Every year, in December, Helsinki becomes the epicenter of the Tech world with its conference, Slush, the world's leading startup and tech event with over 25,000 attendees including 3 500 startups and 2000 investors.
It’s both conference with over 100 talks from some of the world’s best heavy hitters including Michael Moritz Partner of Sequoia Capital, John Collison Co-founder of Stripe, Kevin Lin Co-founder of Twitch, David Simas CEO of the Obama Foundation and party or social events.The main purpose of Slush is to create and help the next generation of entrepreneur, to build a worldwide startup community and to facilitate meetings between the founders of startups and investors such as venture capitalists, accomplished with events such as matchmaking and pitching competitions.
As you may understand Slush represents the perfect event for CLab Trento and its clabbers. Travis David Kroeker was able to participate and we, being curious to know how it had gone, asked him to tell us.
“This year, I had the unique pleasure of volunteering at Slush, thanks to prize funding won at Start-Up Lab's Demo Day 2019 (go team Talo!). I also attended an associated Talent Heist in which members of The Shortcut showed us around the Finnish start-up ecosystem. During the Talent Heist I got the opportunity to visit numerous companies, understand their visions and unique selling points, and mingle with their employees over a beer pulled from the office tap. Horizontal structure meant that each employee was as accessible as the other, an intern as approachable as the CEO, and indeed I talked to both, not necessarily able to realize who was who until I asked.
There were a lot of amazing and futuristic things all around. Everywhere the energy was electrified. A set of lasers, LEDs, fluorescent artwork hung in the rafters and walls, warp tunnels, UFO abduction meeting points, and glow-glass flower garden stages. In a corner, indoor waterfalls and festooned Amazonian ivy screened exhausted conference goers within the confines of secret gardens, while saunas and hot tubs allowed attendees to sweat out the stress when the stimulation reached a fever pitch. I emerged on the other side of Slush, unharmed, but exhausted. Despite the raw energy, manifold egotism, and sheer wattage employed at this event, nothing can compare to the afterglow born from novel notions, future feels, and new, yet fast friends. See you next year Slush."
This year, I had the unique pleasure of volunteering at Slush, thanks to prize funding won at Start-Up Lab's Demo Day 2019 (go team Talo!). I also attended an associated Talent Heist in which members of The Shortcut showed us around the Finnish start-up ecosystem. During the Talent Heist I got the opportunity to visit numerous companies, understand their visions and unique selling points, and mingle with their employees over a beer pulled from the office tap. Horizontal structure meant that each employee was as accessible as the other, an intern as approachable as the CEO, and indeed I talked to both, not necessarily able to realize who was who until I asked.
There were a lot of amazing and futuristic things all around. Everywhere the energy was electrified. A set of lasers, LEDs, fluorescent artwork hung in the rafters and walls, warp tunnels, UFO abduction meeting points, and glow-glass flower garden stages. In a corner, indoor waterfalls and festooned Amazonian ivy screened exhausted conference goers within the confines of secret gardens, while saunas and hot tubs allowed attendees to sweat out the stress when the stimulation reached a fever pitch. I emerged on the other side of Slush, unharmed, but exhausted. Despite the raw energy, manifold egotism, and sheer wattage employed at this event, nothing can compare to the afterglow born from novel notions, future feels, and new, yet fast friends. See you next year Slush."