Mark Fletcher

Startup Guide Oslo launches with a bang at Oslo Innovation Week

Among the many happenings during the recent Oslo Innovation Week, Start-up Guide Oslo was officially released at a launch party hosted by MESH. Start-up Everywhere has previously published Start-up guides for cities like Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berlin and many others with second editions in the planning stage. Now, it is Oslo’s time to shine. Audrey Camp, a co-author of the guide …

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Personal data in the spotlight at Ultrahack MyData hackathon

Two weeks ago in the basement of Helsinki’s historic Kulttuuritalo (designed by Alvar Aalto and opened in 1958) a packed crowd took part in the Ultrahack MyData Hackathon kickoff, marking the start of the 48 hour intensive effort. Around eighty selected hackers from more than twenty teams gathered. A handful had traveled to Helsinki from Estonia, Norway, Netherlands, Austria, Germany …

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FACE Entrepreneurship embraces the good, bad and the ugly

Last Thursday, the Microsoft Flux space in Helsinki played host to a panel and workshop by the FACE Entrepreneurship group. FACE stands for Failure Aversion Change in Europe, and they have been making their way around select European cities to promote beyond the traditionally media-sexy aspects of business and technology in the start-up ecosystem by digging deeper into the emotional …

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xEdu, Northern Europe’s first ed-tech accelerator underway

Adjacent to the Helsinki University’s Department of Teacher Education, housed at the same University campus that once hosted Finland’s first particle accelerator, xEdu is firing up the first ed-tech accelerator for startups in Northern Europe. The education system in Finland has famously high rankings in world education polls.  While it might seem like Finland’s crown jewel should not be tampered …

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SoMe Index, a new social media analytics tool, launches at Media Honeypot

EzyInsights, a Finnish startup that has developed a social media analytics tool aimed at content providers, has launched a new product, the “SoMe Index”, at Media Honeypot 2016. The SoMe Index streamlines how content is accesses across all of the main social media platforms by finding the most relevant content to increase organic traffic. Duane Atkins from Ezyinsights hit the …

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Contakti sorts customer inquiries before they get lost in the digital paper pile

Contakti are going into battle with unanswered communications.  The Finnish startup has created a platformed aimed at handling all customer contacts – phone calls – live chats, texts, and emails – to make sure they don’t get lost in the digital paper pile. Today we have more ways than ever to communicate with each other, so it seems antithetical that …

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Finternet brings legacy media companies into the 21st century

Mikael da Costa has tasked himself and his company Finternet Group with something that not a great deal of companies nowadays would even consider.  They are offering legacy media companies the chance to hop onboard the digital express out of Nowheresville before they are left in the dust and stood about wondering what the hell happened. “I often ask people, …

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M-Body turns your gym shorts into a wearable lab

The process of Electromyography (EMG) has for decades, conducted in labs on subjects who are rigged up to wires that lead to a processing machine monitored by technician.  Myontec has created a wearable solution that is capable of performing the same processes. EMG is a diagnostic technique that monitors measures muscle activity and is used to analyze human kinetics and …

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Gaming doesn’t have to be isolating, says Dodreams CEO

“You could say that people read too many books.” So says Erik Pöntiskoski, the CEO of Dodreams, the company behind the very popular and addictive mobile game, Drive ahead!. He is responding to the issue of excessive device usage in this day and age, which he feels has a largely detrimental effect on human interaction.  His startup Dodreams,wants to make …

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Health Operator’s non-invasive sensor brings diagnostics to your bathroom

Helsinki based Health Operator offers personalized diagnostics and monitoring services to the private health sectors as well as commercially to the public. They were one of the winners of this year’s Nokia Open Innovation Challenge, held at Slush 2015. Imagine going to the bathroom to go about your daily routines, while an array of non-invasive sensors monitors your blood pressure, …

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