Last Thursday and Friday our hard work paid off. On Thursday side events like the investor day and founders day took place, and especially Miko working with investor relations got to see how his hard work turned out. Jontte was already active on social media reporting about happenings and the rest of us prepared at the venue for the big day; Friday.

On Friday our amazing speakers and startups rocked the stages and exhibitors and guests interacted. Aada hold the strings for one of the stages as stage manager (surprisingly for “Sandstorm” stage as a Finn), Jontte writing articles and the rest helping their respective teams wherever needed. Annica was running around either with the Event Experience team, making sure that all our volunteers had a good time or helped out where needed. Mischa worked closely with the SWAT team checking the badges of everyone entering the backstage and speakers’ area. Although our tasks were quite different, they all counted for hours of work and attention to detail. Some of us even had time to listen to the wonderfully inspiring speakers, such as Bibop Gresta (Co-Founder of Hyperloop) and Shanru Lai (Co-founder of Shopback).

Friday started off at 6.45am and we had our morning briefing together with all the volunteers at 7am. Thanks to the vast amount of volunteers, we managed to get all details in place by 9am when the main doors opened. The halls were quickly buzzing with excitement and startup representatives were eager to present their companies to their first visitors. As the first keynotes started, exhibitors, investors, founders and media people gathered around the main stage to kick the day off. The rest of the day went by extremely fast, as we all attended to our tasks and tried to make SLUSH the best possible event experience.

The last week before Slush consisted of little sleep and a lot of last minute fires, but we pulled through and are proud of our work. Although Slush Singapore is over for this year, many of us are considering returning in one way or another. The last weeks have indeed been challenging, stressful and hectic, but also very educational, inspiring, different and FUN. We have experienced working in teams of great diversity, but Slush people have one thing in common: at the end of the day they are always cheerful, friendly and creative individuals, who thrive in an international environment where challenges are embraced rather than rejected. We have gained so much experience and knowledge from being part of this community, both on a personal and professional level.

We are definitely ready to change something. Or everything.

Picture: Petri Anttila

Last Saturday we had our Volunteer Kick-off, which Annica has been working on together with her team. During the day we did team bonding exercises with Ethen Ong from Positive Intentions, fantastic guy! Full of energy and did really well in engaging everyone there, which was around 110-120 people. He got us all very caught up in trying to save an egg from breaking when throwing it against a wall.

We also had two speakers who came to our Kick-off event. Entrepreneurial speaker Gerald Tock from Kommunity Venture was there to talk about his journey from working in the Government, to become an entrepreneur to a VC. He shared with us some of what he learnt from being in all these three sectors, which was really inspiring.

 

Our second speaker was Nemo Ashong from Empjoyment, who was there to share with us about exceptional service. This he did through an interesting way, by not telling us what he felt is good service, but by getting everyone to explore their own memories and develop their thoughts about service from that aspect.

Of course we also shared more details about the actual D-day with our volunteers and Anna Ratala, Head of Slush Singapore, had an inspirational talk about Sluh. Overall it was a great day, and people seemed to enjoy the program, which made (especially Annica) very happy. This day was a good start to Slush Singapore 2018.  Bring it on SLUSH SINGAPORE 2018, we’re ready for you!

Little India is a district located West of the Downtown area and originates in colonial Singapore operating under the British policy of ethnic segregation.  This district also attracted farmers and other settlers because of the proximity to the river Serangoon, which played a crucial part in stock-raising. Little India is nowadays a melting pot of different cultures, although the atmosphere remains predominantly Indian. Chinese grocery and hardware stores are squeezed in between Indian restaurants and jewellery shops. The air smells of spices and food as the visual impacts of temples and busy streets entice tourists to wander off course. All your senses will surely be fulfilled here, and the buzzing feeling of being part of an intimate community inside a vibrant metropolis struck us.

Buddhist and Taoist temples are located in the same area as some of Singapore’s most prominent Hindu temples – Sri Srinivasa Perumal and Sri Veeramakaliamman. Tourists can easily visit both temples during the same visit in Little India, since distances are short and most sights are located on the same streets. Sri Veeramakaliamman was exceptionally busy when we visited it. People were meditating, praying and hanging out inside the temple, performing various different personal rituals in front of the many shrines and depictions of Hindu gods. Tourists were also eager to find the perfect angle to capture a picture of the horrifying goddess Kali.

All in all, Indians have indeed managed to build a new life here, one that is especially reflected in the flourishing diversity of different Indian states represented in local cuisine.

 

The time has flies here and the fourth and second last week started today. This means that Slush Singapore is already next week!

It has been a crazy rollercoaster and the speed is only getting higher, while we approach Slush. Some differences to note about the working culture here in Asia is the long work days. Our days at the office have been anything between 9-12 hours and 9-18 is the “office hours” we have been told. Also when approaching an event of this size every project worker knows there is a last crunch to push through and we’re just in this crunch to help the core team. This means to push your boundaries when it comes to knowledge, skills and time. How convenient Slush Singapores theme this year is to push boundaries.

Other cultural differences have been the work and freetime floating in to each other. We often feel that here you are expected to be available at all times and work is done almost around the clock. Maybe the active working hours aren’t that much higher than in Finland in the end but in Finland it’s more common to separate work and spare time clearly. Sometimes we miss Finnish punctuality, but at the same time we notice that the end result might be the same here but the way there is just a bit different and not as structured as home.

We have tried to do as much as sightseeing as possible during our few free days and sometimes during the evenings if we manage to leave the office in time. Luckily our offices have nice views and offer a comfortable surrounding to spend our long days. This also explains why we haven’t had time to blog as much as we have wanted, little time to process everything.

To wrap up with some sightseeing: last Thursday night we spent at the famous Marina Sands Bay hotel’s rooftop bar and enjoyed the amazing view over the city while sipping a expensive drink (something to note also; alcohol is even more expensive here than in Finland). Marina Sands Bay is known for it’s infinity pool overlooking the city, too bad that’s only for hotel guests.

More sightseeing and insights are put into words this very moment so stay tuned. We are waiting to share more of our highlights here in Singapore; while it is a once in a lifetime experience.

 

We got the amazing opportunity to visit some local startups here in Singapore, accompanied by the Slush team and the volunteers. The companies we visited were:

Shopback: A loyalty and discovery platform for online retailers. Customers who use Shopback find and receive discounts easier.

Glints: A recruitment platform for companies to find the best talent on the market.

99.co: A firm focusing on making it easier to rent and sell property via an online platform.

Xfers: A financial technology firm with a vision to build a unified banking payment platform in Southeast Asia.

We learnt a lot about the company cultures and how their day to day business looks like. In the end there was a interesting panel discussion. The panelists consisted of workers from the startups we visited, and they shared their backgrounds and insights in working in a startup versus corporation and gave some career advice.

 

One of the things that makes Slush so special is that it is a volunteer driven event. Last year Slush Singapore had over 200 volunteers from 22 different countries and this year we got to help with the recruitment.

Aada, Annica and Jontte was given the opportunity to go on “roadshows” to local universities. The purpose of the roadshows is very simple: recruiting the best volunteers possible.
The task was surprisingly demanding as one had to be very out there and “in your face”. Even though the days on the road were tiring they were a lot of fun, we got to meet a lot of different people and it was great connecting with people who genuinely were interested in Slush and in the different tasks we had to offer.

The days came with a lot of rejection, but the times that we succeeded and got an awesome person to join our awesome team were worth all the cold showers.

All in all the days were a lot of fun and we were happy to do something important for Slush, because without the volunteers the event is impossible to pull off.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kelvin, Annica and Jontte chatting with potential volunteers.

We have two offices that we work in here in Singapore. Both of them are co-working spaces, where different startups can rent either their own office, or just get access to the common areas in the office. Collision 8, at High Street Center, is our main office were we have our own office space.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also work at The Great Room, which is about 400 m from Collision 8. Here we only have access to the common working areas.

We enjoy our working environments a lot, they give a nice boost to your workday and the views are amazing!

 

 

The core of Slush is to build a worldwide startup community for change-makers, by change-makers. Slush has always been about its vibe – an explosion of energy and drive, fueled by passion.

We believe that by challenging ourselves and our entrepreneurial minds we can overcome some of the biggest problems of today. Technology and inspiration are not enough alone. Change happens by pushing boundaries, and this is exactly what Slush Singapore 2018 calls for, change makers to join us in pushing these boundaries.

This year we are challenging you with five different tracks that are the core themes of Slush Singapore 2018; In the Labs, What’s next really?, Ethos and Virtue, Hustler’s DNA and last but not least Everything’s Finite. With these themes we are trying to push you to push your boundaries and to think about what happens next.

In other words Slush Singapore is much more than only a tech conference. It’s about building a worldwide startup community and the yearly event is a platform for doing just that.

The Slush core team with their huge expertise and know-how, guides us in our work and we are grateful for the warm welcome. We have already been given various challenging and exciting tasks within marketing, investor relations, volunteer and program management. We will get good insight into many aspects of organizing an unique event like Slush. 

Here you see almost all of the core team and us Finns.

Aada Willberg, 24, Turku, Economics

 

If you had a superpower what would it be?

Reading other’s thoughts. I know it would be super exhausting but I’m too curious to know what’s going on in other people’s heads.

Three things that pop in your mind when thinking of Singapore?

Crazy buildings, fried food and that Chewing Gum is illegal

One thing you already learnt about Slush?

It’s not another tech conference! It’s much much more

Share a life advice/ life lesson?

It’s tattooed so I don’t forget it; Dream.

Michaela “Mischa” Hagelin, 25, Turku, Comparative Religion/Organizations & Leadership 

If you had a superpower what would it be?

Power mimicry. Being able to write like J.K. Rowling, invent like Elon Musk and train like Cris Cyborg would be a dream come true.

Three things that pop in your mind when thinking of Singapore?

Futurism, fried food and Singlish.

One thing you already learnt about Slush?

The ideas converted into action stem from a diverse community of speakers, volunteers, thinkers and innovators.

Share a life advice/ life lesson?

A person’s true character shows in how they treat those who can do nothing for them, instead of how they treat their “equals”.

 

Miko Weckström, 21, Porvoo, Accounting 

If you had a superpower what would it be?

Teleportation! I could work here in Singapore, but at the same time be with my friends, family and my wonderful girlfriend in Finland!

Three things that pop in your mind when thinking of Singapore?

Food, harbour and moist.

One thing you already learnt about Slush?

The people working here are truly special and wonderful!

Share a life advice/ life lesson?

Focus on the important things in your life. Your life will be so much better if you just stop caring about the little things that don’t really matter at all in the long run.

 

Annica Sigfrids, 24, Turku, Social Sciences 

If you had a superpower what would it be?
Definitely flying! Wanna see the whole world.

 

Three things that pop in your mind when thinking of Singapore?
Noodles, Business center of Asia, Durian…

 

One thing you already learnt about Slush?
Slush loves it’s volunteers!

 

Share a life advice/ life lesson?
“De är som det är, och det blir som det blir” = It is what it is, and it’ll become what it’ll become.

 

Jonathan “Jontte” Nyström, 22, Turku, Business management 

If you had a superpower what would it be?

Breathing underwater, I love swimming and diving and would love to explore the oceans.

 

Three things that pop in your mind when thinking of Singapore?
Surveillance cameras, beautiful architecture and Singlish.

One thing you already learnt about Slush?

Slush Singapore doesn’t want you to learn something, it wants you to change something.

Share a life advice/ life lesson?

Be the one you are and accept yourself, no one else can be you.