The project is done!

The final events of Demola Autumn 2016 were last week. On Thursday 12.1.2017 all the teams presented their pitches to other teams and to the companies and teachers. Our team was still finalizing and practicing the pitch during the morning and missed the first batch, where about half of the teams were presenting pitches. Our batch started around 15.00 and we were the first team to show our results. Henriikka and Matilda had been working with the pitch beforehand they also presented it. Me and Mikko were listening excited and nervous in the audience. The pitch went great and we got really good feedback from the judges. As Ohad said, our pitch set the bar high for the other groups. We stayed and listened the other pitches too and there were really good ones with interesting subjects.

Matilda and Henriikka had some biobags with them in the pitch!

After the pitching event, we grabbed some Indian food before the Graduation party. In the graduation, there were some drinks and snacks and we discussed freely with other Demola teams. After some while the distribution of awards began. Many teams got awards of their successful projects and we were nominated of the pivot project. We were really happy about it and wanted then to hear what team was going to win the award of the best project in Demola Autumn 2016. We listened the arguments of the best project, which told that this year the best project wasn’t a very technical product but a simple solution to a simple need and that the product would be very beneficial to the Pirkanmaa region. And then they pronounced the name of the winning team and it was SMART WASTE FLOW!! We couldn’t really believe that it was our team who won. We were both happy and stunned and we couldn’t stop laughing because we didn’t still believe it was really us who were the best! Winning this award was unreal and it really felt that even though we had some difficulties during the project and we had to change the subject, we still could create something successful and valuable. We are all very proud and happy! This was a great end to our journey together.   

Smart Waste Flow!

The awards.

On the following day, Friday 13th, we went to the office of Pirkanmaan Jätehuolto to present the final idea. The meeting went very well and the company was satisfied with the results. After the two intensive days the whole team was extremely happy with the project (and the best project award!) but we were a bit sad that our international team members had to leave before Christmas and were not present in the final events. Nevertheless, every member contributed to the results and now were are curious to see what will happen with Oskar! :)

Link to Demola's blog post about the winning team: 

http://tampere.demola.net/news/smart-waste-flow-winner-campaign

The team (Aili not in the picture).

- Kaisa -

Useful tools for any Demola project

During this autumn, our team made two different campaigns to get more information on biowaste sorting and on potential users of the product that we were creating. Here are the summaries of those two campaigns!

The Survey

In November we did a survey that was sent to friends and colleagues of our team members. The idea of the survey was to get some insights why people are not sorting biowaste and what would encourage them to sort it. Some questions and answers are listed below.

Answers to the survey: 47

Number of residents living in the apartment:

• 1 resident 21%
•  2 residents 52%
• 3 residents 10%
• 4 or more residents 17%

 Apartment type:

• Apartment buildings 66%
• Row house 9%
• One family house 21%

 What would motivate you to sort biowaste better?

•  More space for biowaste bin
• If the process would be easier
•  Better biobags
• Knowing the consequences of not sorting biowaste
• Easy to use bin
• If it didn’t smell so bad 
• A bin/biobags that prevent the fruit flies
• Own composter
•  A collection point closer
•  Reward, money

 If you don’t sort your biowaste, why is that?

• No place to put the biowaste in 
•  Biowaste collection point is too far/in the wrong direction
• It smells and brings fruit flies
• Too little biowaste

What is your biggest problem with sorting biowaste? (The amount of answers in brackets)

• Messines (5)
• Bad biobags/leaking (8)
•  The effort of disposing biowaste frequently/laziness (5)
• No space/biobin (9)
• Not enough biowaste (3)
• Smell (6)
• Fruit flies (3)
• Knowledge (3)

 Do you have any idea how the biowaste sorting could be developed?

• Robotic waste management
• Better biobags/free baobabs
• Better containers/less smelly/no flies
• Kitchen design and more space for biowaste container
• Awareness of the importance of sorting waste/campaign
•  Money, sanction if not sorted

All in all, the survey was a big succeess because with the results we were able to create the Oskar biowaste bin idea. People were struggling with leaking biobags that smelled and there was also too little space to put the biowaste. Based on these answers we wanted to create a table-top bin that had a lid to prevent bad smells from spreading to the kitchen. 

                       

The Facebook Ad Campaign

Before the Christmas Holidays, our team decided to run a Facebook ad campaign. The Facebook campaign for our product Oskar was running for three consecutive days, during which we targeted different customer segments. The goal was to measure how these different groups were interested in our product. We had three different segments and each segment was measured per day. The campaign was targeted to people living in Pirkanmaa region. The segments based on different interests were:

• Sustainability: environmentalism, WWF, green politics recycling, climate change etc.
• Parents: parenting, day care, childhood etc.
• Students: Pirkanmaa area universities, student politics, students etc.

Making the Facebook ad campaign was really educational and the team learned a lot about online advertising and clickthrough rates (CTRs). First, we made the Facebook ad and the ad was in Finnish since most of the potential users were from Finland.

The Facebook ad.

Secondly, we made a new website where people would be directed when clicking on the ad. This new website contained some information of the Oskar product and the whole Demola project.

The logo for the Oskar product.

The link to the Oskar website: https://smartwasteflow.wordpress.com

The average CTR for the whole campaign was 0,28 %, which means that 0,28 % of those people who saw the ad clicked on it. The campaign was run with only a small amount of money, which is why it didn't get that many links. However, we gained some new important insights. The number of clicks was relatively same between the different segments. Interestingly, women clicked on the ad more than men, which indicated that the idea got more attention among women. These insights gave us information on how to potentially market the product and design it even further. 

The Demola project is soon finished and we are preparing for the final pitch event. Still a lot to do but we are excited the present the idea!

- Henriikka -

Last meeting with the whole team

As the exchange students are leaving before Christmas we wanted to set up a last meeting with the whole group to talk about the actual situation, things which need to be done and the last steps of the project as the solution needs be presented in mid January 2017. The meeting was held on the 13th of December and also Saara from PJH and Ohad from Demola were there to give some feedback and some last ideas.

Our Project partner so far likes our solution and especially the fact that the solution is easy to implement and easy to use. Furthermore they appreciate that we were getting some insights of a survey and also that we are setting up a Facebook campaign to provide the project partner even with more information about the target group.

In this meeting we discussed the last big steps of this project. So in January there is going to be the final pitch at Demola New Factory, the final pitch for the Project partner and the final meeting with the Project partner.

For these pitches and meetings there is still some work to do but we are hard working to present our idea successfully and to convince our project partner of our solution!

- Simone -

Our team part 7: Matilda

Hi!

My name is Matilda, like that Roald Dahl’s children’s book. Unfortunately though, I don’t have the ability to move things with just the force of my mind, unlike the Matilda of that story.

I’m studying public law in the University of Tampere, but I spent last year studying environmental sciences in the University of Iceland. Combining these studies, environmental law is what I’m currently concentrating on learning more about - and our waste flow project has been a great opportunity to enhance that knowledge in the field of waste management and recycling legislation.

Being still in the middle of my studies, I find consumerism and material flows especially interesting, as that is something everyone faces on a daily basis regardless of one’s degree or profession. Tiny daily decisions, but definitely important ones. And I’m very happy that I made the decision to apply to Demola this autumn, we had an amazing multidisciplinary team.

- Matilda -

Pitching Workshop

Henrikka and I attended the pitching workshop at the New factory on December 8th. There were speakers that discussed different topics regarding pitching ideas and presenting to an audience. They covered a lot of different areas and useful information. They shared some important tips on body language while presenting, making eye contact with your audience, using your space, and knowing your audience and material. We practiced these tips in small groups and got feedback on how we did. We also heard about Toastmasters and how they are all over the world and what meetings are like. It was interesting to hear stories about the Toastmasters corporation.

The agenda of the event.

- Aili -

Testing Afternoon #2

The second Testing Afternoon was held the first of December in Koilliskeskus which is a Tampere city service center inside a shopping center in Linnainmaa. Like in the first testing afternoon, here we could test our idea and get some feedback from random people. Since this was the first time we could test our new solution the event was really helpful. In the meeting the day before we created this idea of a real product we could come up in this project so that were presenting something more tangible and people could give us some realistic feedback. I brought some good looking canisters that represented the idea furthermore.  

The poster we created for the second testing afternoon.

Finding the place was quite a hassle but eventually we found the place. We had three hours to stay in our stand and wait for people to come and talk to us. Eventually we had only eight different people that gave us some feedback but the discussions with those eight people were really insightful and they gave us really useful feedback. We also got some validation for our idea which is nice since the deadline for this project is coming closer and closer every week and we have still quite a lot of stuff to do.

- Mikko -

Our team part 6: Ane

Hey, my name is Ane. Currently I’m an exchange student at the UTA in the field of Business. Because there’re a lot of exchange contracts between universities in Europe, the exchange possibilities were large. For me the northern countries have attracted me for a long time, partly because of the nature, but also because of their way of handling/organizing certain aspects. The student reports of former exchange students about their stay in Tampere where really positive. Therefore I decided to sign up for this university and so far I don’t regret this choice.

I decided to apply for the Smart waste flow project, because I recognized the problem which each company has with the waste management: wastes cost money, effort, capacity etc. but doesn’t add value for the customers. Finding a proper solution for this problem is really interesting and important, also to raise the environmentally friendliness of the world to a higher level. Right now the project has changed to households as new target group, which is for me personally less interesting because of the lack of business related content. However, also with this project we can have a positive influence on the environment. Within this project my official task is, in addition to the regular activities, updating the playbook (a document in which we record all different kind of information about the project, like for instance the problem, solutions, ideas, planning etc..) However, in practice we often work on this as a group because some consultation with each other is frequently required.

- Ane -