I was honoured to be asked to talk to Unicef area representatives at Geneva today. Startup approach matched quite well with the challenges they face. You need constantly build trust with your network / key players and develop personal relationships. As I write this CNN is showing live show on UK's young royals joining forces for charity. Impact investing for global change gets new influential ambassadors. For me Unicef as an organisation represents a well run business that de

So happy to see happy Stuart in Finland experiencing proper snowy conditions and bringing along a group of teachers from Hong Kong. We saw a lot of Polkuni portfolio teams plus many others and discussed about the coming spring activities. It was so cool to see him getting fired about topics as the big picture started to take shape combining several odd approaches to bring educational and startup mentality to corporates in Asia. Let's see what he comes up with during the sprin

Do you have the following properties: - Relevant experience, network and ability - Honesty and integrity - Courage to speak up - Time and energy to commit If YES you are qualified to apply as a Board member. I sit in many startup boards in my portfolio companies. I joined Boardman2020 and in the last meetings we discussed a lot about the ownership strategy, using yearly clock on board activities and board member annual internal reviews on activity. The biggest takeaway was t

It's time to take a break with music this spring. Music is your Minimal Viable Connector. The vital reasons for humans to exist are built around stories, music and dance. When you have no connection with someone try singing! When you are down try humming. What does your company sound like? Did you think that you are not creative enough to make music? How about participating into song making contest and meeting your idol or making cool music to your art? What do you sound like

During my time in Tokyo, I had the chance to make a presentation to a group of local people from around Tokyo who all had an interest in EdTech or Finnish education. I was truly amazed so many people turned up on a horrible cold weather, on a Saturday night, to see a talk in English !!. I was thinking would I go out on Saturday a night in HK in horrible weather to watch a talk in Japanese !! Fortunately I do put effort into to making very simple and visual slides so the key m

Japan is a very interesting market, with a population of 127 m people is no small country. The first thing you see and feel in Japan is everywhere is very clean and the people are very helpful, so you get a welcome feel good feeling. From a Polkuni perspective the reason for the trip is to see and learn more about the culture and see what is happening in the EdTech / education scene. I decided it would great to attend a startup event just to get a feel for what happens, given