The spring 2025 Draft Program call in North-Karelia attracted significant interest, receiving a total of 34 applications, from which 8 teams were selected. Among applicants, internationality stood out prominently. The most popular business ideas were related to the circular economy and digital platforms. The selected teams emphasized experience and versatile expertise.
May 15, 2025
Heikki Immonen, Karelia University of Applied Sciences
The spring 2025 application round of the Draft Program in North-Karelia once again generated a great deal of interest. In total, the program received 34 applications, of which 29 were for the first round and 5 for the follow-up stage. This spring’s application volume was only slightly below the record-breaking call in January, missing the record by just three applications.
Six teams were selected for the first stage, and two highly promising startups advanced to the follow-up stage. Internationality stood out among the applications, as 65% of the teams work in English. A total of 12 teams operated in Finnish.
The funding for the Draft Program is provided by Karelia University of Applied Sciences, the University of Eastern Finland, the North Karelia Municipal Education and Training Consortium Riveria, and the William and Ester Otsakorpi Foundation.
Interesting highlights and details from this round’s applications
Business ideas particularly featured circular economy solutions and various digital platforms. Circular economy was at the core of eight teams’ business ideas, but even more common were digital platforms, which formed the basis for ten teams’ concepts.
Applicant teams were fairly evenly distributed among the region’s different educational institutions. It is also noteworthy that all teams selected for the first stage shared a common trait: experience and competence. The members of all selected teams often had substantial prior work experience and were career-changing students or alumni of the institutions.
Introducing the startup teams selected for the follow-up stage
Wave-R Oy is a Joensuu-based startup developing a digital platform that democratizes influencer marketing, especially targeting nano-influencers. The platform aims to enable ordinary social media users to act as brand ambassadors for local companies—even without a large follower base. Wave-R Oy has successfully piloted its concept through WhatsApp campaigns and aims to launch the first full product version in autumn 2025. The team’s strengths include diverse skills and the idea’s significant scalability potential.
The second team selected for the follow-up stage, led by Karelia UAS student Inusah Mohammed, has developed an innovative physical marketing solution. This idea has already attracted concrete demand, with the team successfully securing its first customers.
Teams selected in the January call
The six teams selected for the first round:
- Digital publishing, team lead: Satu Mättö
- Art service, team lead: Helena Karhu
- Tourism service, team lead: Milla Janhonen
- Clothing service, team lead: Jarkko Pitkänen
- Circular housing solution, team lead: Tayyab Farooq Arshad
- Housing application, team lead: Valeriya Malykhina
Teams selected for the follow-up stage:
- Wave-R Oy, team lead: Santeri Silvennoinen
- Physical marketing platform, team lead: Inusah Mohammed
Explore the Draft program’s application guidelines and apply in Joensuu or Kuopio!
Use of AI:
Artificial intelligence was utilized in the preparation of this publication for information retrieval and language editing tasks. The header image of this article was also generated using AI.