Usually such competitions have the image of being more of a school project rather than serious business competitions. I would say that previous years Ajujaht was on the level of school projects competition, but this year the level of the ideas and teams was amazingly high. Most of the ideas in the final 8 were already in production and half of them had already some revenue. The prize fund was also significant this year - 1 000 000 EEK (about 64 000 euros).The competition will be held at least for the next 4 years and hopefully the ideas and teams get better year after year and the whole ecosystem around the competition gives a boost to enterpreneurship and new startups.
Here is the list and my comments of the finalists:
A team called Growfish was the winner (235 000 EEK). Their idea is to develop a fully automatic fish-breeding system. IT would consist of electronics and software. The system would optimize feeding, growing and water quality management etc. So less cost, better quality and less unfortunate accidents. The fish-breeding industry is growing 250% every year so such a system is needed.
One of my favourites - ReUse Republic - got the second place. Their idea is to re-design "previous season" clothes that have not been sold. They have already signed agreements with different brands and have already re-designed and sold hundreds of items. They are going to open a shop in Kristiine Keskus soon and are holding negotiations with Kamppi Keskus in Helsinki. So if they open, go and visit them!
The third place went to Optimistid, whose idea is to build design motor-boats. They have already contacts with US and Brazilian (if I am correct) potential investors/buyers and hope to get their first 160 km/h going boats on the water soon.
Another favourite of mine was the team Aega on (There is time). Their idea was to create a web portal where you can order an artistic picture, for example a Japanese animation style, and an artist would draw it specially for you. You would only have to pay if you like the picture.
Then there was a team who organizes fishing tourism to Estonia. It was quite a nice way of integrating their hobby and work. They had already brought numerous tourist groups and had many trips in plan.
The team Agression is developing a political-economic board-game. Amazingly the market of board-games is a growing market. How do people have time for board-games with all the internet, social-media, Facebooks, blogging and computer-games around?
Finally there was an idea to build a tracking system to cars that would enable insurance firms to charge by the distance driven not by month. I would personally be quite fond of such a service - as I try to keep my driving to minimum. I have read that in US such a service is in a pilot phase already. Does anyone know more about it?
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