NovaTech and Istanbul

Due to the fact that we got the first prize at ICUBE with the TWIP project, part of our reward was a trip to Istanbul, to another business plan competition – NovaTech. Of course, this was the next level – if ICUBE was organized at a national level, NovaTech was regional: Turkey, Romania, Hungary, Israel, Slovakia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Poland (and I’m almost sure I missed one). The stakes were higher. The competition was better trained. Had a lot more experience. The jury was to be more exigent and… the prize fund was significantly more substantial.

But what I truly cared about was the experience. The people I will meet there. The things we’ll talk about…

So one October morning (Sunday, the 5th, really early in the morning), I and Claudiu were on a plane from Bucharest to Istanbul.  The flight took 55 minutes. It was so short that before I finished my coffee, we were already landing (and I almost spilled the coffee on me). But that in itself is a story. We get to Istanbul and the the guys from BIMT (Bulgarian Institute for Management and Technology). Actually, the organizer who came to meet us at the airport was Denitsa Ezekieva and she was a really good host to us. We stayed at the Armada hotel – which was really nice.

In the evening, we visited the old part of Istanbul. The next day we rehearsed our presentation. In the afternoon, we had a consultation session with one of the collaborators from the context. He gave us a few good pointers and hints, regarding what to emphasize in our presentation.

There were a lot of good projects in the contest. Did I say good? I mean great. One could see the authours put a lot of efffort in realizing them. We had only worked on TWIP for less than 3 months. There were people there who had been working for years on their projects. In the evening, there was an official dinner party, where we got a chance to network, get to know our competition better and have bunch of laughs and drinks. It was great and there was a lot of information coming our way – professionally, personally, culturally. I (20) and Claudiu(21) were the youngest people in the contest and that was really encouraging – not in the sense that we’d win, but in the sense that we had a lot ahead of us and we got a head-start on this whole business context.

We saw a backtyping keyboard (Grippity). We saw a strong data-ming project (DataStrata). We saw a plan for a flu vaccine (VacciPill). Internal localization systems (ITC). Integration of GPS, mobile devices and photo storage (CiteWalk). Interactive image storing (Imagga). Medical and physical activity monitoring (Softstepper). The list goes on…

This was the PPT we showed at NovaTech

[back then we thought "Infinite Circle" was a better name for our company then "Ninth Prime" ]

Our presentation went great. Just as I imagined it to be. A lot of good questions and a lot of good answers at the end. But there was  a lot of work to be done with our project. We had a lot to learn back then. And we still do

 

The TWIP presentation

 

 

When the end results came in, I was really disappointed. For 10 minutes or so. We didn’t make it in the first three. But the disappointment faded away fast, when I realized that the winners really deserved it; they had a lot more experience than we did and they’d put a lot more work in their projects. Years instead of months, remember? And then the sour turned into sweet when I realized we had made it this far and there was a lot on the road of opportunities ahead of us.

 

Waiting for the final results

That (last) evening we went out in Istanbul. Bengi and Etkin, also participants (and winners!) were our guides (and great hosts) in the city. They showed us through the new, central part of Istanbul. After we got something to eat, we sat down in this… Turkish pub (I’m not sure how they call it) for a beer and a “narghilea” (the thing you smoke – see pictures for details). We exchanged Romanian, Israeli and Serbian jokes and wisdom for the rest of the night with Dror and Jacob (Israel), but also with Marko and Nedelkjo (Serbia) and … well… others.

Smoking "narghilea"

[ Some more pictures you can find here ]

 

We had a plane back to Bucharest to catch in the morning. So at about 3-4 AM we left for the hotel. The next day, we almost lost the plane (due to an extensive duty free shopping spree in Ataturk Airport). In 10 minutes, I and Claudiu went through half of the aiport and through 2 over-crowded checkpoints. One of the officers at a checkpoint asked us “So why are you so late?”. I, with my hands full of shopping bags said “Traffic, traffic”… The guy was like “Yeah, yeah… traffic – duty free, duty free!”. We bearly (and I can’t stress that enough) made the flight in a way that would make even Jack Bauer proud.

We came back to Bucharest. Exhausted. But satisfied & with a lot of information to get settled in our minds. And with a lot of work still to be done.

 

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Tags: TWIP, competition, NOVATECH, Istanbul, fun, ataturk

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