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As Ed-tech is becoming the next industry to watch in the Nordics, with success stories like Kahoot, DigiExam, and Funzi. We take a look at 3 major trends in the ed-tech world.   Adult education Ed-tech is often thought about in terms of “gamified” learning tools like Duolingo, but the real face of adult education is in the corporate world, …

Reykjavik-based Aldin Dynamics was born in early 2013, just in time to join the Icelandic Institute for Intelligent Machines startup accelerator program.  Since then, they have been working deep in virtual reality (VR). “We build our content from the ground up for VR, and it’s meant to be experienced that way.  There are just so many different, unique mechanics that …

Impact Iceland 2016 is crowdfunding Iceland’s first conference on social entrepreneurship on Karolina Fund.  It will be the first in a series of conferences in Iceland focusing on social innovation as a profitable, sustainable, and impactful response to today’s challenges. Tanja Wohlrab-Ryan writes at Startup Iceland about making Iceland not only a vibrant startup community, but a hub of social …

Denmark is riding on a green wave.  The country has been lauded for its focus on sustainable energy, recycling, and high quality of life.   The Danish startup Miljøskærm,  based at the science park at Scion DTU, uses all these values to make its defense against traffic noise – the company builds barriers out of old windmills. The Danish startup …

Sustainability is more than an environmental concept – it’s big business too.  At the Impact Investor Ball last week, several startups pitched their products for a more sustainable future.  Lean Green was one of them.  The company has developed a festival chair in biodegradable and recyclable cardboard. The chair has been a hit at Roskilde Festival, the annual music festival …

Music, tech, politicians, finance – they all want the same thing:  the hearts and minds of millennials.  In the rapidly developing fintech world, millennials are often a driving force working behind the scenes and pushing traditional financial institutions to veer away from the cumbersome, expensive, in-person interactions of old. By Morgan M. Davis The app economy especially is “largely driven …

The Stockholm-based healthy food startup Naturalbox explains their successful crowdsourcing campaign on Prowly. Results: coverage in key media channels, nearly 100 investors, 212% campaign overfunding. In order to raise capital for its operations, Naturalbox chose crowdsourcing over a traditional VC, engaging its customers, friends and fans. To make that happen, the startup decided to leverage all the advantages of social …

In 2013, the two founders behind the podcast app Acast, Måns Ulvestam and Karl Rosander, discovered a resurgence of podcasting happening in Sweden.  When looking into the Swedish ecosystem, they found an amateur landscape where all the important parts were broken or didn’t exist. These parts included metrics, monetisation, and discovery, as well as sharing.  “This is the reason we …

The Nordics have a natural advantage when it comes to education technology, including strong school systems, technical expertise, and forward-thinking municipalities who put digitalization on the agenda. What is holding back ed-tech development in the region? Many startups in the Nordics struggle with the VC investment bottleneck and finding the right talent. However as Hanna Kristín Skaftadóttir of Mimi Creations …

Trip Republic, the Helsinki based travel planning and booking startup, has launched the full version of the travel planner. Over 3000 travel plans have been created using the planner in the four months since beta launch. Trip Republic has become the social travel planner with the largest amount of connected travel suppliers, partnering up with Booking.com, Skyscanner, Viator, Musement, Uber …

$6-7000 per position, 12 weeks, and a one in ten ‘bad hire’ rate: these are the potential pitfalls awaiting the recruiter according to RelinkLabs. Founded in 2013, the Copenhagen-based company are launching a new API to streamline the recruitment process. The first of its kind, it will generate insights based on proprietary data products to help match profiles against job …

Little by little financial technology (FinTech) entrepreneurship has been chipping away at the once mighty banking industry, threatening to turn it into brick-and-mortar shell of its former self. Piqued by widespread frustration with impersonal services and fee bombardment, tech-savvy customers have been abandoning traditional banks in favor of digital banking services. Today’s consumers and business owners want banking services they …

At Infoshare 2016, Richard Kastelein, of Blockchain News  shared a beginners guide to blockchain, and why this technology will change the way we do business – and how the principles of blockchain are actually older than you think. Over the next 10 years, blockchain technology will change the way we do business.  Although it is not a magic bullet, it …

Start-up founders who focus on issues of resource preservation, resource recovery and recycling, often lack access to funding opportunities, as they have difficulty competing the b2b scale-ups that investors see as big money. That is why in 2014 Green Alley, a strategic circular economy investor based in Berlin, initiated the annual Green Alley Award, Europe’s first start-up competition for entrepreneurs wanting …

The Button Corporation, which launched world’s first IoT physical push button from Helsinki in the Spring of 2014, has launched a new bttn Mini designed by award-winning Finnish industrial designer, Harri Koskinen, best known for his Block Lamp, a light-bulb held inside two shaped pieces of clear glass, which is exhibited in MoMA in New York City. Harri has designed …

The UK and Singapore regulators are joining forces to form a so-called “fintech bridge” in a bid to both bolster Singapore’s fintech credentials and strengthen UK links to Asia.  The Nordics, which are competing with Singapore to become the next fintech hub, will surely be left in the dust. In a joint statement with the UKs Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) …

Fintech is one of the biggest buzzwords in tech right now.  Check out the below infographic to see how exactly how fintech is going to disrupt the financial world, including the best accelerators and investors, the leading fintech hubs, and global fintech investments. This article was compiled based on research by Dr.Discount, the Dutch number one source for online coupons …

With virtual reality the next frontier for digital innovation, a growing number of Finnish companies are offering a pioneering look at things to come. Science fiction has always offered far-fetched future imaginings of various shapes and sizes. Sometimes, however, this crystal ball gazing also comes true. A self-driving car? Google now has the answer. Video conferencing? Thanks Skype. How about …

While the need for a better approach to diabetes management has been well established, healthcare solutions catering to such an approach has always been lacking. It is perhaps for this reason that Medilync not only won the best “IoT startup” award, but also the “People’s  Choice” award in Nordic Startup Awards Icelandic final this year. Sigurjón Lydsson, CEO and Co-founder …

The MyData 2016 Conference is an international event  dedicated to helping people manage and reuse their personal data currently controlled by companies and governments. The conference will bring industry leaders to Helsinki later this summer in an effort to drive forward this important topic. MyData is an initiative led by Open Knowledge Finland  and the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology …