Startups in emerging markets issuu by Aalto Global Impact

STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS

STARTUPS WALK THE TALK AT SLUSH ENTOCUBE

AFFORDABLE PROTEIN TO ONE BILLION PEOPLE

NANOMAJI SHOWS IMPACT IN ACTION AALTO IN NAMIBIA

DESIGN WITH THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE

O IMPACT CONTENT NESS SYSTEM 4

NANOMAJI SHOWS IMPACT IN ACTION

ENTOCUBE Affordable protein to one billion people

NEW GLOBAL

IMP

Integrates multidisciplinary academic research and private sector’s business development.

Supp bu

AALTO IN NAMIBIA Design with the people, for the people

STARTUPS WALK Technologies is THE a TALK AT SLUSH ective educationalIMPACT

students to n the world to 2 STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS evelopment.

IMPACT BUSINESS ECOSYSTEM

AALTO GLOBAL 16IMPACT IMPACT CAREER PATHS

Promotes and facilitates Aalto University´s research and educational programs for societal impact globally.

ENTREPRENEURS CHANGING THE WORLD Teija Lehtonen is the director of Aalto Global Impact. She is passionate about co-creation and building inclusive innovation ecosystems together with people in low-income communities.

Startups and entrepreneurs bring new ideas and innovations to the market and play an important role in changing the world. Enormous potential exists for frugal products and services responding to the needs of societies in emerging markets. In this magazine we highlight a few business cases, which aim to improve the wellbeing of people. Nanomaji is developing a new solution to provide safe drinking water. The aim is to reduce the practice of charcoal burning for water boiling in Tanzania. The business case is based on Ahlstrom’s patented technology and expertise. Global food and nutrition challenges are tackled by EntoCube, which aims to develop a new business solution for affordable protein in the form of insects. Aalto University’s research, innovation and educational programs have supported both Nanomaji and EntoCube in their initial innovation work and business model development. The Slush Global Impact Accelerator program brings to Slush 2015 the next 30 world-changing entrepreneurs from emerging markets. Straw Build from Ethiopia is one of them. Their vision is to provide cheaper building materials by using natural teff straw and local building techniques. The material is also of superior quality and a more environmentally friendly solution. Impact Iglu is a new community that supports impact-driven entrepreneurs in Finland. “The search for reliable partners in emerging markets is part of our work,” says Impact Iglu team lead Makeda Yohannes. “We also organize a training on Design Thinking for startups joining the Slush Impact Accelerator program.” Aalto Global Impact work is inspired by the needs of society. We seek new sustainable ways to create wealth and reduce poverty.

STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS

NANOMAJI SHOWS IMPACT IN ACTION The most daunting problems often have the simplest solutions. A case in point is the Nanomaji water filter conceived by a diverse group of students from Aalto University with the support of the Finnish fiber-based materials company, Ahlstrom.

STORY TIM BIRD PICTURES TIM BIRD, NANOMAJI

“Nanomaji was initiated by the New Global research and innovation project as part of our experimentation on how Finnish companies can innovate resource-scarce solutions for the most challenging world problems,” says Aalto’s Sara Lindeman. “This combination of a large company and a small company is a startup approach with much potential.” “Nanomaji started as a school project in October 2014,” says Sanna Puhakainen, Nanomaji’s Chaos Pilot. She explains that the name combines Nano, referring to the filter material licensed by the Finnish-based Ahlstrom group, with the Swahili for water – Maji. The impact result is a water filter application with the potential to replace deforestation in Tanzania, eliminating the practice of charcoal burning for water boiling. All users need to do is replace the lids of the jerry cans widely used to carry water in Africa with snugly fitting filter lids. The filter renders the water completely safe for drinking. Success in the Climate Launchpad competition in Finland gave a high-profile boost to a project team embracing members from Finland, Brazil, Latvia, Taiwan, China and Mexico, drawn from a wide range of studies, from design to sustainable business. So Nanomaji is also an excellent instance of Aalto’s cross-disciplinary cooperation strategy in practice. 4

STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS

“Five of us had started in the IDBM (International Design Business Management) program. In January we got six more team members through the Sustainable Global Technologies (SGT) course,” says Sanna. “We started work together with a two-week trip to Tanzania where we had workshops with local students.” Right from the start, says Sanna, the contacts provided by the Aalto Global Impact framework were second to none. “When we went to Tanzania they were able to make introductions to all the right people – other startups, local authorities, experts in the field.” “We couldn’t have made the visit a success otherwise,” says designer Emma-Sofie Kukkonen. “In just two weeks we were able to research the market by conducting interviews with potential end users, entrepreneurs and experts, make observations of the water facilities and arrange a workshop with the local students and startup founders.”

A frugal innovation

“Ahlstrom had developed the Disruptor™ filter material and our brief was to find a solution for it,” says Sanna. “Of course there is no single African market. So we started looking at a narrower market - Tanzania. The material can be used in various different ways; it’s used in hikers’ drinking

We need the right response in the emerging market. water bottles in New Zealand and in Korea for high-end applications. Our brief was to find a frugal innovation solution, making it simple to use and affordable.” “There were plenty of examples of filter products made for Western markets,” says Emma. “We wanted to consult more closely with the local end users. We visited the local facilities, talked to local entrepreneurs, water vendors, different families in different locations, to get a basic understanding of the situation. Then we went to a startup centre and participated in the design workshop.” The focus was on the Tanzanian capital, Dar es Salaam, although the solution is applicable to rural as well as urban situations. “If you go to the suburbs you are able to find circumstances that are closer to the rural conditions,” says Emma. “We wanted the solution to be integrated, in tune with local living conditions, so we wouldn’t have to make drastic changes to lifestyles. And we wanted to make a product at a price that competes with the water boiling practice.” In Tanzania, a family spends about 2.5 euros a week on the charcoal needed to boil water. The estimated equivalent cost using the Nanomaji filter would be around 1.6 euros. Even so, each filter would currently cost about 8 euros and has a projected lifetime of five weeks. The cost might need to be reduced if Nanomaji is to catch on in the kind of hand-to-mouth economy that prevails in large parts of Tanzania.

Providing expertise and technology “Ahlstrom participated in the student innovation project that aimed to create a business model and frugal product for providing pure drinking water in developing countries,” says Tarja Takko, Vice President, Group HR at Ahlstrom. “The students came up with an affordable water filter solution that uses Ahlstrom’s patented Disruptor™ technology.” In addition to access to technology, Ahlstrom provided expertise for Nanomaji. The Walter Ahlström Foundation, a Helsinki-based foundation supporting science and research, helped to fund the initiative. “This was a very fruitful experience and for sure we will be involved in similar projects in the future,” says Tarja. “The innovation was created

The jerry can is a common water carrier across Africa.

Simple but ingenious: the Nanomaji filter.

as part a partnership between Ahlstrom and Aalto University’s multidisciplinary IDBM and SGT programs. This business case is interesting for us as Africa has great potential as a future market.” Collaboration will continue, says Tarja, although its nature is still under discussion. A Nanomaji company is next on the agenda, and Sanna is hopeful about the cooperation with Ahlstrom. “They have the knowledge about the technology and we have fresh new ideas how to use it,” she says. “We have had great feedback here in Finland, and this is encouraging, but that won’t count for anything if we don’t get the right response in the emerging market.” “We have great days when it looks like everything is going to work and there are bad days,” says Emma. “But that is the typical struggle of an entrepreneur, and it’s all good experience. We wouldn’t be here now talking about it if we didn’t think the idea had potential.” STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS

AFFORDABLE PROTEIN TO ONE BILLION PEOPLE STORY TIM BIRD PICTURES ENTOCUBE

ou have to admire the inventors of EntoCube for the scope of their ambition. Never mind cute apps for finding your lost keys or TV sets that turn themselves on just by looking at them. This startup aims at solving a crucial issue affecting every human on the planet: food. It’s possible you might find EntoCube’s culinary big idea unpalatable. Get over it. Eating insects isn’t just a passing health fad and it’s likely to be an increasingly widespread dining habit as the world’s population continues to swell and pressure on edible resources increases. Yes, you read correctly, eating insects. EntoCube is basically a shipping container that can be delivered anywhere, into which waste food is deposited. This forms an ‘insect farm’, breeding crickets on an industrial scale that can then be harvested as protein-rich food to under-nourished communities - or anyone else for that matter.

We’re passionate and determined to succeed. “EntoCube is a company of eight passionate and bold people with backgrounds in technology, business, agriculture, food and design,” says co-founder Otto Palonen. “Our team is also international: there are people involved from Finland, Sweden, China and Vietnam.” The startup’s partners include the Aalto University Design Factory, as well as the Startup Sauna co-working space on the Aalto University campus in Espoo, near Helsinki, and the nearby Urban Mill co-creation hub. The shipping container system mass-produces crickets utilizing local inputs, such as institutional 6

STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS

kitchen waste, and is powered by solar panels, resulting in a food source independent of oil and energy prices. Through this kind of sustainable, local agri-business it could be possible to lift millions of people out of poverty and ensure a higher standard of living.

Changing the world

“In our team we all have our different stories and ambitions in changing the world,” says Otto. “There are two things that we especially have in common: we all wanted to make an impact through sustainable business and we all understood the potential of edible insects in the sense of climate impact, social impact and sustainability. The initial idea of refitting shipping containers to farm insects came from our CEO Robert Nemlander.” Over 800 million people suffer from malnutrition across the globe, Otto explains. “There is enough food in the world but many places suffer from lack of protein. The Earth’s population is increasing all the time, and more and more meat is consumed as countries develop, which isn’t sustainable and will soon be an impossible equation to crack. Current methods of farming are also harmful for the climate as they need huge amounts of resources and emit enormous amounts of greenhouse gases.” EntoCube can provide a local source of high quality protein anywhere in the world, in urban or rural settings. “Insects are incredibly efficient in terms of water, feed, land-usage and time and only emit a fraction of greenhouse gases compared to cattle, for example. They’re actually even more efficient than plant based proteins such as soy.” Otto and his colleagues understand that Western tastes might need some convincing. “Of course there are some cultural barriers,” he admits. “Western people are not used to the idea of eating insects. On the other hand, shrimps or

sushi, for example, were pretty weird not too long ago. Everyone who’s tried our insects - and that’s quite a lot of people - have liked them. Of course the reaction is different in countries where insects have been eaten for a long time. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), over two billion people already eat insects.” Just the same, making a convincing case for EntoCube hasn’t been easy. “It has required a lot of work to make everything actually function. There are so many facts to back our idea that people tend to realize the potential quite quickly and we have been using our own EntoCube to demonstrate the concept.”

The EntoCube solution uses converted shipping containers.

Exciting potential

One of the greatest challenges in the EU, he says, is that the current law forbids selling insects for human consumption. “The law is projected to change soon and other markets have no such limitations. This situation has helped us to set our minds on operating globally instead of focusing too much on Europe.” There’s exciting potential in regions where protein is scarce, such as Africa, Asia and South America. There is also a strong case for positive climate impact in developed countries. “EntoCube doesn’t just enable local production of protein to feed the owner of a Cube but also provides new business opportunities to the people operating their EntoCubes. As a team, we’re passionate and determined to do what’s necessary to succeed, as commercial success will go hand in hand with the potential impact” About half of the EntoCube team are either students or alumni of Aalto University which has made it easier to get support. Otto gives special thanks to the Aalto Design Factory that allowed them to locate the prototype EntoCube in its backyard.

Cricket salad, anyone?

STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS

AALTO IN NAMIBIA

DESIGN WITH THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE The development of a job-seeking app for unemployed youth in a Namibian township, with significant Aalto input, is a fine example of participatory design in practice. STORY TIM BIRD

For Aalto student Pietari Keskinen, the chance to get involved in a participatory design project in Namibia was the realization of a boyhood dream. “I have always been interested in Africa,” he Pietari Keskinen says. “Part of that fascination is quite hard to explain rationally. I dreamed of being an explorer when I was a little boy, and Africa seemed like a continent of adventures with all the wildlife and cultures, that I had seen on TV.” He jumped at the chance when he was finally able to visit Africa during the Aalto in Africa project in September-October 2013, an initiative involving students, staff members and alumni from Aalto University and partner representatives. “That trip gave me a bit of Africa-fever, I have 8

STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS

always wanted to go back. I also understood that there are real business opportunities in Africa.” Pietari’s Namibia exchange visit was part of the User Centered Design for Innovative Services and Applications (UFISA) project, a teacher and student mobility project involving four universities in Finland, including Aalto, and four in southern Africa, including the Polytechnic of Namibia (PoN). For Pietari, the tangible result of this involvement has been the creation of a job-seeking app in the Havanna suburb of the Namibia capital, Windhoek, effectively a spin-off from UFISA involving Aalto and PoN. “It was started in October 2014 when Professor Marko Nieminen of Aalto’s School of Science attended a Participatory Design Conference in Namibia,” Pietari recalls. “An intensive course was conducted with local students and one exchange student from Aalto in which workshops were

I was thinking about how to build a better world. staged with unemployed youth in the area. The mobile job-searching app was one of the outcomes of those workshops.” Pietari travelled to Namibia at the end of January 2015. “By this time local professor Heike Windschiers-Theophilius had brought the app idea into some of his software development courses. I coded some parts of the app with the local students. We also conducted some entrepreneurial workshops and cooperated in some other activities.”

Unemployment – a huge problem

Havanna, Pietari writes in his exchange report, is an informal settlement located in the outskirts of the township of Katutura in Windhoek, Namibia. “Unemployment is a huge problem among Namibian youth. Approximately 75% of Namibians aged between 15 and 24 are unemployed. Also, almost half of the youth aged between 25 and 34 are unemployed. Since unemployment often leads to poverty, this problem is especially manifested in the poorer communities such as Havana.” When he first applied for the UFISA exchange, Pietari had heard that there had been good things going on in Namibia and that he would be the first UFISA student from Aalto to visit. “Basically I just said: Why not? So I chose Namibia over Botswana. I really liked Namibia. It is a beautiful country.” Pietari’s background at Aalto is in the Information Networks program in the School of Science. “This is a study program that connects technology, business and people,” he explains. “I have been interested in service design and usability, and I

had been thinking how I could try to build a better world using my skills. The whole project has been a lot about the interactions between technology and users.”

Quest for understanding

Participatory design methods were used in this project, he says. “Those include workshops and other activities carried out with the unemployed youth. We tried to understand their life in order to help them, and we simultaneously learned from them.” There were surprisingly few challenges to getting the project off the ground. “Mobile infrastructure in Namibia is in surprisingly good shape,” says Pietari. “Even the poorest people have feature phones, and many of them even have smart phones. Mobile networks are present practically everywhere where there are people. It might not be very fast, but it is quite reliable. And the Internet has arrived everywhere in Namibia.” Cultural differences were also surprisingly minor, he says. “Of course I was sometimes frustrated with Namibia, but with this project, everything went quite smoothly.” The app was launched in autumn 2015, with two Aalto students, Hanna Stenhammar and Susanna Immonen, in attendance in Namibia. “This ongoing project has revealed the possibilities and challenges of complex participatory design projects that involve diverse stakeholders,” writes Pietari in his report. “The different participatory methods have given a wealth of knowledge about life in an informal settlement in southern Africa and given a chance to solve some of its problems by creating empowering sociotechnical solutions. The software created should help the unemployed youth in the area to find jobs and the workshops have begun to strengthen their entrepreneurial qualities.”

UFISA: a framework for participatory design The UFISA project (User Centered Design for Innovative Services and Applications) facilitates the development of joint education between universities in Southern Africa (South Africa, Botswana, Namibia) and Finland. The education provides benefits for the communities in Southern Africa through innovative ICT-based prototype services. The universities benefit from the communities by being able to provide international teaching in real-life settings tied to the well-functioning living labs in Southern Africa.

During the UFISA project, the consortium has been systematically developing a joint mode of operation. The joint activities will continue after the project in a North-South-South manner with a working incentive model. The main activities of the project include student and teacher mobility, two intensive courses and network meetings. The initially two-year UFISA project was started in August 2012 and with the help of an extra 1.5 years of funding the project will continue at least until December 2015. STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS

AALTO IMPACT BUSINESS ECOSYSTEM

NEW GLOBAL Integrates multidisciplinary academic research and private sector’s business development.

SGT Sustainable Global Technologies is a multidisciplinary elective educational program that takes students to different locations in the world to give their input in development.

STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS

AALTO G IMPA

Promotes and University´s rese tional program impact

IDBM International Design Business Management master program comprises international and multidisciplinary courses accompanied by a year-long industry project in collaboration with companies from all over the world.

IMPACT IGLU Supports entrepreneurs who do business to solve societal challenges.

GLOBAL PACT

facilitates Aalto earch and educams for societal globally.

CS Creative Sustainability master program is a multidisciplinary learning platform in the fields of architecture, business, design, landscape planning, real estate and urban planning.

STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS 11

STARTUPS WALK THE TALK AT SLUSH IMPACT Having a brilliant idea is one thing. Putting it into commercial practice is another, especially in an emerging market. Determination, persistence and self-belief are characteristics shared by some of the creative minds in attendance and seeking partners at Helsinki’s Slush event in 2015. STORY TIM BIRD

lush Impact is a program within Slush for startups and social innovators addressing the global development agenda and making a positive societal contribution. The program gives a platform to leading development and technology speakers, exclusive networking sessions, hands-on workshops and thematic side events. Opportunities for impact and emerging market investors to meet with the brightest change-makers are also part of the program. Impact Accelerator brings to Slush the next 30 world-changing entrepreneurs from emerging markets. Entrepreneurs, non-profits and social innovators are given the chance to converge in search of scalable solutions for global challenges.

Straw Build: building the future

Straw Build is the realization of the shared vision of two friends, Liben Wakuma and Masresha Ttsadik, who met as architecture students in the Ethiopian Institute of Architecture Building 12

STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS

We’re looking for people who share our vision. Construction and City planning (EIABC). “Having been exposed to sustainable design and construction trends in our early years at college, we had developed an interest in natural building materials and techniques,” says Liben. “We saw the potential for building with straw when we encountered the Sustainable Emerging City Unit (SECU), in which experimental housing was built on campus within five days using straw. In Ethiopia building with wood is three times more expensive than building with steel.” Producing wood substitute products with an Ethiopian ‘fingerprint’ became the vision of the two friends. “Agriculture in Ethiopia is the foundation of the country’s economy, accounting for half of GDP, 83.9% of exports, and 80% of total employment. The production of teff (an abundant annual, and very nutritious, grass native to Ethiopia) alone takes 1.4 million hectares of land and yields at least 5,000 kg of

Teff straw is unique to Ethiopia and available in vast amounts as a raw material.

straw per hectare. Seven million tons of teff straw is produced annually.” The idea of using teff straw to manufacture modular straw board panels was germinated. “In the final days of our five and a half years at college our idea developed into a business plan and feasible model,” says Liben. “We started looking for potential partners willing to invest in our startup. We networked with different institutions that shared our vision and received a startup grant from the Ethiopian Climate Innovation Center, to assemble raw materials and produce some of our machinery.”

Teff is tough

Straw Build’s proposed strawboard product is a particle board manufactured using a 100% straw-based material formed by using agricultural byproducts of wheat, rice, teff or sugarcane. These strawboards can be used in the construction industry for making furniture, walls, partitions, and even structurally stable beams and building slabs. “Our products would be a natural and cheaper substitute in the market, offering superior strength and workability,” explains Liben. “This

is in a market where the total annual demand for construction wood has doubled from 1994 to 2015 from 2.1 million to 4.2 million cubic metres.” Straw Build’s business idea is targeted towards the booming construction sector of Ethiopia and the other East African countries, where the need for wood has already surpassed the land capacity to produce it naturally. “It’s also for all global citizens concerned about the human impact on the environment,” says Liben. The project has attracted 50% of the funds required to start production, and the company is in the process of securing land allocation. “We are still looking for potential partners who share our vision and join our cause,” says Liben.

Healthy interest

His 100% confidence in Straw Build’s future derives from the fact that it provides a solution to building material shortages – a solution with an environmentally friendly approach. “It also helps our confidence that we have received interest and support from various local and international parties who are eager to see our product on the market,” he says. “Our project was in the top 5% STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS 13

of 2,500 ideas submitted to the African Entrepreneurship Awards and rated as one of the Most Likely to Succeed in Africa.” Liben hopes that participation in Slush 2015 will help accelerate the startup by exposing it to a variety of audiences. “We hope to inform the world about the technical challenges in our region, and learn from new technologies and approaches. And we want to find companies or individuals who share our vision and are willing to collaborate as partners or invest and work with us to create a better world.”

3D printers from recycled plastic in Tanzania

Ingenious and very sustainable: this is the description that comes to mind for an infant startup idea in Tanzania. The concept involves producing 3D printers from recycled electronic waste and then using those printers to provide plastic spare parts and other items locally, saving on import costs and nurturing new business in the communities. The project was conceived at STICLAB, a Tanzanian technology innovation centre that hosts the biggest ‘Fab Lab’ – fabrication laboratory - in East Central Africa. STICLAB’s mission is to exchange ideas for working solutions in Tanzania. “The 3D printers from STICLAB are produced mainly from local electronic waste from around Tanzania, such as stepper motors, smooth rods, belts, pulleys and connecting wires,” explains Paul Nyakyi, a member of the STICLAB team. “With the use of these materials we can reduce the cost of making 3D printers, and saving our land mass

from increased e-waste. Meanwhile, it can serve as a business opportunity for us and the entire community.”

Cutting import costs

With the presence of 3D printers located around the community, people have the opportunity to duplicate most valuable parts that would otherwise be expensive to import from overseas. “The 3D printer is going to enhance the sustainable use of plastics around our community,” says Paul. “In Tanzania we have a huge amount of plastic waste which is not utilized effectively.” The startup has its eyes on local markets in Tanzania. Business is categorized in either the sale of the printers themselves or the designs for printing of special value items. Affordable school microscopes are one example. “My country right now is in the middle of a huge project to build science laboratories around the country, so the question has arisen as to where are they going to get the teaching aids,” says Paul. “So with the 3D printing technology we will be able to produce the teaching aids for our laboratories. These laboratories in turn are a business opportunity.” The project is in its infancy and partners and investors are being sought so that the business can gather impetus. “So far we have one partner in the project, Techfortrade,” says Paul. “They are giving us both technical and financial support at the startup stage. We are looking for more financial partners so as we can import some parts that we are missing, such as filaments and electronic Arduino boards, and we also want to conduct market awareness campaigns in our community.”

Working day and night

A STICLAB 3D printer, ingeniously assembled from recycled components.

STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS

Success depends on finding the right technology for sustainable mass production. “We had to spend months, working day and night, to get the right and most affordable technology that was easy to build.” A great deal of debate, investment and experimentation was involved in arriving at the solution. “The future is promising because we own the monopoly of 3D printing in Tanzania, so we are going to make the most of this advantage before the competition starts to rise,” says Paul. Visiting Slush in Finland will help to build that advantage, Paul believes. “I expect to meet with more startups and get to share experiences with others, get to know how they operate. I also want to attract investors who will be ready to offer both moral and material support towards the 3D printing business in Africa.”

Makeda makes the case for Impact Iglu Having arrived in Finland from her native Ethiopia to carry out bachelor degree studies, Impact Iglu team lead Makeda Yohannes put her business skills to the test for more than two years importing fresh cut roses from Africa. Following the economic downturn she decided to go back to school to study for her master’s degree and joined Aalto’s Entrepreneurship program. Her career took another twist when she responded successfully to an Aalto Global Impact ad for an Impact Iglu team lead, joining the new set-up officially in January 2015. “We are making contacts with people who are positive about emerging market solutions and entrepreneurship,” she explains. The year 2015 has been one of frenetic activity for Makeda and her team, initiating design activities and spreading awareness as well as organizing workshops and talks involving experts in social entrepreneurship and social business. “Towards the end of May we held a weekend Impact Business Competition, attracting 15 pitches of business ideas focusing on societal impact in emerging markets,” she says. “It was a kind of validation of our work. The pitches varied from solar power to local tourism and eLearning.” The search for partners is part of Impact Iglu’s work. Since she is East African by birth, Makeda has the advantage of understanding the cultural landscape as well as its particular emerging market business needs. “In August I visited Tanzania for work on my thesis, and this gave me the chance to meet our partners in Dar es Salaam. This visit had a huge effect on me. Working in emerging markets is much different from talking about them from a distance. There are opportunities for Aalto students to do things that have never been done before.” STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS 15

IMPACT CAREER PATHS Ewald Kibler

Assistant professor in entrepreneurship at BIZ Ewald Kibler was born in Salzburg, Austria. At a young age he started playing professional football and continued after high school for two years. Reading different forms of literature was one of Kibler’s passionate hobbies and his dream of pursuing a university degree always remained. Following his interest in human and social behavior, Kibler enrolled in the Sociology program at the University of Graz. “I appreciated that in Sociology you strongly emphasise rigorous theoretical work and methodology, while having the freedom to choose the focus of your research,” he says. Kibler did his bachelor’s exchange studies at the Business School of the University of Manchester. This was the starting point of his increased interest in using his sociology knowledge in the business context. Kibler then continued doing a Master’s

Juha Miettinen

SAIS Program Team Leader, Senior Consultant at Spinverse. Juha Miettinen is about to move back to Finland to take charge of the coordination of the Tekes BEAM – Business with Impact program. BEAM aims to stimulate the generation of new, sustainable business in developing countries. During his studies in Economics at the University of Tampere (UTA), he focused on International Economics. Driven by a desire to understand the jargon used in the news, he immersed himself in the world of economics, learning all there was to learn about GDP, inflation, stagnation and bonds. After an exchange period at the University of Oregon in the United States, he came back to Finland to finish his studies and start his career. It didn’t take very long for it to dawn on him 16

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Exchange at the University of Oulu in Finland, getting to know Finland and Finnish academia. After graduating from the master’s program in Sociology from Graz, Kibler moved to Finland and enrolled in a PhD program in Economic Geography at the University of Turku. His work focused on understanding the ways regional and national cultures influence, and are influenced by, enterprising behavior. Shortly after, Kibler spent 18 months in London as a visiting researcher at the Small Business Research Centre at Kingston University, working with prominent entrepreneurship scholars. When he returned to Finland, Kibler completed his PhD and worked for a year as a post-doctoral researcher in Entrepreneurship at the University of Turku. In the beginning of 2014, Kibler got a professorship at the Department of Entrepreneurship of Aalto University School of Business. Nowadays, he is involved in teaching two flagship courses - Venture Ideation and Sustainable Entrepreneurship - and supervising master’s and PhD students. Kibler’s special research focus now lies in understanding how entrepreneurship is able to tackle recent economic and societal challenges.

that being a banker was not his ideal career, and so the invitation from UTA to work as an assistant to the Economics professor came as a blessing. He later continued his career as Financial Advisor for the Ministry of Finance, working with topics related to the World Bank and IMF. Having embarked on his Innovation career, he worked closely over a 15 year period with Nokia and other ICT clusters as a Project Manager and later CEO at Tampere’s Science Park Hermia. He was there at the birth of the Innovation sector in Finland and refers to himself as a Jack of All Trades in the field of Innovation. Five years ago he relocated to Africa with the Southern African Innovation Support Programme. SAIS aims at strengthening the innovation ecosystems in Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique and South Africa. With the first project phase coming to an end, the time has arrived for Miettinen to come back to Finland, where he will coordinate the BEAM program as a Senior Consultant at Spinverse, a Nordic leader in innovation consultancy.

Mikko Jalas

Creative Sustainability Program Director, Lecturer of Sustainable Design at Aalto University School of Arts. Mikko Jalas is one of the leading figures behind sustainability

studies at Aalto University. In keeping with the multidisciplinary nature of the Creative Sustainability program, Mikko has had a variety of experiences and perspectives from different fields that have led his career. Originally from Turku, Jalas spent his childhood years close to nature but was never strongly attached to the environment. Growing up, influenced by his politically engaged friends, he became involved in environmental politics and nature protection. In 1987 Jalas started studying Industrial Management at Helsinki University of Technology. At that time there was not a lot of teaching about environmental issues but he took the courses that were available. He wrote his thesis for Nokia, on Life Cycle Assessment in the Electronics Industry. Those were the early days of the Circular Economy.

After graduation Jalas worked for Nokia as internal expert in product development for three years. Pushing for more sustainable solutions in the company’s projects and product lines was frustrating at times and he decided to radically shift his profession. He moved to Kuopio to study Design at Kuopio Polytechnic, pursuing his passion for handicraft. After returning to Helsinki, Jalas worked for Nokia once more, later moving on to do PhD studies at the Department of Management of Helsinki School of Economics. By that time he had grown out of both the engineering view on sustainability and the idea of craft being his personal orientation and decided to focus on capitalism as a social theory, taking rather abstract approaches that were quite unusual for a researcher in a business school. Jalas defended his doctoral thesis in 2006 and continued doing research into the influence of capitalism on consumption patterns in the environmental debate. His other involvement as a researcher has been largely connected to Industrial Ecology and Societies. Currently Jalas is the Director of the Master’s Degree Program in Creative Sustainability at Aalto University, and is simultaneously involved in two research projects on Renewable Energy and Emerging Technologies.

Cooperation is the key Implementing the new global development agenda and goals will require increased investments in innovation, and improved commitment to partnerships in doing so. The current Finnish development policy outlines four new priorities for Finland: the status of women and girls, well-functioning democracies, sustainable energy production, water and food security, and strengthening the economy and entrepreneurship in developing countries. In all of these, startup entrepreneurship as a means for taking new ideas and innovations to the market can play a key role. Through its development cooperation Finland leverages innovation for development through various channels. Finnish-funded projects range from small-scale project support to bilateral and regional programs and global partnerships. In bilateral cooperation with partner countries,

Finland engages in building innovation capacity and entrepreneurship in the global south. The partnership programs with Tanzania and Vietnam, and in Southern Africa are good examples of this approach. They have different histories, but are in many ways similar. These partnership programs work at many levels: they improve policy, build institutional and human capacity, provide financial and technical support for innovation and nurture cooperation between different partners. They take a competence-based approach towards private sector development. They also provide a platform for furthering cooperation between Finland and the countries in question. The new BEAM – Business with Impact innovation program in cooperation with the Finnish Innovation Funding Agency Tekes supports Finnish companies and other actors – in cooperation with partners from developing countries – in developing, piloting and demonstrating innovations that tackle development problems and improve well-being in developing countries. STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS 17

FRIDAY 1.12.2015 @ Urban Mill

SUSTAINABLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP DAY Special focus on current immigration and refugee challenges, as part of the Sustainable Entrepreneurship course 25E18000

21E10000

How to Change the World: Innovation toward sustainability The course introduces innovative ideas and approaches, such as inclusive innovation for poverty alleviation in emerging markets, social entrepreneurship, business models for social and ecological sustainability.

STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS

Contacts for Aalto University actors: (e-mail: firstname.lastname@aalto.fi)

Aalto Global Impact Teija Lehtonen Director Petri Allekotte Business Engagement Manager Riina Subra Senior Manager

Impact Iglu Makeda Yohannes Lead of Impact Iglu Team members: Ekaterina Perfilieva Lap Duong Elina Voipio Johanna Vierros

New Global Prof. Minna Halme Project Director, School of Business Sara Lindeman Project Manager, School of Business Jarkko Levänen Research Manager, School of Business Susu Nousala Researcher, School of Arts, Design and Architecture PhD Candidates: Tatu Lyytinen, School of Business Helena Sandman, School of Arts, Design and Architecture Anne Hyvärinen, School of Engineering Sini Numminen, School of Science

Creative Sustainability Mikko Jalas Program Director, School of Arts, Design and Architecture

Naoko Nakagawa Study Coordinator, School of Arts, Design and Architecture

International Design Business Management Prof. Mikko Koria Program Director, School of Business Anna-Mari Saari Program Coordinator, School of Business

Sustainable Global Technologies Prof. Olli Varis Vice-dean, School of Engineering Matleena Muhonen Program Coordinator, School of Engineering

Sustainable Entrepreneurship Assistant Prof. Ewald Kibler Entrepreneurship, School of Business Steffen Farny PhD Candidate, School of Business

UFISA - User Centered Design for Innovative Services and Applications Prof . Marko Nieminen School of Science Eija Kujanpää Manager of International Relations, School of Science Jaakko Kölni Study Coordinator, School of Science Publisher: Aalto Global Impact (November 2015) Design and layout: Roope Kiviranta Articles: Tim Bird Career Path interviews: Ekaterina Perfilyeva, Caroline Knappers Printed by: Unigrafia STARTUPS IN EMERGING MARKETS 19