VIDA and the Copernicus Accelerator
In December, Finland’s capital Helsinki is cold and dark. But the hospitality of the people more than makes up for that. Our startup Village Data Analytics was chosen for the Copernicus Accelerator, a programme of the European Union and Copernicus and its bootcamp that took place in Helsinki.
This is a predictably nerdy event, filled with star gazers and earth observers and enthusiastic entrepreneurs of all ages. All the languages of Europe can be heard wafting through the corridors.
The Copernicus Accelerator offers us business support, advisory and network access for the next year. All this is highly welcome. The main benefit however is that it gives us access to a mentor who can accompany and guide us, as we move into the next phase of developing Village Data Analytics. I went through the list of 100 available mentors and very quickly zoomed in on Bruno Sanchez. He was clearly the best fit for us. As co-founder and the former chief scientist of Mapbox, he knows how to turn data into insights and, importantly, a product. He has advised the President of the World Bank on innovation, and, most importantly, he is passionate about using data for good. Or data for development, as we do. Have a look at his profile on www.impactscience.dev.
It was a great first meeting. He very quickly grasped what we do, what we want to achieve, what we lack, and where he can help us (this is food for another article). We discussed various aspects of our business from the product to the business model, the market and our values and corporate structure. But we also talked about books and politics. He is active in the new, pan-European political party VOLT, the party for which I voted at the last European election. I look forward to the coming year of collaborating to help us further build Village Data Analytics and work towards universal energy access.
At the bootcamp, we also met many other interesting companies, learned more about the breadth of space technologies in the fields of satellite imagery, location and navigation, and communication. All in all it was a great two days in the Finnish capital.
-Tobias Engelmeier
