In the following podcast we talk to NTNU School of Entrepreneurship based startup Dropracks. They are developing an exciting mechanism which allows the consumer to hoist down equipment from the roof of the vehicle to a reachable level. In this episode of the Engage-cast, CEO and founder of Dropracks, Helge Dimmen, will share his experiences with the work behind this powerful mechanism of the Droprack. If you are interested in how business and product development works, this episode is a must!
The Engage-cast highlights topics of student entrepreneurship and delve deeper into the experiences and stories of the individuals and groups behind the most exciting innovations happening in and around the technology capital Trondheim. The podcast is in Norwegian, but if you don’t want to miss out a text piece is available in English. The podcast is hosted on Soundcloud, but is also available on iTunes.
Excellent engineering, a well-orchestrated business plan, and the ability to meet consumer needs resulted in Dropracks to be appointed as the startup of the month of May 2018.
By Simen Ludvigsen
May the hurdle light the way
“Dropracks is an invention that is different from other car racks. It allows the consumer to hoist down equipment from the roof of the vehicle to a reachable level”, CEO and founder Helge Dimmen tells us. He is a student at NTNU, and a former ski-enthusiast, who experienced obstacles on his ski-trips attempting to get his gear out of the roof of his vehicle. This resulted in a new invention which makes it easier to collect gear from the top of the car.
“It’s mechanics, really. Mechanical parts rotating and gliding serving as a unique construction which result in a much easier way to collect gear from the top of your car. This allows you to spend more time doing your activities instead of fiddling on the roof of your vehicle,” says Helge Dimmen.
CEO and founder Helge Dimmen
Demonstrating the racks
Shortly after Dimmen has greeted me welcome at FAKTRY startup incubator, I get invited outside to see what Dropracks is capable of. With great enthusiasm, Dimmen explains how Dropracks can be used not only for ski-enthusiasts. “It has been tested to withstand 150 kg. This allows people with other hobbies like for example kayaking or biking to use it”, Dimmen says.
He continues to explain how it’s important to treat your sports equipment with care, especially if you actually care about your gear. For bikers, Dropracks does not only suit as proper for transportation. It also protects the bikes from high turbulence which you may experience when attaching the bikes on the back of the car.
Future business plans
Although Dropracks hasn’t made a lot of sales, Dimmen seem confident and optimistic about the future. They continuously develop the product and are planning to attend the world’s largest car equipment trade fair, Automechanika in Frankfurt. With a new, improved version of the rack, they hope to meet new clients.
Furthermore, Dimmen divides the market, in which they want to make their entry, into three main parts.
“The main market will at the beginning be a robust Droprack for commercial vans. From there we hope to make an entry to passenger automobiles, such as SUVs and station wagons”, Dimmen explains. The third market segment will be overlanding vehicles, such as pickup trucks and off-road campers. This market is not so big in Norway, but large in the US and Australia.
Dropracks are going for licensing their patents and products to already existing market actors, so they self will determine where the product will be sold. But Dimmen believe that they will be sold at new car dealerships, and selected specialty stores. Dropracks is a premium roof rack. The new car dealerships are most suitable to sell such products, often as a part of a package together with a new car.
What is the slogan for Dropracks?
Mr. Dimmen has not found a slogan yet, but he playfully answers the question «Gear Up!».
“We have not found a proper slogan yet, but it will come soon”.
For now, we get Dropracks key sales pitch: “Spend more time enjoying outdoor activities, and less time and hassle loading your equipment.”
The do’s and dont’s in entrepreneurship
Dimmen has had a lot of experience in starting up Dropracks. He says himself willing to share some key guidelines from the lessons he has learned on the way.
Always try to recruit people who are smarter than yourself. It is crucial for the growth, production and, development of the startup business to have smart people on your team. You will never be the single smartest person in a business because great minds fulfill each other.
Be extra careful with your IP-strategy. If you have a hardware startup, I strongly recommend spending some time and money on IPR strategists. Having the correct IPR Strategies are so much more than a yes/no answer to whether you should apply for a patent or not, and it pays off in the end.
One should not be too dependent on consultants. Even though consultants are experts and a very important piece to puzzle up the business, they cost a lot of money and time. Therefore entrepreneurs should be aware of what the consultants are doing and how they are working. By doing so, the entrepreneur will be more in control of the project in terms of financials, production, and development.
In the following podcast we talk to Experts in Team based startup Inalto Technologies. They are developing an exciting bracelet to fight shaking in tremor patients. In this episode of the Engage-cast they share their experiences and challenges with starting a business. This episode is a must for those who wish to know more about entrepreneurship, Experts in Team and Spark*!
The Engage-cast highlights topics of student entrepreneurship and delve deeper into the experiences and stories of the individuals and groups behind the most exciting innovations happening in and around the technology capital Trondheim. The podcast is in Norwegian, but if you don’t want to miss out a text piece is available. The podcast is hosted on Soundcloud, but is also available on iTunes.
Through experienced-based learning the students are to get a meta perspective on interdisciplinary teamwork. But what makes Experts in Teamwork so valuable?
By Vilde Øines Nybakken
“Where to start?”
I have asked Associate Professor Ela Sjølie to describe Experts in Teamwork (EiT), a mandatory course for all students in master’s programmes at NTNU.
“NTNU rector Gunnar Bovim has called Experts in Teamwork a NTNU signature course. The superior goal is the focus on interdisciplinary teamwork skills. You need teamwork skills when you enter working life”, Sjølie says.
According to Sjølie, the Experts in Teamwork course startet 17 years ago by a demand from the business sector. It started as a project course at the Master of Engineering programmes, but slowly, it turned into a compulsory course for all master programmes at NTNU. The learning form is experience-based and reflection oriented.
“You learn teamwork skills through working on an actual project and reflecting about the collaboration itself while doing it. This means time to reflect on what actually happens during the teamwork to get better insight about oneself in the teamwork, and to make the teamwork better”, Sjølie continues.
Associate Professor Ela Sjølie in Experts in Teamwork emphasizes the value of interdisciplinary teamwork skills as a competence in innovation and change on many levels. (Photo: NTNU)
A meta-perspective on one’s own learning
As mentioned above, an idea of experience-based learning is the main idea behind the course description. To learn interdisciplinary teamwork skills, you have to actually do interdisciplinary teamwork, not only talk about it, according to Sjølie. Two facilitators are placed in each village to help the student teams reflect on their teamwork.
“NTNU has sort of created their own method, based on theories about group dynamics, facilitation and group mentoring. First, the facilitators observe, looks into themselves to see if there’s something to share, and shares it with the group. That way, the reflections are mirrored back to the group to reflect on it”.
According to Sjølie, it can lead to change or improvement of the teamwork then and there, or it can lead to change or improvement later. Either way, there is great importance in being made aware of one’s own behaviour and expertise.
That meta-perspective on learning is actually very important in a learning context. Collaborating in a team, being made aware of one’s own contribution to the group has a learning effect in one’s own academic discipline.
Ela Sjølie
Students as change agents
Assistant Professor Marte Konstad at the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management was a supervisor in the Experts in Teamwork village «UN’s sustainable development goals – what can we do in Trøndelag?», an Engage-lead pilot village that ran for three weeks in January 2018.
The pilot village wanted to work with concrete projects, and brought in current problems from the local community around the University, in Trondheim and Trøndelag. The student teams got to choose between Ducky, Trondheim Renholdsverk and NTNU Eiendom as external partners.
“We wanted to work with the Sustainability Goals to concretize relevant problems, brought to us by our external partners”, Konstad says. By introducing the students to entrepreneurial skills, students got methods to think differently about the problems that were presented to them by the external partners. Working with an actual problem makes the project work valuable.
Assistant Professor Marte Konstad supervised the Engage-lead pilot village «UN’s sustainable development goals – what can we do in Trøndelag?». (Photo: NTNU)
Interdisciplinary teamwork and an entrepreneurial mindset are essential
The students got to contribute with inputs on sustainability to the companies that wants help to think differently about the chosen problems. They also got to practice the skills needed to reach the UN’s Sustainability Goals. “Interdisciplinary teamwork is important to solve the sustainability challenges we’re facing. In this village, students got to practice on evaluating sustainable projects, but they also got to practice on the interdisciplinary teamwork needed to reach the Sustainable Development Goals”, Konstad says.
Through the project the students not only got to evaluate the economical value, but also reflect on a sustainable perspective on value. “Interdisciplinary teamwork is essential in new thinking and entrepreneurship, and their projects were taken further because it created value for the external partners”, says Konstad.
When we talked to one of the student groups in the pilot village in January, the students were engaged in the project even when it was still early in the process. They described the project work as meaningful. “The more I work with this project, the more useful I find it”, one of the students said back then.
Experts in Teamwork gives the students the opportunity to acquire deeper knowledge. Project Engineer Elin Valvatne in Trondheim Renholdsverk emphasized the value of getting perspectives from students through the collaboration.
“Experts in Teamwork puts sustainability on the agenda. Sustainability is in focus in the waste collection industry. There are demands both internationally, from the EU and nationally about meeting UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. We’re really glad to be a part of this and eager to see the results”, Vatne said in January.
Experts in Teamwork (EiT)
Mandatory course for all NTNU students in master’s programmes.
About 2200-3000 students takes the course every year.
Students are divided in different classes, called “villages”, with 20-30 students.
Every faculty at NTNU offers EiT-courses.
Some villages are semester-based, others are intensive-based. Either way the students work in teams for a total amount of 15 days.
In 2018 there are 56 villages with Norwegian as language of instruction, and 26 with English as language of instruction.
Two pilot villages are completed at campus Gjøvik in 2018.
How does EiT work?
Through an experience-based learning form, students work in interdisciplinary teams with a self-defined project related to the village theme, and reflect around their own collaborative experiences.
Some villages has external business partners. In villages without established relationships with external partners, the teams can contact parties that might have an interest in their work.
Two facilitators in each villages observe the teams from the outside, and share their observations with the team to reflect upon it.
The students write reflections each day, and give and receive feedback on their interdisciplinary teamwork skills. Together with interaction exercises, they create the basis for reflection on the cooperation in the team.
The interdisciplinary teamwork results in two reports from each student team: One report about the team process, the other about the project. Each report counts for 50% of the final grade in the EiT-course.
Each interdisciplinary team consisting of five to six students gets one common grade.
For the third year in a row NTNU and Engage will be hosting the Journey, Europe’s largest summer school for sustainable business ideas.
By Frode Halvorsen
During two weeks at NTNU, about 40 international students will get lectures and workshops in business development, design thinking, marketing and other relevant topics, while they are developing their own projects.
Have a look at the video from last years the Journey.
Engage har, gjennom tildeling fra NOKUT, gleden av å utlyse 6 stipend à 12.500.- NOK for studentdrevne prosjekter for å bedre egen utdanning. Prosjektene skal forbedre utdanning på senter- studieprogram- eller emnenivå, og skal utføres sammen med faglig ansatte.
Forutsetninger for stipend:
Prosjektet skal være studentdrevne
Prosjektet må være et samarbeid mellom studenter og ansatte ved NTNU/NORD
En eller flere personer tilknyttet Engage må fungere som rådgiver for prosjektet.
Ingrid and Martine are two students from the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship. In a series of travelogues, they will introduce us to the world of entrepreneurship in Boston as they are finishing their master thesis at the Babson College.
By Ingrid Skrede and Martine Gripp Bay
Hey again!
Last summer, we were lucky to participate in a ten week accelerated entrepreneurship program at Boston University (BU) through Gründerskolen. This award winning program gives students hands-on experience in entrepreneurship from either working in their own start-up company or from working as an intern at high-tech start up company in Boston. In addition to getting practical experience, students also get academic knowledge from attending courses at BU. The unique combination of practical and academic knowledge made this a great learning experience for us, and we therefore want to take the opportunity to tell you a little bit more about BU and all of the wonderful resources this university has to offer.
Martine and Ingrid in front of Questrom School of Business, one of the 17 schools at Boston University.
First of all, did you know that BU is the fourth biggest independent university in the US and is ranked among the top 25 mercantile schools in the world? The university has in fact more than 30 000 students from 130 countries, 17 schools and colleges and 250 fields of study. Entrepreneurship is one of these fields, and can be studied both at undergraduate (bachelor) and graduate (master) level. Several colleges offers one or two classes in entrepreneurship, such as College of Communication, College of Engineering, School of Hospitality Administration and Metropolitan College, but it is the Questrom School of Business that offers the majority of the entrepreneurship classes.
At undergraduate level, entrepreneurship is a concentration under business development. At graduate level, entrepreneurship can be studied as a full-time or a part-time MBA. As an undergraduate student, you learn about how you can identify opportunities and bring these to market with minimal uncertainties. As a graduate student, you learn to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and about the analytical frameworks for how you can create a successful business. When we attended BU last summer, we had all of our classes at the Questrom School of Business. The great thing about these classes was that the terminology and material was taught to us through real-life examples and start-up cases. This made the learning experience more interesting and fun.
In addition to offering academic courses, BU has many other great resources within entrepreneurship. The Build Lab is one of these resources. It is a co-working space which offers a prototyping lab, mentor hours from industry experts, as well as events, programs, courses and competitions. Since we arrived in January, we have attended several events in this space. This has opened up for several opportunities for us, as well as provided us with entrepreneurial inspiration. In addition to the BuildLab, BU has many other resources which can help you realize your business idea. These are the Adlab, BU Spark, EPIC; BUILDS, PHX, PRLab, the Tinker Lab and Student Legal Resources. There are also several clubs which are worth checking out. More information about this can be found at the BuildLab webpage (www.bu.edu/innovate/)
Our experience at BU made our summer magical, and we hope that Gründerskolen class of 2018 will enjoy their stay at BU just as much as we did. They have so much to look forward to and we hope that they don’t hesitate to contact us if they have any questions about Boston, BU or anything else (ingrskre@stud.ntnu.no or martingb@stud.ntnu.no). We wish you the best of luck!
In the NTNU course Experts in Teamwork (EiT), students from different academic disciplines are put together in groups to solve a problem. Inalto Technologies decided to tackle the problem of tremor – involuntary muscle contractions that cause trembling of body parts.
“Essential tremor is a medical diagnosis, but physiologic tremor is something everyone can experience, for instance when your blood sugar level is low. Tremor is also a symptom of other neurological diseases, such as Parkinson’s”
Simen Liberg Tronsaune, Team meber of Inalto Technologies
Inalto Technologies develops a wearable device that reduces tremor in hands. This is their first prototype.
– What is the idea behind your startup?
“As of today, there is no medicine that cures essential tremor. The medicines they use often lead to serious side effects. We have talked to patients that avoid taking medicine due to the side effects. Instead of a medicine, we want to reduce tremor with a mechanical device you can wear as a bracelet”, Tronsaune continues.
Tremor has greater effect in body parts to which the neural signals have a long way to go, making the hands particularly affected. Imagine having trouble eating and drinking due to the trembling of your hands – that’s the reality for many tremor patients.
“Some tremor patients have spasms in big parts of the body, but we target tremor in hands in the first place because our hands have such an important function in our everyday lives. We like to compare our product to the noise canceling headsets, only we cancel the noise in hands”
Sharukh Kahn, Team meber of Inalto Technologies
– Where did you get the idea from?
“The idea was the result after a lot of brainstorming in EiT. We had heard about a special spoon that reduces trembling when using it, but found it peculiar that you had to use your own cutlery when eating. Why not make a more universal product?”
Sharukh Kahn, Team meber of Inalto Technologies
The group participated in the EiT village “Biomaterials – Body Parts of the Future” in 2017. Biomaterials are devices that work as aids in the lives of human and makes life simpler. Even a simple rollator was considered a biomaterial, the group informs.
“After our last presentation, one of our professors asked when we were going to launch the product. That inspired us”
Anja Wollan, Team member of Inalto Technologies.
The group thought about it over the summer and contacted Spark NTNU. Only two minutes after they had sent the email, they had a Spark mentor.
Shahrukh Khan (from the left), Bjarte Mehus Sunde, Anja Wollan and Simen Liberg Tronsaune from Inalto technologies with their Spark mentor Bendik Fon (not present from Inalto Technologies: Ida Estenstad)
– How has the process been up until where you are today?
“After getting some guidance from Spark, we analyzed the market. We talked with a lot of end users who suffer from tremor over telephone. Many of the affected mentioned tremor in the right hand as the biggest problem”,
Sharukh Kahn, Team member of Inalto Technologies
A survey from the International Essential Tremor Foundation revealed that about 80 percent of the foundation’s members struggle with writing and 68 percent with drinking. The tremor patients Inalto Technologies contacted were positive to a wearable solution as long as it was not prominent.
“Me and Ida Estenstad are writing our master thesis about the technical part of the solution, so we are two students that work full-time with the startup”
The group is in close contact with the Norwegian Parkinson’s disease organization as there is no foundation in Norway devoted to essential tremor. The goal is to be able to work full time with the startup when they finish their studies.
“We are searching for funding to be able to work full time with the startup after our graduation this summer. We are also searching for new people to join our team to get some fresh input”
– Why should students start their own startup or be a part of one?
“I don’t know if joining a startup is for everyone, but it is really fun being a part of the innovation milieu at NTNU. You meet a lot of interesting people, and I think we are all very excited to see if we can actually do this”.
Anja Wollan, Team member of Inalto Technologies
Neither on them had any experience with entrepreneurship beforehand. Today, they are taking the NTNU course in entrepreneurship called Venture Cup.
The group is in no doubt an exemplary EiT group, and their interdisciplinarity cover the study programs of Cybernetics and robotics, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, and Industrial Ecology.
“The startup’s vision is to help make the lives of tremor patients better. It is about doing something bigger than yourself and making the world a better place, and that is really motivating”, Tronsaune says.
Simen Liberg Tronsaune , Team member Inalto Technologies
In the following day after this meeting, the group attended Spark’s recruiting event, JASUN (14th of March). At JASUN, they pitched their idea in order to introduce themselves to the crowd. The very same week they participated at Tekna’s Health Technology Conference! You can follow the startup’s busy life through their instagram account.
Hopefully you have just gotten home from a nice skiing trip, and you are now ready to get cuddled up in front of a fireplace and enjoy our latest blog post. Today we will share some of our experiences from Babson College with you.
As part of our master program at the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship (NSE), we have received the opportunity to collect data and get guidance at this highly recognised college. And when we say highly recognised, we want to emphasize the word highly. Babson College was actually just awarded the top-ranked college within entrepreneurship in the U.S. for the 25th consecutive year!
So how did Babson College gain this position? The college is famous for its research projects, where some of the most important ones are the Diana Project and the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). In addition to the excellent research, the college is also focusing on giving their students a top notch education. The 3000 students learn through experiences both from the school material and from the community. The curriculum is highly diverse, with courses ranging from business development to liberal arts, ethics and even environmental science. The classes are interactive, which means that the teachers are encouraging discussions and critical thinking. In other words, a quite uncomfortable teaching style for Norwegian students who prefer to keep a low profile.
The faculty believes that the only way to understand what it takes to run a business, is to actually run a business. Babson therefore offers a one-year course, where the students get to invent, develop, launch and manage a business. The startups partner up with local service agencies, and they have to donate 80 hours of community service and give all their profits to their agency partner. As a result, more than $470,000 has been given to local charities since 1999. That is incredible, right?!
The variety of classes offered at Babson is quite impressive. For an eager entrepreneurship student it seems like the process of choosing courses is like walking into an overfilled candy shop. At undergraduate level, Babson College offers bachelor’s degrees in 25 areas of study in business administration, as well as six different bachelors of science degrees and 60 different entrepreneurship-related courses. At graduate level they offer master’s degrees in business administration, finance and accounting, as well as a Master of Science in management and entrepreneurial leadership.
Living up to the American core values, this school truly allows the individual to shape their own future by offering the freedom of choice. Not only do the students get to choose their educational direction, but they also get to choose the location of where they want to study. Babson has their main campus out in Wellesley, but they also teach at their campus in Downtown Boston, Miami and San Francisco. Even though we haven’t had the chance to work on our tan while studying at the more sunny campuses, we are happy to have the chance of using both the Downtown office space, and to have a private office at the Wellesley campus.
The Downton Campus in the Financial District, where we do most of our work.
The resources available to us through Babson are amazing, and the faculty and fellow students here are very helpful. Not only do we get guidance and introductions, but we have also had the opportunity of listening to a real pitching session for a business angel group. Here we got to observe pitches and to listen to the closed investor discussions after the entrepreneurs left the room.
Speaking of available resources available at Babson, we have to mention that the regular students here have access to two entrepreneurial centers. The Center of Women Entrepreneurial Leadership (CWEL) is dedicated to advancing the entrepreneurial leadership of women through research and programs. By helping women become leaders, this center is truly promoting more girl power! In addition to the CWEL, Babson also has the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, which accelerates entrepreneurship by giving students access to events, workshops, mentoring and competitions.
When talking about competitions, a fun fact is that Babson College was the first academic institution to hold a business plan competition for students. So to all the inspired Venture Cup students, take a look at Babson – this is where it started! Today, the college hosts an annual event called the “Rocket pitch”, where students pitch their business ideas to an audience of students, faculty, entrepreneurs, investors and service providers. An even bigger competition is the Babson Entrepreneurial Thought and Action (BETA) Challenge, where students compete for $75,000. In addition to the mentioned resources, Babson College offers a summer venture program and an incubator called the Hatchery.
To sum it up, Babson College offers a vibrant atmosphere where ideas and information is shared among students, faculty and visiting entrepreneurs. Or, to say it like their official slogan:
“Babson College educates entrepreneurial leaders who create great economic and social value — everywhere”.
Martine taking a stroll at the beautiful campus in Wellesley.
P.S. If you are thinking “I would love to hear more about [topic X]”, reach out and we will look into it. Ingrid at LinkedIn.
In the first podcast we talk to the NTNU School of Entrepreneurship startup Apolonia Agrotech. We interviewed them as the startup of the month in February about urban farming and how they grow food in water instead of soil.
This is the first episode in a series where we among others will talk to entrepreneurs in the startups we intervew each month. Follow us on Soundclound or listen to the episode below.
