On July 1 and 2, the Creative Business Cup was held in Copenhagen, Denmark, the most important event in the world in the field of entrepreneurship in the creative sector. More than 70 companies from around the world, previously selected in their respective national competitions, were eligible for the prized award: to become the most creative company in the world. And there was Isostopy, who reached the final stages in all the contests of the event in which he participated.
It all started the previous month, when the Creative Industries Network (RIC) considered that our platform for the specialized training of workers in hyper-realistic virtual environments had the degree of innovation and market potential necessary to be a solvent project that represented Spain. The jury considered that our company plays a disruptive role through new technologies, especially focusing on the transformation of the industrial sector and on the new ecosystem that is being created.
So very happy, very excited and somewhat nervous about the great challenge we were going to face, we packed our bags, packed our virtual reality glasses and headed for Copenhagen.
But first of all, let’s explain a little more about what the Creative Business Cup consists of. The CBC is an event aimed at entrepreneurs around the world with the aim of connecting them with investors and global markets, in addition to reinforcing their capacities for the benefit of the industry and society. It is organized in 74 countries, which send their representatives to the global finals that take place every year in Copenhagen, Denmark.
An international jury values and rewards those projects that are sufficiently disruptive and with the necessary value to be true commercially successful projects. In our case, we attended the meeting with our latest project: Daira, a digital platform aimed at companies for the virtual training of their workers under a subscription model.
Daira, a virtual platform for companies under a subscription model
Daira was born at the end of 2018, as a result of the requests that, in increasing numbers, were sent to us by our clients. And it is that preventive training for skilled workers is an increasingly important challenge for companies due to its complexity and risks, which implies high costs and long processes. These procedures cannot be learned simply from a manual, and in addition, face-to-face training is limited by all kinds of conditions.
After investigating the possibilities that immersive technologies can bring to industrial training, we verified the great potential of virtual simulators in the learning process, thanks to the implementation of hyper-realistic environments. However, we were also aware of how expensive the development of these simulators can be. For this reason, today they are only within the reach of a few companies. Faced with this limitation, we decided to develop a platform that, through a subscription model, allows companies of different natures to access this state-of-the-art training for a fraction of its cost, with the consequent savings for the company and, above all, the improvement in the quality of training for its employees and an increase in safety and efficiency in their daily work. In short, it is a virtual training platform, which allows workers to experience, for example, risky situations in a totally safe environment, which facilitates and speeds up their training.
Tourism, fun and nerves
The first two days in Copenhagen were moderately quiet. We were able to perfect our presentation in the previous workshops and even visit the city a little, but always with our thoughts set on Monday, July 1, when the competition really started, after hours and hours of rehearsing the pitch of just 3 minutes with which We would announce our project, the great moment finally arrived. The truth is that so much effort ended up giving its result because during those days we went through the rounds until reaching the semifinals, where the 14 best companies in the contest faced the questions of the jury. Finally, it was the Danish startup, Lapee, that took the title.
But the joys were not only here, because we also reached, together with 4 other companies (out of 69), the final of the Invio Experience Technology Solution, the parallel competition to the CBC, where the best projects from the technological point of view and user experience. Without a doubt, another incentive to continue maintaining our clear objective, to improve the final experience of our users.
In conclusion, to say that we came back with a great taste in our mouths. Despite not getting the title, the fact that we have been selected as the most creative Spanish startup, have been able to reach all the final stages and have received such good feedback from juries, investors and other entrepreneurs encourages us to continue working hard. and betting on consolidating and showing the viability of the virtual, augmented and mixed reality sector. See you at the next event!
