Students competed for prizes at the Kaleidoskoop Finals

Kaleidoskoop, the biggest student pitching competition in South Estonia, reached the finals: five student teams presented their business ideas at the Startup Day business festival, held from 25 to 27 August.

Kaleidoskoop took place for the 16th time and the competition was intense. Five diverse student teams met in the finals. BerryBot is building a robot that picks strawberries, Echo is creating a reusable packaging system to combat pollution from single-use plastic containers, Elora has made a Pokemon Go-like application to take people to nature, PetLog is developing an application to monitor your pet’s diet and weight, and Sorterman makes it easier to sort rubbish with a barcode scanning solution. The jury consisted of Kertu Tombak, start-up and IT-business manager at the Business Development Department of Tartu City Government, and Andreas Unt, co-founder and marketing manager of the start-up company Adact.

Team BerryBot pitching. Photo by Robi Zuts

 

Three prizes were awarded. The Startup Lab award, tickets to the next Startup Day, went to BerryBot. Echo received the Tartu City Government award, 500 euros for business development. PetLog gets to participate in a freely chosen field-based training in the “Edu & Tegu” programme.

According to the leader of Echo, Avneet, he initially feared that the idea was not good enough, but he has come a long way by trying it out and developing it. “Participating in the programme has given me a very good experience in entrepreneurship and made me challenge myself,” said Avneet.

Startup Lab congratulates all the winners and participants. The next Kaleidoskoop Pre-selection open for all high school and student teams takes place on 16 December. The winners will be invited to the finals, which will take place in January 2022 at the Startup Day business festival.

Kaleidoskoop is funded by the European Social Fund.

Further information: Martti Saarme, Communication and Marketing Specialist, Startup Lab, University of Tartu, 5909 4726, martti.saarme@ut.ee