With the Student Challenge just launched, it’s time to introduce a speaker who to look up to and whose story to find inspirational when diving into new challenges.

Written by Anna Vildaus

You might think all Finns are born with a startup idea in mind, but actually, this great association of Finland and startups can be originated back in the days when Slush took off internationally.

Miki as the one whose initiative gave it the rebirth back in 2011, had a goal for building a welcoming culture and a community for start-ups in Finland. From the moment he was encouraged by Peter Vesterbacka and got his hands on the event becoming the CEO, it grew from 1500 attendees with mostly students to 13’000 visitors including world-known founders, investors, and speakers.

The next step for Miki was founding Wolt – a payment app, expanding rapidly from the day one. This app is a platform for food suppliers and customers to meet, offering a simple ordering and delivery processes. Talk about building on your past experience! With Wolt raising half a million EUR as seed funding and later around 10 mil.EUR to expand outside Finland, Miki got featured on Bloomberg and The 30 under 30 list by Forbes in 2016.

Just like Slush got its international recognition in a short time, Wolt is working on its availability as well and besides already successfully operating in several cities in Finland and Sweden, Copenhagen in Denmark and Tallinn, Tartu in Estonia, the next destinations to enter are Latvia and Lithuania.

Do the math and get onboard team Wolt if the combination of tech and food sounds like an exciting career step for you! Meanwhile, visit TechChill 2018 and hear Miki and Peter’s side of the story. The Early bird will get you right there, and the offer is still on until October 20!