Garage48 Pärnu Women in Tech hackathon has been a very cool experience! 63 participants, 10 working prototypes and 48 hours later we are still standing strong!
This is our fourth Women Special event in Pärnu, and this time over 50% of the participants were women, making it the event with biggest concentration of female participants. It’s amazing that we had 10 projects and 20 pitched ideas, full of various bots, marketplaces and business related tourism businesses.Our last year's fastest going to market, Shipitwise has been incredibly successful being in the Startup Wise Guys Winter 2016 batch and having arranged two successful crowdfunding campaigns. Let's see what the future holds for this year's winner, but one thing we can predict already - they all will kick-ass!
Even though in Garage48 we work under an intense time frame to deliver as much as possible, then in "real life" there aren't overnight success stories. What seems first as a "overnight success" is actually the work and preparation of many months and years, attempts and sketches. So we hope that you will keep on trying and failing, as you will indeed meet obstacles. Facing difficulties is crucial for learning and as they say - no pain, no gain.
We are happy that on Friday Pärnu’s most active startup life organiser and Business Development Specialist of Pärnu City Council, Aare Raev announced that Pärnu will soon have their own co-working & startup centre, Forwardspace opening in city centre. Pärnu has been having a great entrepreneurship vibe which now will focus around the new co-working space.Jana Pavlenkova, the Head of Prototron arrived in Pärnu on Sunday without any real expectations for the projects being developed in the Garage48 Pärnu 2016 hackathon. She was very positively surprised of the teams and excited to welcome Mika Helps team in Prototron TOP40 with one month free Tehnopol mentoring. Prototron competition helps early startups to kick-start and promote their project in Estonia.
To help all of the 10 teams to really come through and deliver for the demo presentations on Sunday, we need to thank our amazing mentors! Elise Sass (Garage48), Karen K. Burns (Mooncascade), Helen Kokk (Made By, Nortal), Janika Liiv (Clanbeat), Maido Parv (Skype), Lembit Lõpp (Pipedrive), Sven Kirsimäe (Pipedrive), Sander Gansen (Shipitwise) and Jordan Valdma (TransferWise)! Thank you for being so involved in helping the teams!
We also need to thank our jury members, who helped to make the most difficult decisions on Sunday evening:
Jana Pavlenkova - Head of Prototron
Aare Raev - Business Development Specialist of Pärnu City Government
Elise Sass - Garage48 advisor and mentor
Janika Liiv - Founding Engineer at Clanbeat
Helen Kokk - UI/UX expert and Graphic Designer at Made By
Lembit Lõpp - Senior Front-End Developer at Pipedrive
As it was very difficult to choose the winners, we’re grateful to our sponsors who enabled us to give prizes to many great teams. So a very big THANK YOU to our partners, who not only supported the teams but also really believed in what we’re doing.
But who are the winners of Garage48 Pärnu Women in Tech hackathon? These are the teams who delivered better than others and who have potential in the eyes of mentors & jury members. We evaluated on 4 criterias - the product, understanding of the market, teamwork and presentation skills.
Overall winner
Prize: Free Tickets to Latitude59
+ Entrance to Prototron TOP40 + 1 month of free Tehnopol mentoring
+ free mentoring from Garage48 team
+ a lot of premium coffee for sleepless nights from Trühvel
MikaHelps is an easy-to-use platform for you to connect to local helpers (cleaners, tutors, babysitters and others) or become one.
Team members: Valerie Afanasyeva- Project Manager, Karyna Modnik- Project Manager, David Castillo - Designer, Johannes Soots - Front-end developer, Plugataryov Yura - Back-end developer, Dimitri Karasjov - Back-end developer, Kristel Velleste - Marketer
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TransferWise Special Prize
Prize: Free Tickets to ReFresh
+ free mentoring from Garage48 team
With our app you can bring printed media alive to see 3D content, videos and listen music.
Team members: Kadri Tammai - Visionary, Triin Preem - Marketer, Christer Loob - AR developer, Erich Loob - AR developer, Suman Sarkar - Back-end developer.
Pärnu City Special Prize
Prize: Exclusive Product & Business Consultation from Mooncascade
+ Forwardspace co-working usage & 300€ for any kind of entertainment in Pärnu
Assist Ants matches travelling professionals around the world with university students willing to help!
Team members: Rostilav Roznoshchik - Design Researcher, Eugene Gulyi - Back End Developer, Jean-Philippe Dumont - Process Designer, Maarja Hallik - Partnership Coordinator, Rudolf Eisans - Market Research and Competitive Intelligence.
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Most Outstanding Pitch
Prize: Battery Banks from Kaubad.ee
Furniture up-cycling for 21st century mobile lifestyle.
Team members: Lauma Gailite - project manager, Sanita Kovaleva - marketing, UX, product design, Lota Lezere - front-end, Brian Rene Jensen - full stack
Garage48 Mentoring
Prize: free mentoring from Garage48 team
Artcompote
Curated art marketplace featuring desirable unique pieces.
Team members: Aleksandra Kazanina - visioner, project manager, Priidu Kull - engineer, Sirle Orav-Hinno - marketing, Teele Karro - designer
Funnest Team
Prize: Battery Banks from Kaubad.ee
Package tracking assistant with funny story telling.
Team members: Ottomar Tamm - marketing, Olari Miiter - design/UX, Marge Maidla - marketing, Ragmar Saksing - project manager, Andrus Randveer - back-end developer, Vilja Nigu - back-end developer, Ivo Uutmaa - back-end developer, Maarja Laineste - front-end developer
Favourite of the Audience
Prize: Ööloom Sleeping Masks
3DnD
A comfortable and secure marketplace for the second hand 3D printers.
Team members: Anneli Luts (Project Manager), Grete Gutmann (Marketing), Sigrid Saluri (Marketing), Joel Mislav Kunst (Back-End Dev), Chris Raastad (Front-End Dev), Igor Petkovski (Front-End Dev)
Thumbs up to all the other teams as well:
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VitalFoods is an organic whole sale marketplace for businesses
Team: Maido Parv - UX and front end developer, Julia Melnychuk - back end developer, Ilona Oolu - marketing and business developer, Annika Lentso - market research, Annemari Muru - market research, Evelyn Sepp - project manager and visionary
Thank YOU also to our amazing organising team!
Thank you once again to our brilliant sponsors and partners!
