Toothbrush won the first Arcada Mindventures competition

Everything from transportation apps to AI-supported indoor cultivation was presented when Arcada Mindventures – an inspiring idea competition for innovative students – was arranged for the first time. A total of 11 entrepreneurial ideas were presented for four panel members well-versed in entrepreneurship. In the end, a toothbrush drew the longest straw.

“Arcada Mindventures allows our students to practice pitching ideas in a supportive and encouraging environment. At the same time, we see networks being formed across disciplines, and students learn both from the presentation techniques of others and the feedback they receive,” says Mervi Hernberg, head of Arcada’s business oasis, Oasis.
Entrepreneurship is an integrated part of all degree programmes at Arcada, and the idea to arrange Mindventures was born during spring of 2017.
“Previous years we’ve arranged internal idea competitions where the winners then represented Arcada in the Rotary Startup-challenge.”
The new concept Arcada Mindventures has been developed by Hernberg together with Arcada’s alumni co-ordinator Mia Ingman.
“Besides 1.000 euros the winner also receives valuable coaching by the four panel members to develop the business idea. The two first runners-up also receive coaching by the jury,” Ingman says.

Besides the concept she's worked on recruiting multi-professional alumni with broad business experience to form the jury. The panel in this first edition of Mindventures consisted of Zina Kranck, head of graphic design at Lego Systems, Robin Bade, founder and regional head of Mirum Agency, Sebastian Östman, entrepreneur, co-founder and COO at Genero, and Jan-Erik Krusberg, head of development at Arcada.

“It’s been a very fun and rewarding day for me personally, and I’m very happy that I was asked to join the jury,” Kranck says.
He empasizes the importance of students being introduced to entrepreneurial thinking.
“To see the commitment and hear the discussions that were born from this is very inspiring. We're convinced that we'll see many of the company ideas presented here today become reality in the future,” Kranck concludes.

A toothbrush drew the longest straw

Many of the ideas presented during Arcada Mindventure this year shared health promotion as a theme and both mental and physical well-being clearly inspired innovation. Another common theme was sustainable development. From the 11 ideas and development areas the jury finally selected International Business student Enricio Berardone’s company idea Fairbrush as the winner.

Berardone’s toothbrush in bamboo decreases our ecological footprint, while doing good for children’s homes around the world.
“The winning idea was chosen unanimously, and both the presentation technique and the thought-through concept were convincing,” Kranck says.
The jury also offered suggestions for how the concept can be developed further, and Berardone plans to launch the product at the beginning of next year.

The runners-up in Arcada Mindventures were Sebastian Kåll with Cleanroof Oy and Erika Nyström’s health promoting company ENHS.