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Even though you are interested in creativity and entrepreneurship, you probably haven’t heard of gather festival, and that is because of the price of the entrance: 7450 kr! However, there are special prices for students, start-ups and freelancers. But the best option is to submit your idea to Gather Motivation Labs. If your idea is selected, you will not only get a free entrance to the festival, but also you get to participate in the labs.
And why would you want to participate in this motivation labs?
Motivation labs are meant to help you take the hard first steps to making your idea reality, whether that means getting help with prototyping, launching a crowdfunding campaign, breaking down an action plan or pitching your idea to venture capital partners! This year the festival is over, but watch our for next year’s!
In addition to Motivation Labs, GATHER festival has conferences regarding different topics (this year the festival revolved around Human vs. Machine, Communication, Economy, Urban Development and Democracy), solution labs where you can share your approach on real challenges companies bring in, and also music at night.
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I attended the most innovative and inspiring talks, as the one from Dr. Kate Stone, a Cambridge physicist who works turning any surface into a musical instrument by using conductive inks and tiny circuit boards (Here you can see some interesting projects of her team: http://www.novalia.co.uk/?portfolio=dj-qbert-interactive-dj-decks). I also gave some feedback and ideas to new entrepreneurs in the motivation labs and I enjoyed some great music. Awesome experience!

SE Forum is a forum for social entrepreneurs where the participants in the program are founders of business that address social and environmental issues. I got the opportunity to listen to a few of the participant’s pitches and come with question and feedback (if any). Nina Othman, Tendekayi Katsiga, Samuel Malinga, Habiba Ali and Maria Mushtaq are a few of the pitches that I got to listen to. They come all over the world with businesses that are so inspiring.

One story was very personal and it got stuck with me. Maria Mushtaq lost her brother due to sickness and lack of healthcare and since that has made it her life goal to help other people in similar situations. She started her company, HealthConnect in 2016. HealthConnect is a tele-medicine platform, with the goal to improve healthcare accessibility. If you live in Sweden, you have probably heard of KRY. This business is quite similar to it. I think it is amazing that someone like Maria has this passion and is doing everything she can to make it succeed. For her, coming to Sweden must be great because she can meet people in the field and gain a lot of knowledge. Especially since this has been done here.

I appreciated all their pitches and it was really interesting to here about entrepreneurship and startups from other parts of the world. Businesses that has been in Sweden for decades, has just started in other countries. If interested in learning more about these startups, check se-forum.se!

 

I recently bought food online with home delivery. It was a bit expensive for my taste, although very convenient. I began to wonder whether there was a way to find the cheapest online store for food. Then I found Matspar.se. It is a fresh startup that compares the total price (including delivery cost) of your grocery shopping basket in different online stores. When done comparing prices you will be redirected to the desired online store’s webpage for checkout.

 

I find this a very interesting and potential great tool for consumers to lower their grocery expenditures. Check out their webpage at: https://www.matspar.se.

Please tell your friends about this and let me know your thoughts about it.

Regards Erik Wedin

Matspar