YIE seminar in Rovaniemi

Information seminar within “Young Innovative Entrepreneurs YIE” project was organized in Rovaniemi Univeristy of Applied Sciences (RAMK) on 25 September, 2012. The aim of the seminar was to introduce wider audience to the project aims and main activities as well as to encourage entrepreneurship thoughts among young people. Within the project RAMK is responsible for creating an environment for business innovations under the working title Barents InnoLab. The aim is to encourage and support entrepreneurship especially initiated by young people in the region. InnoLab will be an environment or a workshop where new business ideas will be further developed with the help of business experts, teachers and other stakeholders. Further support for establishing a company will be given within the lab work. Students, who are not thinking their own business, at least not yet,  will also have a possibility to work on some business development projects. This is especially great opportunity for those who is thinking international business or looking for the possibilities to stay and work in Lapland or Barents region in the future.

 During the seminar, there were several real business cases presented by the owners or co-owners.  These were inspirational speeches that showed the participants of the seminar what kind of businesses are possible in this Northern area. Maxim Narbrough, a designer from Treeform Oy, gave an excellent example of an innovative business and social entrepreneurship. Janne Konttaniemi told the audience how the business developed from small company just few years ago and is grooving internationally now. 

Eija Jussila-Salmi, a business advisor from Rovaniemi Development Agency LTD, made all to think what it takes to be an entrepreneur. Veikko Keränen, Principal Lecturer from RAMK has got an interesting project idea and is planning to create a group of young people, who will work on the development of information system regarding the Northern Lights. Many small business cases can be developed based on this project idea.

After the seminar, the organisers (IBS students) have collected the questionnaire to find out whether there is an interest among participants to start own business and/or to participate in the project work of InnoLab. From 140 participants, about one third expressed their interest to participate in the project and InnoLab activities. Among them, some participants already have in mind a business idea. It proved the need for such support structures as InnoLab where people from different fields can get advice for the business development or to have a possibility to participate in real life business projects. This is now next goal of the project to create such a support environment for innovations and business development. 

Presentations by young, innovative and entrepreneurial people have encouraged other young people, in total 140 participants

Anzelika
Rovaniemi, Finland

First national educational event held in Norway

Young Innovative Entrepreneurs in Norway had its first educational event at Sommarøya outside of Tromsø. The goal of event was to anchor the participants within the group while creating enthusiasm and inspiration, networking and co-creation of value.

The Norwegian participants in the Kolartic funded Young Innovative Entrepreneurs was gathered in Tromsø and went to Sommarøya by bus. The event was kicked off by an inspirational speech by Kjell-Ove Hveding, host at Sommarøy Artic Hotel. The presentation was based around positive thinking and how to spot opportunities. Kjell-Ove employed what is known as North-Norwegian narrative art, a skill set which is highly thought of in Norway, in his presentation.

Then the Norwegian project manager presented the project and its financiers, and his thoughts on the project and what the projects aimed to achieve. All participants also got a task to share their opinions on the project and what they wanted to achieve by participating.

At the end of the first day we discussed the importance of entrepreneurship, and how an innovative and competitive business community is dependent on competitions from new companies to be benchmarked continuously and maintain their competitive power. Entrepreneurship is about seeing and seizing opportunities. The natural elongation of this was to talk about the opportunities in the region. We talked about increased biomass in the Barents Sea, The Northers Sea Route, oil and gas, minerals, to mention some. These opportunities may seem intangible to young entrepreneurs and therefore it is important to understand the more tangible opportunities which arise from these huge opportunities in the region.

The second day all participants joined together in smaller groups and practiced presenting themselves for the group as a whole. When all were ready and had practiced their presentations we had a plenary session where all presented themselves and what area of business they were involved in. This turned out to be an exciting session where several participants did not only talk about themselves, but also what they wanted from the project.

As a conclusion of the special entrepreneurial part of the programme we focused on creativity and planning. These are two subjects which are not often mentioned in the same sentence, but are of great importance if good ideas are to be brooded and hatched. We also had a short session on how this can be implemented in a business plan.

Finally we had a team building event where the participants learned about their personal comfort zones and how to reach outside of them as well as how group dynamics work.

To sum it up it was a successful event where the participants where anchored within the group, and new impulses and enthusiasm were created. We are looking forward to the continuation!
     
 -Morten

Visiting LKAB mine in Kiruna 29.8.2012

Young Innovative Entrepreneurs (YIE) organized an enterprise visit to the LKAB mine in Kiruna, Sweden. This was the first excursion and networking trip in the project. The purpose was to promote cooperation and networking between different sectors and between the people.

Entrepreneurs who participated in the trip were from Rovaniemi, Ylitornio, Tornio-Haparanda and Kemi. Most of the participants didn’t know each other beforehand so this was also a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to network within region of Lapland.

Small “get to know”-play was in place at first to get familiar with each other. During the long bus trip there was a lot of time to organize for example “speed dating”: the aim was to innovate a new idea for company or a new project idea. The play resulted plenty of new innovative ideas! YIE received valuable feedback for the project.

During the trip we also had workshops, which created a new business idea which of we hopefully hear more about in the future. Amazing or what?! On the bus we also created ideas for Matchmaking event from entrepreneurs perspective; for example partner-network for a different business fields. All good and valuable ideas!

The actual tour in the LKAB mine took three hours underground. During that time we went through the mine’s history ending up to the present day. We got an in-depth presentation about mining and how the main raw-material, iron ore, was extracted and processed further. It means work for every kind of businesses, especially in next year, when LKAB opens new base level for an even deeper. This means also, that Kiruna city must be moved because of collapse risk.

Overall a successful trip! Now we’ll utilize this inspired mood and start planning a new networking trip with enthusiasm. We have lots of new ideas, thanks for travellers and great innovations!