Gallery from the forest camp of the NATO DIANA Estonian accelerator

Teams from the second cohort of the Estonian NATO DIANA accelerator met in Estonia for the first time in January. They spent two days of a busy week of training in a forest camp at the Roosta Holiday Village. The location deep in the countryside allowed the seven companies accepted by the accelerator – Factiverse, Scaleout, IS-Wireless, ResQuant, Microamp Solutions, Telearmy and Wayren – to ignore all outside distractions and focus on practical training and individual meetings.

The key themes of the forest camp were leading a team, differences from the world of startups, business models for dual-use solutions, and product development. The teams from Poland, Estonia, Sweden and Norway were supported by trainers from the Combat Ready team and by Villiko Nurmoja and Tauri Tuubel.

Head of the Tehnopol Startup Incubator Anne-Liisa Elbrecht said the teams were full of enthusiasm to get going: “All seven teams came to Estonia to get the most they can out of the programme. The feedback from the forest camp has been very encouraging and the teams are very much looking forward to being able to come to Estonia again in March”.

Co-founder and CTO of Microamp Solutions Marcin Góralczyk agreed: “I am certain that the NATO DIANA Estonia accelerator will boost our sales and help the company develop a long way”.

The base for the camp gave the teams not only training, but also the chance to go for walks through the snow by the sea, and try out the local sauna traditions. On the journey back to Tallinn they had fully switched back into work mode though, and the bus was lit up by laptop screens in the darkness as the startups worked on their pitches for the opening event the next day.

The accelerator in Estonia is run by the Tehnopol Startup Incubator working together with Sparkup the Tartu Science Park. The funding to start the accelerator in Estonia comes from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications with support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defence and the city of Tallinn. Estonian contributors to building the pan-Alliance network of testing centres are TalTech, the University of Tartu, Foundation CR14, the National Defence College, the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences, the Estonian Aviation Academy, and Metrosert.

The full gallery from the forest camp can be found here.