
The teams of Ajujaht will be coached by the best of their fields from Estonia and abroad
Every year, a jury complied of entrepreneurs, investors, and experts of different fields selects the best 30 business ideas from all over Estonia which will get an opportunity to take part in an intensive four-months accelerator programme Ajujaht which will equip them with the knowledge and tools for starting their businesses and implementing their business ideas. The teams participating in the Ajujaht accelerator will be coached by the best of their fields from Estonia as well as from abroad.
Alar Kolk is coaching the teams of Ajujaht on creating and developing a business model and on innovation.
Alar has trained over 3,000 executives to create successful business models in the last 15 years. Among others, he has consulted global corporations, such as Amadeus, FCA, Ferrero, Empower, and Google. He is the founder and President of the European Innovation Academy (EIA) and has previously been employed as the head of Enterprise Estonia and as the Vice-Rector of Tallinn University of Technology. The European Innovation Academy has now become one of the largest business accelerators in the world, having assisted over 4,000 entrepreneurs of 75 different nationalities.
Intensive pitch training by Gleb Maltsev will elevate the performing and presentation techniques of the teams to the next level.
Gleb is known as one of the most charismatic and successful pitch trainers in the start-up world. Gleb listens to more than 900 speeches, presentations, and pitches every year. He has trained hundreds of managers to speak at international events, such as the Mobile World Congress, the Smart City Expo, and electronica, and founders of start-ups to pitch at conferences, such as Slush, Latitude59, TechChill, and LOGIN.
Gleb has also helped designers whose office walls are covered with awards to take their message to the client. He has worked with researches who have dedicated their lives to studying insects, metals, wood, or our genes, helping them overcome the so-called ‘baggage of knowledge’ and taught them to explain their complex work in a manner which can be grasped by regular people. He has helped the teams of Ajujaht to shape their business ideas into convincing messages and taught them how to pitch the ideas even more convincingly for several years.
He is a co-founder of the Fundwise investment platform. Every year, he works with scores of entrepreneurs and executives to develop their expression and speaking skills and everything that comes with this.
Howard Kingston (Ireland) is one of the most warmly welcomed and loved coaches of the Ajujaht development programme who focusses on product development, marketing, and sales within the framework of Ajujaht.
Howard helps companies and marketers to grow. He is a co-founder of and the head of digital marketing at General Assembly London where he has trained over 2,000 marketers, entrepreneurs, and venture capital undertakings. Fast Company magazine has named General Assembly London as one of the most innovative education companies in the world.
Howard speaks and trains regularly at top-level conferences and seminars all over the world, such as SXSW and the Web Summit, and his work has been published several times in global publications, such as Huffington Post, The Guardian, Forbes, etc.
Howard’s main fields of advising and coaching include digital marketing strategy, growth marketing & hacking, development of marketing strategies, and analytics.
Markko Karu is developing and training the teams of Ajujaht in the fields of branding, design, and marketing.
Markko Karu has advised over 200 organisations and companies on the issues of the brand and communication, while also founding his own companies and being one of the most important supporters and promoters of the Estonian design landscape.
He has worked as a graphic designer, animator, AD, and creative director for over 20 years. He is a co-founder of Velvet, one of the most successful and best-known design agencies in Estonia, as well as a co-founder of the service design and branding agency Brand Manual. Markko has been operating as a lecturer and consultant in the fields of product development and communication since 2014. He has also been involved with founding several start-ups (Qminder, Hourdini, Skillific).
Markko’s toolbox includes business model analysis, prototyping, structuring and modelling of information, teamwork, management of changes, and design.
Riivo Anton is training the teams on relationships with investors and on attracting funding.
Riivo is an Estonian entrepreneur and investor in early-phase start-ups. Riivo is also the founder of Civitta, the largest management consulting company in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as one of the founders of the Estonian Business Angels Network and Startup Wise Guys.
At the end of 2017, he founded the venture capital foundation United Angels VC which is involved with angel investments. Riivo has injected over 20 angel investments into start-ups, his portfolio includes several successful Estonian start-ups, such as Veriff, Monese, LeapIn, Timbeter, etc. In addition to the field of investments, Riivo is also an active mentor of Ajujaht, the Tehnopoli start-up incubator, and the Startup Wise Guys accelerator.