoop’s preliminary round, which was more popular than ever before – the record-shattering 42 teams were pitching their business ideas in UT IdeaLab! Out of all these great ideas jury had to pick out ten most promising ones that have the opportunity to participate the final at the international business festival Startup Day on 9th December.

During the preliminary round of Kaleidoskoop competition on 7th of December Vega fund jury selected the teams which will get 5000€ worth kickoff capital to develop their projects!

On 1st December our STARTER program teams and other young entrepreneurs gathered at IdeaLab to perfect their pitching skills. For that reason, we invited Gleb Maltsev - the founder of Stoneful communications agency, co-founder of Fundwise and award-winning pitching trainer. He came to Tartu straight from Slush and well, left us amazed!

University of Tartu IdeaLab invites all the students to participate in the biggest youth business and project ideas competition in South-Estonia! It is a great opportunity for any young entrepreneur to gain some publicity, get feedback from start-up mentors and win valuable prices.

Last week Kristjan-Paul Raude, CEO of WSI Online digital agency gave two lectures in University of Tartu: first an open lecture „How to grow your brand and sales using digital tools?“ and then an interactive seminar for IdeaLab STARTER program participants. The topic was suprisingly popular – in the STARTER seminar there was almost 100 people!

The STARTER program at UT IdeaLab has brought together almost 100 entrepreneurial students from 14 different schools and 14 different countries, working in teams on 27 different ideas. As the participants say, the international company with lots of sizzling energy, wide set of knowledge and ambitious ideas has made their participation in STARTER an unforgettable experience!

Meet Andriy, Nikita and Kostiantyn - three guys from Ukraine who started their start-up while studying at the University of Tartu.  After validating different ideas at the University of Tartu IdeaLab and doing several pivots during their journey, their start-up Hirehunt was now selected to TOP 10 start-ups among 389 teams to participate in ABC Slovenia - one the leading Business Acceleration Programs in Europe.

Last Thursday almost 200 students, entrepreneurs and start-up mentors gathered to generate and share ideas in the inspirational event “Idea Storm. 100 ideas that could change the world”. The discussions were held on 21 different topics, every discussion was lead by an entrepreneur from particular field. Later on, the best ideas and solutions from every table were presented.

Today „Network Globally, Act Locally 2016“ (NGAL) Tartu Camp will officially end. Students from University of Tartu, Nebraska Wesleyan and College of Charleston came together one last time in Idea Lab to practice their pitches in front of a real audience and critical judges – their peers, university faculty and startup field experts, including Yrjö Ojasaar.

Three University of Tartu Idea Lab teams were chosen for the international Network Globally, Act Locally programme to develop their business ideas. The programme begins today in Tartu, where the entrepreneurial youth from two USA universities have also arrived, and ends on 24 June in Nebraska, USA, where teams will present their business ideas to the local business people.

Sun is shining, birds are singing and it's the first Friday of May. Everything points to being outside and enjoying the weather but still Kristjan-Paul Raude managed to gather a full house to listen to his seminar-workshop about digital marketing. The seminar "How to build your brand and surpass your competition in Google [Search -- Ed]" was organized by UT Idea Lab in co-operation with Tartu University Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Tartu County Government.

Almost everyone interacts with social media, whether for personal use or for business purposes. The whole topic attracts a lot of attention – that’s why a record breaking number of attendees gathered in Idealab on the 21st of April to listen to the young and charming Garage48 mentor Jaan Kruusma.

On one cold and gloomy evening, a group of active students with their heads filled with ideas gathered at our colorful Idea Lab, where the young bright designer and founder of YourDesignWorks Helen Kokk held a workshop focusing on web design

The first assessment of our Idea Lab teams took place on the 31st of March. This assessment focused on the current position of the teams - what have they done so far, what are their future plans and whether they are in need of a mentor.

Idea Lab is a place where students from all disciplines can find innovative solutions to everyday problems and test viability of their ideas. 

To accomplish that, we are looking for interns interested in stretching their comfort zone, learning and growing together with us and contributing to our vision of being birth place for world changing ideas.