Marshmallow challenge

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Hey,

This evening I was at the TEDx event : https://www.facebook.com/events/1485087678453946/

I would like to share my experience with you. The event was about to energize and motivate the participants with games, activities and recorded TED talks. One of the game was really similar than the groupwork organised last friday about build the highest building with one piece of paper. There, teams had to build the highest freestanding structure with : 

  • 20 sticks of spaghetti
  • one yard tape
  • one yard string
  • one mashmallow

The mashmallow had to be one the top of the structure and teams had 18 minutes to build.

After the 18 minutes, only 3 teams out of 10 had a final structure including one that fell before being measured. It was very interesting to see how team had to organized themself, try to do their’s best to get up with the best solution but failed at the end because they didn’t think about the mashmallow they had to put on the top of the structure.

Then TEDx organizers show us a TEDx video about the game : “Mashmallow challenge”

You’ll see that statistics are very surprising : kindergarten children are more efficient than business school student !

I let you see why and the explanations of this funny game 🙂

 

Lisa

 

Help a Startup 2 : Lilo

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Hi folks,

After the seminar we had with Pernilla Rydmark about crowdfunding, I find a new way to bring money to entrepreneurs that we can all contribute in.

We are all searching stuff on the internet are we ? 99% of us are using Google which even gives birth to the expression « googling».

Do you know that via advertisments one single person is giving away 30 euros/year to Google ? As Serdar said today, Google is making money on adverts but what if YOU can choose where this money is going to ?

It is now possible via Lilo ! Lilo is a French search engine allowing you to choose to which causes you would like to give your money to. Lilo looks pretty similar to Google and is equally performant. Everytime you are searching for something via Lilo, you are accumulating points (called drops) that could then translate into money you can give for the charity organisation or business you want.

In their video presentation (in French unfortunately, I have written to the founders to get a English version of it but it still in preparation – more than happy to translate it if needed though), Lilo states that this could :

  • Increase by 30% the research budget for cancer
  • Help planting 10 000 trees
  • Help entrepeneurs getting money to innovate

So what are we waiting ? Let’s give it a try to Lilo ! 🙂

I have been trying to use Lilo for a week now. I have accumulated quite a lot ‘drops’ and felt very happy being able to choose where it goes : I have chosen to give it to a charity organisation for children in Cambodia.

I feedback to them mostly on the layout of their search engine in order to make it more smooth and friendly. It is a bit confusing at first because we are all used to Google’s template. The main drawbacks of Lilo is that they think French – even in their demo presentation… It would make more sense for me to have done something in English to expand it out of France.

As discussed today in the lecture, we can wonder if It was a deliberate choice from the entrepreneurs in order first to understand their customers on a ‘small customer segment’ – I will send an email to them and see what they say about it!

http://www.uselilo.org

Ways to finance a startup as a KTH-student

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There are a lot of organizations, which by extension to KTH help students and scientists to successfully implement their innovative ideas. Some of these organizations are focusing on financial grants by choosing projects they think possess great potential. I have put together a selection of a few of them, with some basic information.
KTH innovation is an organization that focus on the commercialization of business ideas of KTH students and scientists. The funding occurs by an internal process where KTH innovation decides if your idea is worth investing in. The funding is gradually, with a ceiling at 300K SEK, to ensure that some key issues are being answered and that the product/service has commercial potential.

STING stands for Stockholm Innovation & Growth and is basically an ecosystem for innovative startups in Stockholm. They have contributed with development suport to over 100 startups since 2002. STING evaluates between 150-200 projects and companies and then starts a thinning process which ends with 20 projects getting business development support. STING is an integrated part of KTH’s innovation system, and is since 2005 operated by an incubator on the KTH campus. STING is a non-profit company owned by the Electrum foundation with partners (see attached link below)

http://intra.kth.se/forskning/2.8090/inkubatorer-1.33809

KTH Opportunities Fund was started in 2013 as an extra support so students of KTH could develop in areas like teambuilding, innovation and creativity. The fund is financed by donation from KTH alumni, and provide grants based on three focus areas; enrichment of the study-time, investing in talented scientists and an increase of the global exchange. All students of KTH are competent to the grants.

https://www.kth.se/en/opportunities

KTH recently started a collaboration with the american site founder.org. Founder.org is working to inspire and to help students across the world to start innovative companies. The challenge $100 K Competition is held annually together with the parent-universities. The ten finalists are awarded $100 000 and a spot at iFOUNDER.org university, wich is a 12 months long training-program where they are tough how to succeed as a startup, both short and long-term.

https://founder.org/about/