Welcoming Five New Countries To Our Global Family
Robotex has just expanded to Anguilla, Armenia, Japan, Mali and Monaco.
--
It was only 12 months ago when I took my first flight to China, meeting three potential partners for expanding Robotex to Asia. Until that, we were just an Estonian-based robotics competition that had “accidentally” become the biggest in Europe. With no real plans to take over anything.
By that time, our friends from Cyprus had hosted their first local Robotex event. But it did not start out as a franchise. They simply had asked for the right to use our brand on the island, as friends, to get the local robotics movement going.
But then it struck us!
Why not make Robotex into a global brand?
Becoming the biggest of the worlds…
We spent the rest of 2017 only focusing on making Robotex International the biggest robotics festival on the planet. Achieving this by hosting 27000+ people and 1346 robots over a course of a weekend in Tallinn.
Local goals met, we could take some time off and plan the next 10 years of Robotex. That is when we decided to expand to 25 countries in 2018 while becoming more than just an event hosting robotics challenges.
Setting up robotics education programs, Roboversity which started with summer programs for students and a teacher training boot camp in Estonia.
Initiating robotics innovation programs, Robovation that is led by the Entrepreneurial Challenge.
Making our conference into the most epic frontier tech executive gathering in the Nordics — bringing together 1000 CxO/SVP level executives, policy makers, investors and startups.
And focusing much more on connecting the future engineering talent with industry-leading automation companies.
All that seems to have helped us onboard Greece, Colombia, India, (Iran — until closed), Afghanistan, Nigeria, the USA and Guatemala over the course of January to May.
Now, two months later, we have added five new countries to our family, including Anguilla (the Carribean island), Armenia, Japan, Mali & Monaco.
This means we are just 10 short from our this years goal. But it should not be hard to achieve with 35+ countries that we are already in talks with…
How does this global family grow?
We have been frequently asked: “What does it mean that you entered a new country? Why do they want to join you? And how do you even find those partners?”
First, opening Robotex in a new country means that we have found a local team of people, usually a robotics club or startup incubator that wants to bring Robotex to their country AND we have set the approximate date for their first robotics festival. The events are the cornerstone of Robotex. Meanwhile, our network is differentiated by the all the extra activities we are involved in. All which the local teams will implement over time.
The reasons why they want to join us may vary between the partners. But the overall stimulus seems to be the fact that we are:
1) Not charging high franchise fees but focus on revenue sharing model;
2) Combining education with entrepreneurial programs that help to generate startups and innovation;
3) Helping local teams develop ways of generating revenue while searching for global sponsors;
4) Bringing the ever-expanding international network to them.
As for finding the partners — They seem to find us…
In fact, we have not gone to any country particularly searching for partners that could open up Robotex there. Of course, we are constantly pitching our ideas and model. But all the partners so far have found us by themselves.
- Anguilla — I accidentally met a visionary guy, Jose Vanterpool, at Tallinn e-Governance conference when I spoke about Robotex wanting to set up foreign aid programs to help less developed regions. He came to me afterwards, we chatted and a few months later, he is about to set up our first franchise in the Caribbean islands. Using the robots MakeBlock and Robotex gave him.
- Armenia — A friend from Lift99/Garage48 went to Georgia and met this bunch of hardworking robotics enthusiasts from Armenia who had built a network of robotics schools covering the country. She introduced us and look what happened.
- Japan — Vivita, the youth accelerator started by Mistletoe venture capital announced their plan to open up a hub in Tallinn. They came to Latitude59. We met with their team, including their founder Taizo Son. And two months later, we are working to open up in Japan.
- Mali — In January, a gentleman named Michael wrote us, asking whether Africa is interesting for us. Of course! So we started setting things up there. Now already talking about covering the whole of Western Africa (and the rest of Africa with the help of Kingsley from Nigeria).
- Monaco — Investor whose roots go back to South Africa and Australia wrote to one of the founding father’s of Estonian Startup Ecosystem, Priit from Mooncascade that he is coming to Estonia and wants to meet startups and ecosystem players. Later we discovered that his wife is very much into education and a few months later, we are not just covering Monaco but also the South of France and North of Italy together with this wonderful family.
So yeah, we are growing like wildfire!
And looking to enter at least 10 more countries within 2018. Join us!
In 2018, already co-hosting events in Cyprus (done), China (August), Colombia (September), Afghanistan (October), India (October), Guatemala (October), Mali (October), Nigeria (October), Greece (November), Estonia/International (November) + pre-events in Anguilla, Japan, Monaco and the United States.
Robotex International (November 30 — December 2) is our annual event and the Biggest Robotics Festival on the Planet. Thousands of engineers, executives, students and families come together to be inspired by industry leaders, build robots for various challenges and learn about the latest technology innovations.
