What's it all about?

Innovation festival for the bravest of students and companies

Sprint Innovation Festival is a week-long annual innovation festival that brings together a staggering amount of higher education students, companies, municipalities and third sector organizations as well as experts and researchers from various domains. Formerly known as InnoEvent Tampere, this event is the largest innovation event within the Tampere higher education community. The event offers a unique opportunity for learning and networking.

Over the course of one week, some 500 students will solve real business challenges for various organizations, pulling together as multidisciplinary teams. The students get to put their theoretical know-how into practice and learn new meta skills that complement the things they learned in school. To solve the challenges, the students get support from coaches, experts and members of the organization that presented the challenge. During the week, students and partners will have a unique opportunity to network. There’s a good chance that you’ll find new talent for your organization in this event.

This year the students have an opportunity to invent their own solutions to UN´s sustainable development goals. Is nature, responsible consumption or perhaps sustainable cities and communities close to your heart? In the event you have a chance to bring your own vision to these and numerous other sustainable development goals.

The intensive week will conclude with the jury reviewing the work and picking the best solutions. The best ideas will be noticed and teams will have an possibility to continue working with their ideas even after the event.

The official event languages are English and Finnish.

8
successful festivals
4560
participating students
85+
completed cases
540+
new ideas

FAQ

I have a question about the event which I cannot find the answer to. Who do I contact and how?

If you’ve searched and read through all available information, and still can’t find the answer you need, contact us! You can either send an email or call one of us specifically, if you know to whom send your question. Keep in mind that Sprint Innovation Festival is a big event, and we receive lots of emails. We do answer them but sometimes it may take a little while. After all, we are also only humans!  

Do the participating students receive ETCS?

Of course! Each participant receives 2 ETCS at the end of the event. If you're a Tampere University student, please enroll at  cross-institutional studies (course code in 2021: NN00FH28-3003).  

What if I enroll but turns out I can’t participate?

If you find out before the event begins that you will be unable to participate, although you’ve already enrolled, the first thing you should do is to Contact us! This will make things for us easier and the event run smoother. If you’ll only be absent for a few hours, communicate with your team how you can best work together and divide the workload. Sprint Innovation Festival is an intensive week that requires presence every day. Generally only an illness is accepted as a valid reason for absence.

Who decides the winners for each challenge?

Winners for each challenge are decided by a team of judges. The team of judges is composed of company representative(s), teachers of universities of Tampere and a third-party representative.

Can I change teams in the middle of the week?

Changing teams during the event is generally not possible. We at Sprint Innovation Festival want to emphasize learning through interprofessional collaborative teamwork and communication. If there are exceptional issues within your team that disrupt the workflow, contact Sprint Innovation Festival project team.

Who decides what team I am in and on what basis?

The teams are organized by our project team members. They will make sure every team has the correct amount of students in it, and that the students come from as many different fields of study as possible. This way each team will have several different points of view. The teams will be organized based on enrollments before the event begins. Participants will be let known in which team  they belong a week before the event.

Where do the challenges come from?

Challenges come from the organizations that take part in Sprint Innovation Festival. Our project team members offer their help to the organizations in fine tuning with their challenge before its announcement, but the initial idea for it comes from the organizations themselves.

What does ”a challenge” mean?

Challenge is a question, issue or problem that an organization is currently working on in real life, and is given to student teams of the event by a company representative. In the past challenges have varied from developing the residential area of Hiedanranta, Tampere, to creating a reusable, transmittable gift package for children. The challenges are real, meaning that the organizations don’t just make them up – they are actually problems which the companies are trying to solve and want innovative solutions for.

What does this mean in plain language?

All student participants will be divided into groups containing students from different fields of study and from Universities of Tampere, about 6 to 8 people in total. These teams will be given a real life challenge provided by a company. Teams have five days to come up with a solution to their challenge, which they will get to showcase on the last day of the week.

What is Sprint Innovation Festival?

Sprint Innovation Festival is a five day long innovation competition held annually. Formerly the event was named InnoEvent Tampere. 1000 students from the Tampere Universities work together on actual challenges in teams of 6 to 8 people, in collaboration with coaches and company representatives. The goal of the event is to create innovative solutions that will help the company in question with their challenge in the future. In addition the participating students have a chance to network, work on real life challenges and gain 2 ETCS. At the end of the week the student teams will get to pitch their ideas to the judges who decide the winner for each challenge.

Join the festival!

Become a partner for the innovation festival! Organizations involved in the event get to meet future talents and build their brand as employers within the Tampere higher education community. As a partner, you can present your challenge to the teams, sponsor the event or act as an event supporter.

Yes, count me in