And the Winner of Startup Weekend Akureyri is...

Drum roll... Entrepreneurship! Yes, the winner over the weekend is the concept of Entrepreneurship. It was exciting to see over 100 people working on a problem, listening to feedback and presenting their ideas and getting recognized for their effort. As much as I like the idea of people getting recognition for their ideas, Ideas do not equate to launching a business. I have written about "Startup Ideas - Why ideas are not the problem". There were 19 teams that presented their ideas. The companies that I thought really created a business over the weekend were:

Video taken from previous Startup Weekend Events in Iceland

• Campalo.com and Campalo.is - a booking and reservation application over the web for Camp sites around iceland
• Disulistar.is - a hyper local curated list of things for everything from Top 5 restaurants for business meetings in Reykjavik to Task list to do press release. You pay a small fee for not having to spend the time to research the list yourself

Of course both of these companies did not win the award because their idea was not revolutionary or "cool" but both of these probably will be able to build a sustainable business. I think the other ideas and teams need to be recognized as well. Here is the link to a slideshow of pictures from my Twitter stream.

1. Whale Buddy - A Multilingual App for Smart Phones that enables a better experience for tourists on a Whale watching tour
2. Life Line - Making the rescue suits and life jackets fitted with GPS device, Nano technology and Diode lights to enable finding the missing persons at sea.
3. Viral Trade - An online market place for digital goods used in online games
4. Tannstra - A toothpick made from Icelandic straw
5. Active Site - A photo market for pictures taken underwater off the coast of Akureyri, I guess it could be applied for any all underwater pictures.

There were 12 more companies, I have to admit did not find them very interesting that is probably because of my lack of understanding of Icelandic. 

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