On Thursday, 16^th of February around 200 students, entrepreneurs and start-up mentors gathered at Dorpat Convention Centre to generate and share ideas at the inspirational event “Idea Storm. 100 ideas that could change the world”. The discussions were held on 21 different topics, every discussion was led by an entrepreneur from particular field. Later on, the best ideas and solutions from every table were presented.

Idea Storm began with inspirational stories shared by Asko Seeba – co-founder of a software development company Mooncascade and one of these guys who made Skype actually happen, and Eda Vallimäe – IdeaLab’s STARTER programme graduate and now among TOP30 finalists at the largest business idea competition Ajujaht.

Insipred by entrepreneurs’ stories, participants started generating ideas themselves – they divided to discussion tables based on their area of interest. Topics varied from space technology to design industry and from medicine innovations to sharing economy, therefore everyone could find a heartwarming topic for themselves.

After intensive brainstorming round, every table had one minute to pitch their most awesome idea to the whole audience, for example:

• eyescanner that can identify your whole healthcare information with one eyeblink;
• smart rubbish bin that analyses itself what kind of waste is it dealing with and how to recycle it;
• Tinder for sports which will make people be active together;
• brand choosing application that asks for your values and then tells which brands to choose;
• web platform where usual people can create art that is connected to social problems;
• all-embracing startup platform that collects all important parts and people in order to create the perfect environment for the formation of great startup-environment.

After the event room was loaded enthusiastic students and crazy ideas. Many participants agreed that the coolest part of Idea Storm was idea generation in discussion tables. Participating for the first time, student of University of Tartu Merili Kaasik was surprised how much substance everyday life gives for developing new and innovative ideas. “For example we discussed how will the role of sign language interpreter change in the future,” said Merili.

Check out the gallery from the event and the full video!

Event was funded by the European Social Fund.