Nordic Startup News Early Stage Startup News From The Nordics
Tallinn, Estonia — Latitude59, the most international and influential startup and technology conference in the Baltics and the Nordic region, opened in Tallinn today, bringing together 3,000 participants from 70 countries.
In his opening speech, the President of the Republic of Estonia Alar Karis, emphasized that AI has already transformed many jobs, and even bigger changes are likely still ahead. “If we want society to benefit fully from artificial intelligence, we need to talk more about the skills people must develop so that AI makes us smarter rather than simply replacing us,” the President said.
Taking place for the 14th time, Latitude59 has brought 3,000 participants from 70 countries to Tallinn, where 140 speakers will take the stage. This year’s conference also welcomes more than 800 startup representatives, over 600 investors from around the world and 20 national and startup delegations to Estonia.
Speaking at the opening of the technology event, Latitude59 CEO Liisi Org said that computers can code, but only people can care. “The world is spinning a bit faster, maybe not always in the direction we want it to, and there’s a lot of uncertainty. It is also challenging economically for startups and for the ecosystem in general. But we are not giving up on our bold dreams and global village vision as we all have this universal need to belong and be part of something bigger. That is why, this year at Latitude59, we are telling the New Nordics story louder than ever. Estonia is part of the New Nordics, and as we go around the world, we continue talking about it,” Org said.
This year, Latitude59 is building bridges between the startup ecosystems of the New Nordics, Africa, Canada and Asia, while placing the balance between humanity and technology at the centre of the conversation. Under the main theme, The Global Village Experiment, Latitude59 will bring the New Nordics’ networks, operating models and hard-earned lessons to a global audience with the aim of fostering cross-border cooperation and driving discussions that solve real problems and lead to tangible outcomes.
One of the highlights of Latitude59 will be its traditional pitch competition, where seven startups from Estonia, Finland, Lithuania and Ukraine will compete in the final. The finalists will take the Latitude59 main stage on 22 May, with the final kicking off at 14:00.
The main prize of this year’s pitch competition is an investment of up to half a million euros, backed by the Estonian Business Angels Network EstBAN, the Latvian Business Angels Network LatBAN, the Finnish Business Angels Network FiBAN and Lithuania-based venture capital fund FIRSTPICK VC. More than 50 partners are also contributing to this year’s Latitude59, including Valencia Innovation Capital, Mastercard, Aalto University, the Italian Trade Agency (ITA), SEB, Civitta, TalentHub, Knowzilla, Widen Legal, Amazon Web Services, Google and Google Cloud.
