Monthly Archives: November 2016

The journey started from the Entrepreneurship course when Maathew from Sweden’s National archive came to give a presentation in September. He presented about the open data in Sweden and proposed about a 48-hours hackathon to be conducted in October. Open data was something new to me rather than just I have heard about it after coming to Sweden, So I decided to join the event.The main purpose for this hackathon was to make use of available national archive data in some way. So to get the ideas from different perspective they involved people from different backgrounds. The data were from Sweden, Estonia, Finland, and other Nordic countries.

On October 12, I went to attend the hackathon. Over fifteen organizations joined the event and presented their data so that participants can make use of them. The data were from museums, weather forecast informations, data from national library, sweden’s geographical plans, urban planning details and many more.

First day, it was just 5 hours introduction session. Learnt about different open data available. So people got over night to decide on shaping these data into new ideas. We also had an activity to decorate the venue which was fun and creative.

New day with all new ideas. Participants gathered at the venue, next morning. The event was so easy going. All people came up with some base idea. Then out of all, some projects selected to develop on. Based on participants’ interest, they can choose the project to work. Thus participants started to work on their projects for next two days.

I worked on the data from National museum and Wikidata. We developed an idea of using all the portraits from the museum and build a website. Using this website, people can design their garments from the painting of 17^th century and later. It was exciting to work with open data. All the organisations had the API’s for their data. In between, we had some small presentations from different organisations to present their APIs and models to use their data.

The best part of the event was the archive tour. They took us around the national archive which had all bundle of files and books with data. This archive was as long as up to 84kms. The program ended with 3 winners for different tracks. The overall winner was awarded the tickets for SLUSH start-up event in Finland. A major breakthrough for them. Other participants in the event also came up with many amazing ideas. Our team ended with positive feedbacks personally from judges. So we contacted back one of the judge after the event and started working on the project again. Right now we are in the empathy phase. The weekend was well spent.

The experience at the event lead me to the User and Open Innovation course. I was so excited with the concept that I wanted to learn about it and its market value. Thanks to Terrance and Serdar for introducing us to different people, which gives us lots of opportunity.

       

On the 24th of November from 17:30 – 21:00 was the event LPWAN NB-IoT at Drottning Kristinas väg 53 at THINGS. The event had speakers from the three companies Ericsson (Hans Dahlberg, Vice President of Telia Global IoT Solutions), Telia (Hans Bergström, Director Technology Strategic Partnering and Yasir Hussain, Strategic Product Manager, NB-IOT Håkan Andersson, Strategic Product Manager, 5G) and Intel (Johan Falk, Head of Intel IoT Ignition Lab Intel).

The event started with a mingle among the participants with food and beer. This was followed with a introduction and the lectures, ending with questions and answers part of the night. The mingle itself was dominated by men in there 40+ probably engineers with a few students among them.

The lectures were informative about IoT and the vision, technology and hope around it. Due to the fact that through the development of IoT more device are going to be connected, more data is created leading to a greater importance on good analytic tools to increasing the use of this data.  At several time the phrase ”Connection is king!” were used. Further discussion were about creating an underlying platform for all to use and thereby building a more horizontal internet structure. All lectures focused on the importance of interoperability among the different companies. This because they believed that great innovation lies outside of the companies boundaries, just as we get told in the open innovation course. Further more did they believe that future companies are going more and more to be service oriented and connecting themselves to this homogenous platform/network of open innovation. An ongoing project, Urban ICT Arena, was meant to be an example of first step towards this. Personally I thought it to be interesting that all this great technics were discussed but never through out the hole night the word value where used.

Further more was the night inspirational and I got a tip for a great event coming up in kits, the opening of Urban ICT Arena (www.urbanictarena.se). All in all was it a great  night due to the fact that you got some contact with companies.

Event Link:
http://get-on-top-of-lpwan2.confetti.events

On the 14th of November at 18:00 did KTH Maker Space organization at Drottning Kristinas väg 53   teach a introductory course in 3D printing with the help of the company FebTech.

3D printing technologies started to bloom in 1980. 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing (AM), is a way of creating three dimensional object through layering of materials upon each other with the help of a 3D printer. This technology is seen to be a fast and more cost efficient way of creating. These creative object can be almost any shape or size depending which printer is used. In 1986 did Charles (Chuck) Hull claim to paten the idea and became co funder in the SD Systems Corporation on of the largest manufactures of 3D printers.

The event started with an introduction to 3D printing and the benefit of it. This was held by FebTech. This continued with signing up to the IDE Tinkercad. This so we could virtually create object to print. The task was to develop a weal to a toy car, prepared for one on the table. Through the measurement could you create and design the car after your liking and later on print it. The event of 20 people did end with a rase to see which wheel did better suit the car. My wheel did unfortunately not win. 🙁

This innovative technolog y would make better use of our resources. Cars, guys and event toy have already been created with 3D printing and I consider myself highly lucky to have the opportunity to learn and experience a 3D printer with the help of Maker Space.

//Linn

Dear classmates and professor,

A few weeks have past since the last lecture of the entrepreneurship course. I’m back in the mathematics department studying portfolio analysis and system theory. I’m completely aware of that this might appear as a totally different area of study. However, entrepreneurship recently came to my mind and I really understood what this course really has taught me.

I have learned many new practical things: how to run a company, how to finance an idea, how to develop your idea, the importance of networking, how to communicate, how to work with people from different countries, the importance of pivoting and flexibility, and the existence of challenges that can and will be present. All these things are important and they are tools to be used for becoming a great entrepreneur.

However, among all the above mentioned things, there is one thing I didn’t expect to learn. This is the new sense of entrepreneurship as its own religion. First of all, entrepreneurship exists in everything, anywhere at anytime. You can never know when new ideas will rise. They are always there – it is just a matter of noticing them or not. It is about entusiasm and belief – believing in yourself as well as in the idea and in the people around you. And it is all up to you. You can choose how to believe and why you would like to do something.  You can choose what entrepreneurship is for you – and the sky is truly the limit.

Lovisa

A couple of days ago I went to a SUP46 event together with Marjolein. The event – organized by Microsoft – hosted guest speaker Bill Buxton who talked about “the myth of innovation”. According to Buxton sudden, unexpected inventions do not exist and overnight successes take 20 years to be created. He adds that big, ground-breaking inventions do not exist. Every creation is only a stepping stone in the innovation process. An example is the myth of the lone inventor surrounding Edison. Edison is seen as one of the greatest inventors of mankind, inventing one big thing after another. But if he really was such a great inventor, why did he have so many people working for him in his workshop?

Innovation doesn’t happen overnight. It is a long, hard and foremost expensive process which can be represented by the below graph. The graph – also called “the long nose of innovation” represents the timeline from the original creation of an idea to a billion dollar company thriving of the invention. As one can notice in the graph, things move very slowly and innovation happens mostly under the radar. At a certain point the innovation becomes known and gets successful.

An example is the invention of the Capacitive Multi-touch devices. The technology was invented, but yet for about 20 years no one knew about it until IPhone brought it from under the radar. In other words, innovation is all about timing. Technologies that will be popular in 10 years are already 10 years old. In order to invent, one must know its history. Innovation is a combination between finding – or prospecting – ideas, together with making your own.

I think the best example of the repetition of the past is the one of the IPod G4. Look at the pictures below. The top picture shows the Braun t3, one of the first radio players, while on the bottom you can see the IPod G4, one of the first generations of the IPod. It soon becomes clear where Apple was looking for its design ideas, right?

 

In the end, I really liked this presentation. I am sure it will stick with me for the next couple of years. “To know the future, one must know its own past”!

I don’t exactly remember what I expected to learn at the beginning of this course, but what I do remember is that I was initially very enthusiastic. It was great how we were forced into a different mindset right away, by the assignment of having to sell coffee on the street. I was very ambitious and was trying to think of as effective as possible ways to get people to buy our coffee. That however went wrong when I didn’t undertake action early. We didn’t sell at the firework event because we were indecisive and postponed our group meeting on how we were going to sell the coffee. Our loss. In the end I think we made the second most money, after another team which actually performed awesome because they were thinking out of the box. That’s the way to go.

Pitching your ideas:

The pitching for me was very interesting as well. I knew how to do it, I had done it before. I had even started writing on my pitch the same day we got the assignment. Where I went wrong however was the fact that I only started practising the pitch I had in my mind (an idea in which I still believe but for which I hadn’t had the motivation to figure out what I really wanted to do with it) the evening before the actual pitch was supposed to be held. I’ve been there before, I know that it requires more practice to tell a convincing story and I know that you sometimes are lucky when the mood is right and the pitch goes well anyway, even without the proper preparation. This was however not one of those days; I forgot my story and didn’t manage to bring up my arguments for why this idea should become a success. My loss, this pitching is still a work in progress.

Doing a business sim:

The business simulation for me was not that interesting. It is intriguing to see how a business flows and grows within a bigger market context, but I feel that the application of what we saw that happened in this simulation is not applicable to the level of start-up I am currently in.

Talking about your ideas:

The going to events was by far the most inspiring thing that I have done in this course. This has showed me how talking to other entrepreneurs will get you great feedback, motivation and connections that can be very helpful later on in the process of your work. On multiple occasions I ended up unexpectedly having connections that caused and helped me in taking next steps for my business ideas (see my previous posts, links provided at the bottom of this one). Some sort of natural workflow and progress arises when you keep meeting up with other (actually) interested partners, a flow that would be difficult to sustain on your own.

Developing a business plan and a startup:

Of course, it is motivating and educative to see what others are doing, but the most important thing that I’ve learned is how going out and talking to people gets you the best possible feedback and insight on your pitching skills and idea in the most direct and instantaneous way possible. I’m aware though that the strength here is in quantity, for as people are still people: they are emotional beings and the opinion they display on your storytelling and idea are as subjective as can be. Therefor, the only way to get valuable feedback is to get as much as possible. Soon enough you’ll start seeing the patterns. There is however more to it. Also very important is to keep focussing on the people you are developing for. They’ll be very happy to see the progress in your project and to give feedback in order to make sure that the product you are developing fits their needs best. Be aware however not to merely listen to their demands but keep your brain involved or you might miss out on the best possible out-of-the-box solutions.

On the progress of my idea:

I started of this course with an idea of producing 3D printed lampshades. It felt like a hobby project with potential for growing and I was interested in looking further into that. I was already aware of that this could be a very lean start-up, as I have all the required tools at my disposal in my home universities working space and in the worst case scenario I would have to buy a €300,- 3d-printer myself and start from there. Because of that I have not been looking for that much information on Venture Capital and other investment options yet. That might however be very useful soon and will hopefully also be covered in the courses I am taking next period. By talking to more experienced entrepreneurs I got a better idea on in what directions I could take this product and make it more scalable, by for example building a platform that would allow people to order their own designs. We ultimately decided to even look further into this idea for our Final Venture Project, which has provided me with valuable information on the scale at which customers might be interested in these products. Both through these entrepreneurial feedback sessions and the user research done for the Final Venture Project I now know what my different options are and have a better grasp on where I could take the idea. However, I do not like the idea of working on this product for the next few years; I believe the market is not big and interesting enough for that. Instead, based on the great advice of one of my team members, it might be a very good idea to just stick with the designs that I have now, develop those a little bit further and sell the products online as if they were a side project; it’s easy for me to produce them and earn some extra money with it, without having to put in my entire body and soul.

To sum up my lessons learned:

What this course has taught me is the basics of what Entrepreneurship entails and the main topics concerned with it. I have a better notion on how to go through developing a project, getting funding for it and bringing it to the market. I see the value of going to start-up events and meeting and talking to experts on the subject, as it empowers you to take steps in your personal and professional development and I am still doing that right now (and will keep doing that in the future, also when I’m back home in the Netherlands.) I learned by both doing and watching on many occasions what good elements are for using in pitching an idea and I have learned the immense value of talking about your plans with others, because they might have valuable experience or a different point of view. An especially valuable insight on this aspect is the value of practicing storytelling and pitching realtime to others. Also, I am more aware now on how to get proper feedback from both professionals as potential users and plan to use this a lot in the future. I tested and looked into my personal Venture Idea and ultimately figured that there is a potential, albeit not that big and that I’m not actually that interested in fully developing this. Instead my plan is to keep this project going as a side project and instead focus more intently on the development of several software ideas that I have been very eager to start working on.

My posts throughout this course:

And likely more will follow ;)!

Procrastinate no more

KTH innovation: a potential road to success

Spontaneous nights out are the best ones.

To start-up your week

A Sequel and a Shout-Out:

 

Here is some thought that I have had true the course.

I chose to take the course because I wanted to have more knowledge and confidence about starting my own business one day but it ended up with so much more.  The way the course was structured is different than many other courses at KTH and that made me first skeptical but now afterwards I am really surprised how much I learned.

The areas I learned most in:

True the years at KTH I thought that I was good at pitching my ideas and a lot of times in group works my ideas was the once that the group continued working with. But pitching an idea for investors is something else and you need to see it from the investor’s side and say what they want to hear. And sometimes the idea is not the most important thing but your presentation and commitment will make the investors interested. One detail I learned is that you present your idea/company as soon as you enter the room and it’s important to act profession all the way.
Marketplace thought me how to it is to start and run a company. How all the acts are affecting the outcome and you always need to think one step ahead. Personally I been thinking about starting a smaller company and not establish worldwide as in Marketplace but I it probably works the same way to run a smaller company.

Go to the startup events made me a better on mingle and open up my eyes for a whole new scene that I didn’t know existed in Stockholm. I got great inspiration to listen to start up projects that mad it and to see that when they started they were student just like me.
To sum everything up we had make the group project where we got to use all the knowledge we learned from the course.  I great way to see what’s needed for a startup and how it is to work in a group. Also interesting to work with students from other programs at KTH and exchange students to see how they solve problems.

I did not have any expectations at the beginning of the course. I was merely interested in what the basics of entrepreneurship were, and to know what tools entrepreneurs use today.

The course did answers my questions, but in a different way than I expected. Instead of reading books, we improved our skills together in the classroom, helping each other out and discussing interesting topics, which was a good way of learning. We always got back to topics we had discussed earlier, which in my opinion is very important, as one understands the importance of every single aspect.

One thing in particular was the importance of listening to your customer. Even more important is first to identify who your customers are, and then listen and understand what their demands are. This is vital for becoming successful.

Everybody embraced Serdar’s approach very good, and therefore the lectures were interesting to follow. The guest lecturers were good too, as their topics were heavily connected to other themes in the course. Also, I believe that the simulation game is a good tool to quickly see the bigger picture when it comes to entrepreneurship.

I want to thank Serdar for this time and wish him good luck in his future courses, and at the same time I would like to thank everybody else – let’s rule the world!