After 2 incredible years of growing Robotex, I’m moving to the sidelines
It’s time to take an advisory role at Robotex and focus more on automation and other types of emerging technologies.
On April 2nd 2017, I got a cold e-mail from Ave. She introduced herself as the new CEO of Robotex with a goal to make the festival into the most known robotics event in Europe. Adding that they are looking for someone with my skill to join the team as the Chief International Officer — with a task to coordinate international relations and organize the cooperation with European businesses, universities and other big names in robotics.
Having just left my position at Shipitwise, I was indeed open for new projects. However, it took a few meetings with Ave (and our benefactor, Ahti) before I agreed to help them out for the next 3–6 months. Initially with a goal to learn more about robotics and travel for a few months.
What followed was a rollercoaster ride for 2 years, which changed my life in a way that I would have never dreamed of would ever happen. During that time, I:
- Travelled to over 21 countries around the world, including China x4, Belgium x3, Finland x3, Germany x3, the Netherlands x3, Spain x3, the United States x3, Colombia x2, France x2, India x2, Japan x2, Latvia x2, Portugal x2, Belarus, Cyprus, Denmark, Malaysia, Malta, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom with various teammates joining at various trips.
- Took Robotex from an Estonian based festival to a global network with operations in 15 countries, including Afghanistan, Anguilla, Armenia, China, Colombia, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Guatemala, India, Japan, Mali, Monaco, Nigeria, and the United States with tens of other people getting ready to take the concept to their countries.
- Progressed into the position of the Chairman of the Board.
- Started the process to turn Robotex from an event organiser to a community manager. (still an ongoing process)
- Attended the first four Robotex events hosted outside of Estonia — Robotex Cyprus, Robotex China, Robotex Colombia and Robotex India. And partied with some Chinese mafia people in Shanghai together with Allar (one of our competition coordinators).
- Made English the main communication language at Robotex International and of our marketing.
- On-boarded our first non-Estonian teammate, Zack.
- Helped to organise two Robotex International festivals in Tallinn with over 20'000 people and 1'000 robots attending both of ’em. Last time, from 54 countries!
- Brought over 80 speakers from 20 countries to our conference.
- Expanded our partner network and technology expo from just Estonian based companies and universities to international organisations.
- Introduced the concepts of entrepreneurship challenge and various innovation challenges.
- Learned what BCI means — brain-computer interface — and how the technology will soon help us move things with our minds!
- Got nominated as one of the TOP 10 Young Entrepreneurs of 2018 in Estonia.
I’m still in awe when I reflect on everything that has happened to me in the last 2 years. I’m grateful for all the help I’ve received from so many friends, family, advisors and supporters in that time.
Why moving to the sidelines?
After the initial 2-3 months of travelling and promoting, I decided that Robotex could be much more than just the most known robotics event in Europe. That’s when I put together the first draft of a plan to take it from an Estonian based event into a global robotics community. And agreed to stay on board as the Chairman of the organisation for as long as it would take to make it happen.
18 months later, we have expanded the Robotex community to 15 markets with tens of other people getting ready to take the concept to their countries. It seems like everything’s moving on the right track, however, I have realised that the premise I had in mid-2017 was wrong.
In 2001, Robotex was started as an initiative to kickstart the robotics education in Estonia. Over the years, it grew into something that’s much bigger than Estonia. And I believed it to also have the chance to grow bigger than the educational competitions — to kickstart the development of innovative emerging technology solutions around the world.
I now understand that those two concepts need two different types of organisations. Mostly because people have a clear understanding of what Robotex is, and trying to change any of that has already started to make them confused.
Meanwhile, the core team of Robotex also cannot handle simultaneously chasing two quite different goals (even if they are in a similar domain — robotics and other futuristic technologies). And for that reason, we have decided to focus only on our core strength.
But this was something that excited me in the first place and gave me the reason to stay on board for longer than initially planned. Now that this is gone, I came to the conclusion that my place with Robotex is not in an operational role going forward.
In stepping away from my day to day duties, I want to make space for others to focus their time fully on developing Robotex as the organisation generating the next 1'000'000 robotics engineers and running big family festivals around the world.
With that, I see myself as Robotex’ biggest cheerleader and even though I’m not operationally active, Ave and I are both excited for me to step into a non-executive role as an advisor going forward — helping to make strategies and opening doors. My plan with this role is to keep being a sounding board to Ave, our international family and the local team.
Personally, I’m really excited about Robotex’ next steps and have full confidence in Ave, especially now that she can fully lean into the direction of making Robotex into the most known robotics festival around the world, as well as initiate various other educational activities.
Special thanks and gratitude
I’m particularly grateful to Ave, who from the very start supported my naive approaches and vision. In particular for giving me an opportunity to see the world (and lots of airports) while promoting Robotex.
I’m also particularly grateful for the amazing group of people that make up the Robotex team as it stands today, to Allar, Karl-Tanel and Priit for having become a true rock of solidity to Robotex that a big part of the organisation relies on. I’ve learned so much from all of you throughout our time together.
I’m grateful to all the other Robotex family members, Ali, Angela, Ayumi, Chad, Davoud, Eglis, Gopal, Harvey, Holger, Johannes, Jonathan, Juliana, Kaarel, Kadri, Karoliina, Katrin, Kazutoshi, Kingsley, Kätlin, Mari, Michael, Mikk, Mondela, Panicos, Ramon, Ricardo, Roya, Seydou, Shane, Stavros, Takumi, Teresa, Vishal, Yuriko, Zack and so many others (I know I’m forgetting some here!), whom I had the chance to work with over the last years. The more I reflect on it, the more I’m grateful that we were able to bring such a compassionate group of people together, who truly think about how we treat each other and our customers.
I’m excited about Robotex in 2019! To new waters and explorations!
What’s next for me?
After lots of reflection in the last few weeks and coming to the conclusion to leave, I am venturing out into the world again looking for what to do next.
For sure, I want to keep helping to accelerate the adoption of emerging technologies (e.g. robotics and various immersive technologies) around the world. There are some thoughts on what needs to be done and I hope to be able to tell more about that soon.
Meanwhile, I have realised that manufacturing and other types of companies that use heavy machinery are ready for more automation but they have no clue where to start, nor which parts to omit. Therefore we plan to run a few pilots with some enterprises to see whether we could help them…
But in general, I am once again free to use my marketing and communication skills to help innovative companies with international and investor relations, and various types of business development.
