Another day, another deluge of things to capture at Slush.Slush/Jussi Hellsten
You know the name of the game: if you weren’t there, we’ll show you how it was. Slush day two! Today, we met up with some Finnish companies getting all Slushed up.
Hatch Entertainment announced its existence at Slush. The company offers a completely new way of playing together with friends and family on mobile. Joseph Knowles (left) and Vesa Jutila were thrilled to be on board on the service that will eventually go full-on global. It already boasts a big list of partners, and Slush is likely to bring a lot more. “Slush is a melting pot for technology, innovation and new ideas, so it was a perfect place for our launch,” Jutila says. Image: Anne Salomäki
Tuomo Olkinuora from UpCloud was so busy throughout Slush he couldn’t go listen to any of the speeches; and no wonder the stand was popular, as it featured two racing car simulators. According to Olkinuora, plenty of interested people visited the stand, so UpClouders will have a lot more work to get onto after the conference doors are shut. Image: Anne Salomäki
Too busy for lunch in the business buzz? Ambronite to the rescue! Pessi Peura, Ambronite events manager, called the company’s visit to Slush “a huge success”. Not only were plenty of products sold, but also the stand was visited by people who, for example, wanted to start selling Ambronite back in their countries of residence. Image: Anne Salomäki
“Can you imagine it takes 23 calories to produce one calorie of beef?” asked Uma Valeti, CEO and co-founder of Memphis Meats. By doing so, he made a lot of audience members think about the lunch they had just had, or the one they were about to have, from an ethical, ecological and environmental perspective. Image: Anne Salomäki
Jari Jaanto from Herdifier was at Slush introducing the Ihku app, a social discovery service for introverts. “Most social media channels cater for existing social circles,” he explains. “Ihku provides users with a chance to create these circles online and then take them IRL.” Jaanto noted that according to research, a significant proportion of young Finns express feelings of loneliness. Ihku can help people get together through interest groups. At Slush, Herdifier was looking for investors and partners in order to make the app go international. Image: Anne Salomäki
A lot of companies refer to themselves as the Tinder of something; and so does Pockethunt. Tuomas Härkönen says Pockethunt is the Tinder of headhunting, and it leaves the power in the hands of the worker. Applicants can sign up anonymously, and only they can grant companies access to their full profiles when needed. “Now we operate in Finland, but in a couple of months’ time we’ll launch in Germany and the UK,” Härkönen says. “Slush has been an excellent opportunity to find partners and potential collaborators.” Image: Anne Salomäki
Kati Ahvonen from Amer Sports shows the sensor that can be attached to clothing to measure acceleration, rotation, direction and temperature. The sensor collects a lot of raw data, and Slush was where its API was opened to coders for software development. For Amer Sports, it’s a way of looking for potential partners. “There is enormous potential here from all over the world!” Image: Anne Salomäki
Fortum president and CEO Pekka Lundmark hit the stage to rethink energy for a captive audience. “We [need to] connect energy innovations with innovations in energy storage,” he emphasised. “We need to develop virtual storage. 40 per cent of the world’s energy could come from wind and sun in the future. There are many technical challenges ahead.” Image: Slush/Jussi Hellsten