After much deliberation, the pre-jury has chosen the 6 finalists in this year’s MindTrek LaunchPad competition! In the running for the much coveted €20 000 grand prize are (in alphabetical order):

Cognitive Maps Ltd – Hitlantis
Hitlantis is a community of music makers and the people who want to discover fresh music. The user interface shows artists by genres and arranges artists by the current popularity, “hotness”, which increases according to the activity of the community. Hitlantis offers music lovers a meaningful way to find and connect with similar-minded people.

Everyplay Oy – Applifier
Applifier is the pioneer of cross-promotion on Facebook, a model that lets social games and applications acquire users without paying for them. Applifier solves the acute problem of how to grow more cost-effectively and faster than before.

GigsWiz – Live music analytics and ticketing platform
GigsWiz helps promoters sell more tickets faster by engaging the bands in the ticket sales and marketing. GigsWiz shares a percentage of the ticket booking fee with the artists, who at the same time help sell and promote tickets via social platforms and email lists.

Laurea University of Applied Sciences – Renderfarm.fi
Renderfarm.fi claims to be “the world’s leading publicly distributed rendering service”: a platform for achieving distributed rendering over the Internet. It is a completely free service that enables its users to render their animations or stills by using the computing power of volunteers from around the world.

Starduck Studios Oy – Intoloop
Intoloop is a web and mobile service where people can share their passions and capture their memories in a non-fragmented manner. Intoloop links friends together around their interests, in one service enabling users to see the big picture.

Vuole Oy – Savalanche Webstore Platform
Savalanche is a new kind of sales and marketing channel and it fits inside your Facebook profile, blog or discussion forum. Digitally active consumers can take part in promoting products they respect, by commenting on, discussing and liking them while simultaneously cashing in on the goods’ Internet publicity.

"This year's candidates covered a wide variety of different industries and ideas. Several of the ideas also take advantage of global trends, such as crowdsourcing and different social aspects. It's refreshing to see companies actively promoting the monetisation of their business early on." says MindTrek LaunchPad Pre-Jury member Antti Vilpponen, CEO of ArcticStartup.

Don’t miss each of the finalists pitching their ideas at the final of the MindTrek LaunchPad Competition, taking place on Thursday 7th October. The winner will be announced at the conference on Friday 8th Oct.

The pre-jury extends its thanks and appreciation to all those who submitted their innovative product entries into the competition, congratulates the 6 finalists and looks forward to an exciting final at this year’s MindTrek Conference.