May 2007 Archives

Want to be a part of the most successful Swedish student entrepreneurship organization?

Excitera is now recruiting to the board and the projects for the 07/08 academic year. We are looking for students interested in a unique career opportunity. Excitera was founded in 2000 at KTH and today runs four projects non-profit aiming to increase the interest in running a business, at the big universities in the Stockholm area.

The board makes strategic decisions about the organizations as a whole, and hence offers experience which will build a future career as well as a network for founding a company. Evidence of this includes the fact that current board members received two out of ten attractive trainee positions at Ericsson, and that Excitera's alumni network have high-ranking positions in industry.

"Excitera has taught me all I needed to run projects of large scope, run businesses and develop my creative side. This has made it possible for me to make a very fast career in the most challenging environments."
- Bartek Gudowski, CEO Viasat Satellite and MTG Broadcast, active in Excitera 2000-2003

"Excitera's members are a very attractive recruitment base for us."
- Niklas Bjerkne, Recruitment Manager Ericsson

The 2007 edition of Excitera Innovation Challenge (EIC) was concluded with the final award ceremony at Berns on the 15th of May.

The Excitera Innovation Challenge 2007, Sweden's leading entrepreneurship competition, announced the 2007 winners at a final awards ceremony held at Berns on the 15th of May. The top two winners are Attention in the best new mobile services category and AntiAcne Plaster in the Tomorrow's Communication Society category.

1st prize was awarded to Attention, a team consisting of the students Michael Frantzén, David Haddad and Sriram Krishnan from KTH and SSES (Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship).

Their services makes it possible for mobile users to find information that others users left behind on physical locations. The mobile will for instance alert when the user passes a restaurant that a friend has recommended by leaving a text message, or if the tourist authority is giving tips on interesting sights in the close vicinity to the user. Through having users leaving text messages for their friends or clients at specific locations the networked users collectively build a knowledge database for these locations, just as a web based wiki.

The winning team was awarded SEK 75,000 in prize money and an additional SEK 100,000 reserved for starting up a company based on the idea, as well as a six month grant with free telecommunications infrastructure from Telenor, and a favorable offer from the business incubator IQube 2nd place runner-up was the team NeedYouNeedMe, a community services that enables neighbors to exchange services and borrow things from each other. The team consisting of Andrea de Angelis and Andrew Haarsager from Konstfack was awarded a prize sum of SEK 50,000. 3rd place runner-up was the idea DateChallenge by the KTH students Joakim Samelid and Sara Kappelmark. Their services is for internet dating services users, and is a SMS based game that can be played on the first date instead of a regular "fika".

"AntiAcne Plaster" awarded 1st prize in the Tomorrow's Communication Society category.

The winner of the Tomorrow's Communication Society category was AntiAcne Plaster. In this category the innovation plans were based on actual research findings. AntiAcne Plaster is a special plaster that treats acne, which is based on research about a miniaturized drug delivery system using micro needles for painless injections. The winning team consisting of Arash Hellysaz from KTH was awarded SEK 100,000 in prize money

2nd place runner-up was the team YourChoice with the students Magnus Holmes and Anna Malmlöf from KTH. Their idea was based on Mobile Community Case from Ericsson and is a solution for distribution to the modern consumer.

3rd place runner-up was the idea insuKID by the students Hugo Thambert and Fabian Bonnier from KTH. Their idea is an insulin dispensing plaster for small children also based on the research about a miniaturized drug delivery system.

Excitera Innovation Challenge 2007 is coming to its end. However, the final event remains, which will be the highlight of this year's run. You can expect a lot of people, good food and a lot of interested participants. 30 excellent entries have been turned in, and now the winners will be selected.

The event takes place Tuesdag May 15 at Berns, entry point Hotellet (Näckströmsgatan 8) at 18.00.

The evening consists of more than a prize ceremony. The teams will pitch their ideas to jury one last time, and there will be a speaker of note to listen to. The theme is chinese, which will reflect on the food and the entertainment.

To attend, fill out the form on EIC's homepage. The number of seats are restricted, so a confirmation will be sent out by email to those have reserved a seat.