Estonian start-up stories by Toivo Tänavsuu
It’s something that a number of people have thought of. But in February, a group of people met at the Garage48 public services design competition and actually did it – visualized the Republic of Estonia’s budget. Coloured spheres that open on MeieRaha.eu shows the structure and proportion of the revenue and expenditures in the state budget. [...]
The winner of the Garage48 public services competition 112 Mobile allows emergency calls to be placed without calling the dispatcher centre. The new service is characteristic of a trend toward more innovative solutions in emergency response centres and in the area of administration of the Ministry of the Interior in general. The prototype for the [...]
Born and bred in Estonia, the British start-up Transferwise exchanges pounds and euros at a rate a cut better than that of banks. Dubbed the “Skype of currency exchange”, the company is now trying to make inroads on the US market, where the US dollar, still the world’s favourite safe haven, promises to increase business [...]
The top prize at the Helsinki Garage48 start-up project competition went to LapLab – a Web application for amateur race car drivers that allows them to improve their best lap times and car configurations. While undoubtedly a niche product – there might be only five million users in the world – LapLab will hopefully hit [...]
The latest Tartu ski marathon saw a fresh new start-up called TrackLog make its debut. GPS devices were attached to 20 skiers to track their progress in real time. TrackLog, spawned by Kalle Volkov (pictured) and Peeter Mõtsküla, bills itself as a use-friendly tracking platform aimed at outdoor event organizers. The service consists of SIM-card-based [...]
The brothers Kaur and Kaspar Kallas have developed, together with the USA camera producer, Silicon Imaging, probably the world’s first stereoscopic video camera that is able to record a three-dimensional image. This wonder gadget has already drawn the attention of many of the world’s top directors, including James Cameron and Werner Herzog who used it [...]