Blog

By Erik Klevar

Ntention, formerly known as Arveng Technologies after co-CEO and co-founder Magnus Arveng, have worked on their smart glove for three years. This summer they contemplated giving up on their dream of making human-drone interaction easier through a glove covered in sensors, but now they might be going to the moon in 2024. Ntention is run by Arveng from NTNU School of Entrepreneurhip and several other students from NTNU.

NASA plans to return to the Moon by 2024 with the Artemis Program, and then send astronauts to Mars. Both missions are expected to include an expansion of surface extra-vehicular activities (EVAs) in both quantity and complexity compared to Apollo. Future planetary spacesuits are expected to improve in nimbleness and comfort over time. But, as pressurized vessels, spacesuits are likely to remain fundamentally cumbersome, limiting the dexterity and precision with which astronauts may perform tasks such as collecting samples and operating robots.

“A smart glove-equipped spacesuit could be a solution” said Dr Pascal Lee, a planetary scientist with the SETI Institute and the Mars Institute, and director of the NASA Haughton-Mars Project at NASA Ames Research Center. “With it, astronauts could easily control a range of robotic assets, making science and exploration operations on the Moon, Mars and at other destinations more effective and productive”. “When I first saw Ntention’s smart glove in action, I immediately thought of Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law: ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” recalled Lee. “A pressurized spacesuit is relatively rigid, and hand and finger motions meet with substantial resistance. In the “Astronaut Smart Glove”, the sensitivity of hand motions is adjustable and can be set high, which means the technology might be adaptable to a stiff pressurized spacesuit”.

The evaluation of the “Astronaut Smart Glove” for Moon and Mars exploration is expected to continue, in particular with applications to the control of other types of robotic assets including robotic manipulators, rovers, and other planetary science and exploration systems. The promising early results obtained this summer might herald a new era in human-robot interactions and space exploration capabilities.

Ntention has been mentioned in Forbes and last week they were featured and interviewed on TV2s God Morgen Norge, a morning TV show. We want to congratulate Ntention on this milestone and wish them luck in the future!

By Erik Klevar and Stian Bongard

We are Erik Klevar and Stian Bongard, two 2nd year students at the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship (NSE). In September we traveled together with three of our classmates and Engage to participate at this year’s Venture Creation Program (VCP) Forum. This year the VCP Forum was hosted by North Carolina State University (NCSU) in the city of Raleigh. The university was represented by professor Steve Barr and the participants this year came from Sweden, Norway and the UK. Last year, in 2018, Engage was the host and Trondheim the host city. 

The VCP Forum itself lasted for a couple of days and this allowed the institutions to share their experiences and research since last time. Engages Dag Håkon Haneberg and Iselin Kristine Mauseth shared their findings from their PhD-research and invited to discussions. Professor Roger Sørheim shared his findings on how many startups from NSE that still existed in 2018 or their different fates like mergers, acquisitions or bankruptcies. During the stay the students were invited to sit at NCSUs partner, the co-working space and incubator HQ Raleigh. The university had its own co-working space within the co-working space. Professor Barr told us that they had classes here as well. 

Impressions

What struck us the most was how similar yet different the US is. We all expected the US to be “bigger” than Norway, which it was, but when we got told that we couldn’t walk where we wanted simply because there were no sidewalks we were very surprised. The public transport system was also very much not existing, a totally different experience than in European cities and Trondheim where buses, trams and subways are seen. This meant that we had to use Uber when we traveled from and to the hotel. The VCP forum was very interesting to listen in on and it was special to meet academics from other countries. We got to tell the Forum about our experiences at the School of Entrepreneurship which gave both our faculty and the other faculties some food for thought and new insight into what they can do to improve their programs even further. 

The most exciting thing at the VCP Forum was to see the spectrum of venture creation programs from various universities and colleges around the world. Although the different academic programs have mainly the same goals, they have different ways of achieving this goal. One of the highlights of the conference was when the participants discussed challenges and shared best practices among themselves. These sessions led to good academic discussions, with views from both professors and students from the various institutions.

The students decided to stay for a couple of days after the VCP Forum and were lucky to be there at the same time as the annual Entrepreneurship festival at NCSU, Entrepalooza. This was a day created by students at NCSU and involved a pitching competition with more than $ 2.000, or approx. 18.500 NOK in prize money for two lucky startups. It was very interesting to see the different approaches to pitching and the cultural differences were very interesting to observe. All in all the visit to NCSU was very successful and gave us students a lot of perspective from the academic and American cultural side.

By Eva Røgler and Linnea Tveraaen

Getting ready for international expansion

We are Linnea and Eva, both students at NTNU School of Entrepreneurship, and we recently visited Southern Sweden for our startup Snowroller.

The main purpose for the trip was related to the startup, and in that context we visited a new potential partner. The company is a third party logistics provider (3PL) that stores and sends out packages for our company. Because Snowroller want to expand internationally this winter season, we need a 3PL outside of Norway in order to skip toll fees and customs. This visit was important because it is important to build relationships with such partners, and to see for ourselves that the company was serious.

Lund University – An university for entrepreneurship and innovation

After the visit, we went to Lund University in order to learn more about how they work with entrepreneurship. Unfortunately we were not able to meet up with professors or students at the university, but we did get to read about their innovation ecosystem and programs.

Firstly, Lund University has a 1 year master’s program in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. When applying to this programme the student elect either the Entrepreneurship: New Venture Creation track or the Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation track. The former is created for students that want to start their own company, and the latter is for people who want to work with innovation in already established companies.

Secondly, the university also has an incubator called Ideon Innovation incubator. This is a co-working space where students can work on their ventures and get help to grow their businesses.

This trip was crucial for our company because as we are going to expand to other countries in Scandinavia, we needed a 3PL outside of Norway. After this trip we have established a good relation with our new partner, and are ready to launch our new collection!

You can learn more about Snowroller at Snowroller.no.

By Eirik G. Medbø

What can the money be used for?

The money can be used to free up time for employees or for further development, renting lab time, buying equipment or consulting services for an early-stage prototype, and to do market research to understand the market you are addressing.

Requirements for you as the inventor and the idea:

• The idea is developed by you as a student or PhD student, and is owned by yourself as a student, or NTNU/SINTEF.

• The idea could contribute in solving challenges within the future energy system or help create a sustainable energy transition, and has a high potential. This could for instance be solutions that aim to:

• Increase energy efficiency
  • Reduce emissions from burning fossil fuels
  • Technologies that contribute to better energy production, storage or transfer
  • More sustainable or efficient use of materials and resources

• Solutions that could have a direct impact for consumers, are encouraged to apply.

• The idea could be in an early stage, but the project should focus on commercializing the idea through for instance a new company. The support can not be used for research purposes.

• You have a desire to develop the idea towards future commercial use, and you want to contribute actively in the journey ahead.

• The support is given for a 6-month project that you define yourself, where you can apply for between 50.000 and 150.000 kroner to get over an important hurdle or reach a milestone, to get that one step further. You will also get help investigating subjects like market research, strategy and recruitment of team members.

By Lars Henrik Hafstad Karlsson, Nord University

I am Lars Henrik Hafstad Karlsson, a third year economy student at Nord University. I have a passion for entrepreneurship and for me it’s not about if I should start a company but rather when I am going to start my first. With this as a backdrop, I started taking several courses in the entrepreneurship field as a part of my educational profile, international entrepreneurship.

I participated in 2018 Venture Cup where I went to the regional finale. With the same business idea I applied to join a trip to Boston and Babson College. I thought it was a fantastic opportunity – to travel to such a prestigious entrepreneurship school to work with my business idea. I wanted to learn and learn from the best.

Before travelling we had to do two things; read a couple of articles and prepare a five minute presentation. All participants had to some degree presented business ideas earlier, but few had done so in English. For several of us this was outside our comfort zone, including me. I was however very excited to challenge myself and prepared well in advance.

Saturday the 6th of April at 6.30 in the morning we met at the airport and were ready for departure. First we flew from Bodø to Oslo, from Oslo to Reykjavik and lastly from Reykjavik to Boston. The total travel time was about 19 hours including the waiting time. We landed in Boston in the evening and had a meal at the hotel restaurant. Already there we got our first experience with the American unfamiliar tax system. We still don’t understand it. Essentially the prices on the menu are not the same as are on the receipts.

We had a few days without a program at Babson College, but we still managed to keep busy. On Sunday most of us travelled to Wrentham Village Premium Outlets while the rest wanted to explore the city. The Outlet is a small village with different stores consisting of rather expensive designer clothing but with reduced prices. At that point the US tax system seemed even less understandable, but the shopping experience itself was delightful. Even though none of us is that interested in basketball we still made our way to watch Boston Celtics meet Orlando Magic in the NBA. It was a great experience I would recommend everyone who visit the US.

The day after, monday the 8th of April we visited Boston Consulting Group, one of the world’s largest consultancy companies. We met one of the project managers at BCG, Ezra Ok, who told us in a very interesting and engaging manner what their company did. The high point of the meet was when some founders in my travel group got consulting from Okon himself and advice on how to analyze demand, financing, competition and resources. A very meaningful meeting for everyone.