Arctic15 gave future entrepreneurs a real-world startup experience and valuable insights
A total of 16 student business ideas were showcased at the HUBS and Proakatemia stand. The students practiced pitching, discussed their ideas with visitors, and made visible the wide range of entrepreneurial talent within the higher education community. The ideas covered topics such as AI-supported services, health technology, sports innovation, and learning solutions.
“Arctic15 was the single most important experience for my growth as a startup entrepreneur. In addition to meeting several potential investors, partners, customers and new friends, I also got many new ideas for future product development directions and even completely new use cases,” says psychology student Jaakko Jäntti, developer of the Efferent study support app.
In addition to the stand, five student teams arranged investor meetings through the event platform. Many students also took the initiative to pitch throughout the event, showing impressive courage and motivation.
“The feedback I received from an investor at Arctic15 was pretty tough, but that was exactly why it was especially valuable. I also got useful follow-up contacts from the investor,” sums Jaakko Jäntti.
The event gave students an opportunity to build networks, explore the startup ecosystem in practice, and connect not only with investors and founders but also with each other. These encounters sparked new discussions, collaboration, and even new business ideas.
Christopher Green, who pitched two different business ideas during the event, summed up his experience: Overall, I had low expectations for the event, but it turned out both investors and other founders were quite interested in our plans. It's still too soon to determine if anything concrete will occur, but it does make my team more optimistic about the future of our work.
HUBS’ first participation in Arctic15 showed a clear need for student-focused opportunities in startup events. During the two days, students gained confidence, strengthened their networks, and developed their ability to communicate and sell their ideas to different audiences. The event also produced concrete results: two business ideas advanced to the stage of receiving funding commitments.
The students & their business ideas who participated with HUBS at Arctic15:
Agronomy/Niko Koskela & Wasif Noor
- Amy/Mariia Sharla
- AnnieAI: Hong Qin & Wenji Bai
- Calm Gir/Maria Mäkelä
- DFence/Christopher Green & Haseeb Rahman
- Efferent /Jaakko Jäntti
- Elda/Leo Salminen, Aatu Kemppainen & Anna Pesonen
- Glucose monitoring/Razib Hasan, Jingjing Yang & Xiaosi Huang,
- Arkibyte/Felicia Karso & Claudry Restasuri
- Roster Genius/ Margarita Khartanovich
- Still Steel/Christopher Green, Aduragbemi Olojo & Paula Alanko
- SwinQ/Nicolas Kivelä
- TerveysAtlas/Roope Lindroos
- TREX AI/Frans Heikkilä
- Well-Sense Tampere/Rajarshi Ray & Shuqiong Xie
- Wellsola/Shahriar Mirnejad
